In conversation with Rachel Nabors (Microsoft, Seattle)

In collaboration with Respond conference and SydCSS, IxDA Sydney are hosting one of the leading minds in animation and web design, Microsofts Rachael Nabors. This interactive Q&A session chaired by Katja Forbes, local leader for IxDA Sydney and Fiona Chan, Local Leader of SydCSS, will explore hot topics related to web animation including:

  • challenges for web animation: it sits squarely at the intersection of web development, UX, and design. If these three groups are siloed or have communication problems, they can’t produce consistent, meaningful UI animation.
  • tools and devices for communication of web animation
  • improving UX with animation
  • the needs of motion designers coming into web development from the animation and app development industries

The Q&A session will be followed by beer & cider sourced from Newtown’s local drinks purveyor, Young Henrys in the Faculty of Architecture & Design.

Rachel works on the Edge browser at Microsoft. She also does a lot of work with animation on the web, cultivating the community around this important growing component of solid web design.

Rachel believes the future of the web is in motion. Literally. Motion design and UI animation are among the last things standing between web design and native app development. Good animation is the difference between a clunky jump-cut interface and a flowing gestural one; the difference between an interactive story game and a picture book.

She’s been crazy about this field since she gave her first talk on making music videos with CSS animations and HTML5 audio, and has been traveling the world, giving talks and training sessions on the topic and writing about her findings ever since.