Beyond the Polar Bear

“Domain-driven design at the BBC”

Design Hall 45 min

  • What is it about?

    Mike: Clients, Information Architects and UX practioners need to look beyond surface gloss to find what really makes for a compelling online experience, and build it into their products from the ground up.

    We will explore how the BBC has radically restructured their website to better map to user’s mental models, create a user experience based around meaningful connections between topics, and unlock a wealth of archive content to be more findable, pointable, searchable and sharable.

    Domain-driven design breaks down complex subjects into the things people usually think about. By intersecting across subjects, links themselves become facts, allowing humans and machines to learn through undirected user journeys.

    It’s a process that brings together designers, developers, users and content strategists as creative partners from the very beginning, ends siloed working practices, and creates scalable, semantically-structured products, stitched into the wider web.

  • What will the visitors get from it?

    Mike: A gentle introduction to the principles of domain-driven design, and lots of practical examples of how this has been used to shape BBC Programmes, Natural History and Food. And at least two jokes.

  • For whom it is?

    Mike: UX designers, Information architects, Content strategists, Application developers, and anyone else interested in connecting the roots and branches of knowledge itself.

  • What do I presently work at?

    Mike: With over 15 years in design and information architecture, Mike is passionate about sensible data structures, motivating interfaces, and the need to extend user experience beyond boundaries of any one website. He's been known for his work in using the BBC’s archive of factual programming to make popular products, and most recently is involved in making business software beautiful as the User Experience Lead at Huddle.

  • Which of my existing achievements do I value the most?

    Mike: An enthusiast of evidence-based design and content strategy, Mike evangelises to management types on the need to think beyond business drivers and make products people actually feel passionate about. He has spoken on topics as diverse as Domain Modelling and Disneyland at conferences in the UK and the US.

  • What would I like to achieve?

    Mike: A man on the moon in this decade.

  • What do I look forward to at the WebExpo?

    Mike: Seeing the divine Aaron Walter give the story of MailChimp.

Mike Atherton

Head of User Experience Huddle