#btconf Düsseldorf, Germany 13 - 15 May 2019

Stephen Hay

Californian by birth and Dutchman by choice, Stephen is an art director, designer-who-codes, and writer. He designed and built his first website in 1995 while art directing for a design firm. He left print behind. The things that happened after that could turn a conference bio into a book—a thriller, even. Stephen is currently Creative Director at Rabobank.

Stephen wrote the book Responsive Design Workflow, which is all about content first, progressive enhancement, low-fi wireframing, and browser-based prototyping.

Want to watch this video on YouTube directly? This way, please.

I Don't Care What Airbnb is Doing

(and Neither Should You)

“Hey, have you seen that thing that Airbnb did? Let's do something like that.”

When thinking about how to solve our design problems, we often look to what others are doing. And when we don't, our stakeholders do. We call this “inspiration”. But at the heart of it is a focus on solutions rather than problems. We fall in love with a solution to someone else’s problem and try to make it fit our own. We contribute to design sameness, and confuse it with reasoned convention. In making things easier for ourselves, we might miss opportunities to really make a difference.

In this presentation at beyond tellerrand, Stephen will explore the why and how of deeply understanding design problems. He’ll look at why it’s important to think outside of the box, when it’s appropriate to look at the work of others, and what to do with it when we do.

Speakers