Refresh Dallas

We all work with information. In our web sites. Our web apps. Print communications. Graphs, and charts. But how exactly do you present information in a way that simplifies the complex, communicates powerfully, and actually delights people?

Join us, as Travis Isaacs and Stephen P. Anderson share their information design secrets. From travel plans to search results to quarterly earnings statements—they’ll present a handful of information design and data visualization case studies, identifying those principles we can apply to just about any project.

Learn how to identify and group related information, create a visual hierarchy, draw focus to the most important content, use images appropriately, see familiar data in a fresh new way, and much more!

Here’s the Rundown
Come early (7:00) to mingle with like-minded designers and developers and then soak in a fresh presentation (7:30).
Date: Thursday July 10th, 2008
Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Think web performance is all about load balancing, database indexes, and memory management? Think again. Recent research shows that 80-90% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end.

The way you develop your site’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript makes a big impact on how long it takes your site to load. But, speeding up your site doesn’t have to mean throwing out best practices. Chris Griego ( http://www.boldpx.com/ ) will show you the guidelines and techniques to combine performance with a solid front-end architecture.

Blake Elshire will present a case study for Marblehead’s site ( http://www.marbleheadllc.com/ ), showing the benefits of implementing these changes. Also, a new tool will be demoed that helps automate some of these guidelines.

Rapp Collins Worldwide
1660 Westridge Circle North
Irving, Texas 75038

So we can plan the food, please RSVP on Upcoming here:

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/738414/

Special thanks to Marblehead ( http://www.marbleheadllc.com/ )
who will be providing the pizza and drinks this month.

The host of Theynow will share best practices for audioblogging about a focused topic, including marketing tips, timing, hardware tweaking, hosting and software recommendations.

We’ll give a demonstration of recording, discuss important format choices (interviews? video? transcripts?), and help you generate ideas for your own show!

Date: May 11th, 2006
Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Location:
Christopher A. Parr Library
6200 Windhaven Parkway
Plano, TX 75093

We’re way beyond the blog. Not that blogging’s done. Far from it. We’re just at the beginning, but already social media means much more. Look at the growth in MySpace, YouTube, podcasting. Flickr’s on the cover of Newsweek; danah boyd is on with Bill O’Reilly (what? what?). We’re not in Kansas anymore.

This installment of Refresh Dallas is a roundtable chat with a few local social media mavens (Brian Oberkirch, John Keeler, Jake McKee, Blake Burris). There may be a t-shirt given away to someone who says something inspiring. (T-shirts & stickers are Web 2.0 costs of entry, eh? “Our software is free. Our schwag rocks.”) Let’s talk.

Free Pizza & Drinks
We’ll provide the pizza and drinks if you provide the questions and conversation.
Post-Meeting Get Together
Join us after the meeting at Café Gecko for socializing and friendly banter. Free wi-fi.
Café Gecko
6855 Windhaven
The Colony, TX 75056
Get a Map. (Not the exact location but close enough)

Refresh Dallas is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical and professional aspects of new media endeavors in the Dallas area.

Do you feel like the web needs a new look? Interested in the latest web technologies? Care about design, but feel it must be usable? Then you’ve come to the right place.

In the Dallas area and interested in attending community meetings? Signup for some e-mail and join the forum so we can keep you updated.