Author: aucadmin

Graeme Salter, University of Western Sydney

Audience: Beginner/Intermediate in Interface Design

Abstract:

An important part of the Apple design philosophy was revealed in one of their latest commercials – “when technology gets out of the way, everything becomes more delightful, even magical”. The best iPhone and iPad apps are those that are based on the way users think and work.  This session will focus on the design and marketing aspects of app development. It will look at tips as well as best practices in interface design and prototyping techniques.

Techniques for coming up with a unique or great idea for an app will be followed by strategies to refine the idea, review the design options and arrive at an app that people will appreciate and want to use. User experience guidelines will be outlined including the different expectations between devices.  Marketing is another essential ingredient in successful apps. Even apps developed for in-house use on a not-for-profit basis require marketing strategies, if only to secure development funding from managers. Strategies for promoting ideas as well as final products will be examined.

The overall aim of this session is to add design and marketing skills to your repertoire, so that you can combine it with programming and development knowledge in order to come up with apps that will ‘delight’ your users.

Speaker Bio:

Graeme is a Senior lecturer and Head of Program for the Bachelor of Information and Communications Technology at the University of Western Sydney.  He is experienced in iPhone app development, and is the Unit co-ordinator for Human-Computer Interaction.

Steven Saunders, Macquarie University

Audience: Beginner

Abstract:

Debugging memory related bugs can be a time-consuming and headache-inducing process. A solid grasp on the principles of memory management is key to avoiding these annoyances. In this presentation participants will develop a detailed understanding of Cocoa’s retain/release/autorelease system and the memory ownership issues it is designed to address.  Attendees will also learn how to adopt Cocoa’s garbage collection facility, and how it relates to reference counting. The use of tools like Instruments and Guard Malloc to track down memory leaks, as well as memory-smashing and doubly-freed-memory bugs will also be covered.

Speaker Bio:

Steven is a research programmer at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD) at Macquarie University, where he works on the DRC Model of Visual Word Recognition and Reading Aloud.  He has over twelve years experience in software development, and has been working with Apple technologies for eight years.

Josh Anon, Pixar

Just as how buildings grew from just being a simple shelter against the elements to entire created experiences and how writing went from written laws to libraries of novels, software is undergoing a shift from being focused on utility to being about experiences.  While not immediately obvious, building software has come to have a lot in common with seemingly unrelated artistic fields, like creating a movie.  Josh Anon will discuss the growing role of telling a good story and providing an experience in software.

Speaker Bio:

Josh Anon is a San Francisco, USA resident and Northwestern University graduate who works at the intersection of art and technology.  He’s a camera & staging artist at Pixar Animation Studios, an award-winning freelance photographer, and a Mac/iOS developer.  He’s been writing software for OS X since Mac OS X 10.0 and has worked on a number of programs including Lightbox (the first professional image management tool for the Mac), Pixar’s digital storyboarding tool, and FlipBook (an animation program for iOS with over 2 million users).

http://www.joshanon.com/