Patrick Hofmann :: What technical writing taught me about design at Google

Patrick Hofmann (https://twitter.com/phofmann) is visiting us from Google in Sydney, Australia, where he works as a Senior User Experience Designer on the Google Maps team.

Trained as a technical writer but specialising in visual information design, his award-winning work and undying passion for visual language sends him across the globe, as he teaches information designers and developers how to use pictures to improve communication.

For more than twenty years, this vibrant Canadian has helped companies worldwide improve the usability of their products – usually by transforming their textual information into pictograms, maps, symbols and icons.

About the talk:" Starting my career in 1993, my roles evolved from technical writer to technical illustrator, instructional designer to information architect, usability researcher to interaction designer.

" Throughout this evolution, there were principles and practices, theories and treatises that never wavered. A majority of them were foundations of technical writing and interaction design -- how we best optimize the communication of our products and the engagement of our users.

" Now as I work as a User Experience Designer at Google, what principles have stood the test of time to rule me from day to day? Have any principles changed? Are there any that I taught over the years that I’d like to retract? Let’s take an intense but humorous look at the last twenty years, and look beyond to the next twenty.