Sketchnotes Mark Boulton - The Business of Responsive Design

Tagged: Handheld13 Live | Posted: Fri, Nov 29, 2013 approx. 1 min read

Mark started his take about with a tail of Mountaineering on the Eiger (and his proposal to his concussed wife!). The point of the story about Andreas Hinterstoißer was left hanging until the end. Mark then talked about his experiences working with CERN to understand their content problems - that of very different audiences for the output from CERN and how to tailor messages for them. He also talked about how working for Al-Jezeera has meant a much deeper understanding of the journalistic process and how stories are constructed has been necessary.

Looking back through my sketchnotes I realise that he did a great job of summarizing points. ‘Nav is hard’ was one that I think lots of people could agree with. He was honest enough to admit mistakes like building a fancy interactive map that no-one visited.

I also liked the ‘rope a dope’ analogy that he used where you let the client hammer away in a relentless way to thrash out the content until it’s in it’s best condition to be used and relayed. The idea that ‘everything is difficult’ right now might not sound like the most inspiration clarion call, but I found it a pretty good reminder not to beat yourself up about not fixing every design and content issue all in one go.