Tools are an essential part of our discipline. They afford us the opportunity to execute our work in the ways that we intended. However, the landscape of what is available to carry out our work has changed rapidly over the last decade—from the applications we use to strategize and design, to the frameworks and methodologies we use to build and deploy. These tools have not only influenced our processes, but also the way we approach our discipline. In this presentation, I'll explore the evolution of the design practice and the tools we use to craft our work.

1. Process, Tools, and the
Future of Our Practice
Justin Kropp - Code & Creativity - February 25, 2014

2. Numbers and Questions
PA R T O N E

3. 919350Million Million
Source: http://on.wsj.com/1bfcjkM
PCs Smartphones

4. 3713.6Million Thousand
Source: http://on.wsj.com/1bfcjkM
Smartphones per day Births per day

5. 14Drop in laptop and desktop shipments.
Source: http://on.wsj.com/NbaYQO
%-

6. 17Notebooks forecast to have touch in 2013.
Source: http://bit.ly/1d0BkeC
%

7. 1,250M
1,000M
750M
500M
250M
0
Global Sales Smartphones & Tablets
Source: http://bit.ly/Okddmf
‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 ‘13

8. My toolbox must evolve.

9. What will these tools look like?

10. How will my process change?

11. What will it look like in 5 or 10 years?

12. How will the public engage
with what I build?

13. Do I want to continue to do this?

14. A Linear Process
PA R T T W O

15. Sketch Design Print

18. I think we all crave a certain level of
predictability in our process.

19. Sketch Design Print

21. The Early Static Web
PA R T T H R E E

22. Plan Design Code Launch
Freak out.

26. A site is never truly finished.

27. An Adaptive Process
PA R T F O U R

28. Nothing is so painful to the human
mind as a great and sudden change.
Mary Shelley

29. The web is stretchy.

30. We’re not designing pages, we’re
designing systems of components.
Stephen Hay

32. Atoms Molecules Organisms Templates Pages

33. Design or manufacturing?

39. Don’t get drunk on process
or fall in love with tools.
Andy Clarke

40. Strategy Design Code Ship
Stakeholder
Interviews Wireframes
Information
Architecture
User Testing
A/B Testing
Responsive
Strategy
Mobile
Strategy
Content
Strategy
Iterate
Iterate
Iterate
Iterate
Refactor
WTF?

41. We shape our tools and thereafter
our tools shape us.
Marshall McLuhan

42. The Future of Our Work
PA R T F I V E

43. Early Tools
Pencil
Paper
Photoshop
Illustrator
Indesign

44. Current Tools
Pencil
Paper
Photoshop
Illustrator
Fireworks
Sketch
Omnigraffle
Sublime Text
Transmit
Git
Subversion
Kissmetrics
Optimizely
Evernote
Google Spreadsheet
Ghostlab
Edge Inspect
Charles Proxy
Typecast
Gridset
iA Writer
Cloud Up
Skype
Balsamiq
Dropbox
Gasmask
VMWare Fusion

45. Future Tools

48. Thanks
@justinkropp
justinkropp@gmail.com