I recently attended the second Refresh Belfast event, an informal get-together for local developers and creatives held in the Black Box venue on Hill Street. The evening, organised by local web designer and promoter Andy McMillan, was billed as “The Refresh Belfast Front Takeover” as the speakers on the evening were all from Front, one of Belfast’s best known web design and development companies.
Other commitments had kept me away from the inaugural Refresh event in April and the Black Box is more usually a music venue in the trendy Cathedral Quarter of the city, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the evening. I needn’t have worried as both talks were interesting and well presented, with questions from the floor afterward keeping each speaker on their toes. Entry is free, but Refresh takes place in the evening so I doubt anyone was there who didn’t want to be. Couple that with the informal venue and you have a recipe for like-minded professionals coming together to inform, learn and improve.
Andy McMillan and Paul McKeever at Refresh Belfast
Paul McKeever, MD of Front, spoke first about how to “Be Where People Are” when working on web projects. He described Front’s approach to working alongside clients to create audience focused experiences that are valuable to the client business, and how to think about structuring the elements of that experience to enable re-use away from traditional destination websites. Then, following a short break, Jamie Neely, Front’s creative director, gave a presentation on how they build visual interfaces from the ground up. With a couple of example projects he described the Front design process from analysing what the client needs, through wireframing, development of visual languages, layout and completed design.
The talks were interesting and informative. The speakers gave a peek into how one of the region’s most successful and high profile web development companies conduct their business, and you’d have been a fool not to pay attention to presentations from that kind of background. Perhaps you won’t agree with everything that’s said, but at least listen and let their experiences inform your thinking.
Front freely admit that their approach is heavyweight and won’t work in it’s entirety for all projects or clients. It’s clear why they won’t build you a website for £500. But if you boil it down to it’s essentials I think there are two key lessons to take away from the evening’s presentations:
- uncover your clients’ problems, then solve them
- know your audience, and design for them
These are perhaps obvious principles, but it was still worthwhile to see how they can be put into practice.
It would be interesting to hear from other local web companies and see how their own process compares. Some of the companies that I’ve worked for previously could certainly have benefited from adopting this style of thinking, and I’ll be attempting to apply what I can of it in my own future projects.
This was the second Refresh Belfast event and organiser Andy McMillan mentioned that attendance was well up compared to the first. Perhaps the promise of a Front-sponsored free drink helped with the numbers? In any case, there was indeed a sizable crowd and I regret that I couldn’t stay longer after the talks to get chatting to some over a beer or two.
But still, altogether an informative and worthwhile evening.
Update: Front now have their own summary of Refresh Belfast May 2009 online, complete with videos and slides of the presentations.
About Refresh Belfast
Refresh Belfast is a monthly event for designers and developers interested in refreshing the creative, technical, and professional culture in the Belfast area. Promoting design, technology, usability, and standards, Refresh Belfast is a part of the Refreshing Cities movement.
About Front
Front is one of Ireland’s leading web development agencies with a diverse client base including BBC, O2, Independent News & Media, Carte Blanche Greetings – and lots of exciting new work they’re not yet able to speak about.
John Girvin is an experienced a software engineer and web developer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He draws on over 14 years of hard won, real world experience of different projects, clients and working environments.
John is currently working with the Art Technology Group (ATG), developing J2EE based, market leading e-commerce technology.
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