We had such a fantastic time at the last BarCamp Leeds and this one was no exception. We've been eagerly awaiting news about this year's BarCamp so when the news came through from Imran Ali, one of the organisers, we got ourselves signed up straight away. BarCampers were treated to a free Orange goody-bag containing Orange USB pen drives, badges, balloons, pencils and groovy Yorkshire Forward USB mice.
This time round, rather than manning the reception throughout the day, we attended more of the talks, discussions and workshops. There was an unmistakeable design flavour seeping through at this year's event with one of the highlights being Dean Vipond's talk on Design Vs Usability. Dean is a designer from Orange and his talk focussed upon the relationship between and balance of these two fundamental areas. During the discussion he presented a diagram illustrating the project lifecycle of his design projects at work. This was a very interesting subject to discuss as it is a consideration every designer has to keep in mind: the constraints that usability can place upon the design process and at the same time the importance of the end user's requirements.
All the BarCampers were really well catered for with some tasty sushi nibbles at lunchtime followed by a hearty helping of pizza for dinner. The Space Invaders and lollies went down well, with Imran kindly letting us run away with the remainding lollies at the end of the day. The evening was rounded off with a few drinks in the Fenton across the road from Old Broadcasting House.
Here's a photo of Katherine with Professor Reinhold Behringer from Leeds Met University. He works in Innovation North, the faculty where we both studied.
Posts
