Presenter: Arran Ross-Paterson
Time: 11:30 – 12:30, Saturday 1 October

Theres a lot of buzz around mobile design, examining adaptive designs, creating focus etc and these are all good forward thinking moves and highly relevant, but as so often happens accessibility is being forgotten. The first thing that will jump to most peoples minds is the image of a blind person but for many users mobile devices are actually wonderfully accessible to the blind but are next to unusable for people with physical disabilities. I intend to look at how many well known design conventions for desktop are inverted for mobile, how Fitts law has been turned on its head and show how a basic understanding of ergonomics is now massively important and will change design conventions over the coming years, and I will discuss how these aspects dont just affect disabled users, they affect every single user of mobile devices.

Aran has been working in the digital space since WAP was the new sexy thing. Starting out as an interaction designer, moving into development and now back to UX, he’s had a whole host of challenges over the years but for him a big focus has always been accessibility and usability. He organises lots of geeky events as he loves helping people learn and share in this great community of ours, and after living in Sydney for a year he now has a passion for pies.