Wrapping up the conference, the guests had a final chance to address the speakers with various questions and this was a mutual enquiry. All of the speakers were seated at one place below the "A decade of webdesign" logo.

These are the issues that characterized the final discussion:

Geert Lovink Mobile devises are editors!

Q. “As it was said earlier today, many design students believe that they will get famous and reach soon after they graduate. How do we make them realize that is not the case? “
• John Chris Jones: “This has always been the key question. There are artists who made a great deal of money, where as others did not. It will always remain the same.”

Q. “Why aren’t there more software programmes to help visually impaired disabled people?”
• Helen Petrie: “They are very expensive, and hard to use. Definitely more effort needs to be put in order to make sure that the web is usable for everyone!”

Q. “Self expression – a special way of being human. I want to be human, but not a copy? Notions of freedom, and expression have been come very bounded up with each other. The connection of freedom and self-expressions was the key term of this conference. How do you feel about that notion?”
• Danny O’Brian: ”You construct, and anonymously contribute to the artistic works, there are vast amount of home pages where people share code.”
• John Chris Jones: “John Cage did not advocate self-expression - he recommended that we let go of our likes and dislikes and wake up to how wonderful the world is once we put our preferences aside... One can lose oneself when discovering or doing something and that is not the same as self-expression...
...to say that self-expression is yuk is a ghastly remark that i regret - i would prefer now to quote what Edwin Schlossberg once wrote in a letter to me:
we are self/other or we are nothing
...and to proceed, in the light of these remarks about freedom, etc. (by several Americans) ready to abandon or modify the idea of self-expression when it comes to sharing, as the internet allows us to, the 'good' powers that are still supposed to be limited to 'creative people' and professions..."
http://www.softopia.demon.co.uk/2.2/webdesign.html

• Michael Indergaard: “I want to stress that culture of individualism is framed under self-expression.”
Q. “What urban infrastructures are we talking about, what’s the role of new media workers? Is it to overlay another layers in a post crash era? In the intersection of technology, urban design and real estate, there are clear dangers in metropolitan centres regarding property booms; workers can't affort to live in the cities. What is the role of new media workers? To sex up the city, feed a property boom? What we need is a cultural council, create branches of govenment inparticular sectors.
• Michael Indergaard: “What the role is going to be? That was my question. That’s one of the emerging questions of new media. Who was going to be controlling and how was that done? The role, we should talk about what‘s idealistically going to be, and what’s most probably going to be. I have no simple optimism about that. They’ll have to act through institutions. Institutional representatives of new media will need to be involved in the politics and policies of new media.”
• Peter Lunenfeld: “This is just emerging at the moment. Intel labs etc are involved in this. I have been thinking that one of the things we need to be aware of is that the web is thought of as a desktop object. You see a transition where some people are looking at it as a mobile object. Messy details of protocol".

Q. “What’s the next dream that will keep us on going? Right now we are out of the ideas what the future should look like. We are all into the past.”
• Max Bruinsma (design theorist): “If there is an inviting prospective, it is web designers at the first place should shift their attention from the screens to what’s happening behind it. Determining the structure is done by the technicians. Structure needs to have bigger focus. Designers can play a very big role there. They can think in terms of what it communicates, what it means. That’s the most utopian perspective for me.”
• Geke van Dijk: “I see your theory, but it’s not fair, it’s extra reality, since many designers are ahead of that for years.”

Q. “I would like say that we should have quality design software, we should have a scale, just like we have scales for other software. Quality models such as ISO. Are they applicable to design or not?”
• Danny O’Brien: “I was listening to a researcher who investigated that software quality is an invented term. We need to learn how to be engineers. There is artistic approach to the engineers’ works.”
• Helen Petrie: “There are no good standards for the interface standard quality. An interface for the American police took 45 min to log a crime, where as it took less time on paper. We don’t have standards.”
• John Chris Jones: “I like the idea of standardization but I am sceptical about it.”

Q. “This questions concerns usability. How do we tell our managers that we need a usability expert?”
• Geke van Dijk: “It would be surprising at this moment that people who design sites are not informed about the usability and accessibility. There should be awareness. I am not going to say that this rule of usability applies to every situation.”

Q. “The current focus is on the web, computers and mobile devices. All these devices have a limited input structure. I think when I look at the web, it is well capable to get out of the computer, and go out… The focus should be on developing new interfaces. What could be the next stage?”
• Helen Petrie: “Accessibility should be the first one and the usability the next one. It’s still a shaky ground. Disabled people are willing to try anything new, so we should learn something from them. I can’t believe we are still using the keyboards!”
• John Chris Jones: “If you look at history people who make new things are surprised when the innovations go so deep into the society. The cell phones were for elite people, but now they're all over the place.”

Q. “Media Art uses different things with the Web, different surroundings and interactive. I think media is going into the public space. Web design after 10 years has a social responsibility, web to democracy, we need transparency, to know whom you are dealing with. People put their info everywhere, and they have no idea where is goes to!.”
• Max Bruinsma: “Nielson Jakob said a year after the net was created that we needed rules.”

Q. “How do we make sure we don’t loose everything? And what about the notion of original? How do you track where things started?
• Franziska Nori: “I am not able to give an institutional answer, but you can not store everything. The question is about writing history and about people writing history. We are all entitled to contribute. History is writing itself, it’s just we are not able to evaluate it. We need at least 5 yrs, and see what’s left of the relevant issue. We are all aware that in the digital world, everything is retrievable. Arts has already proved that original is important, but originals need to be redefined. Under the economical terms, the original is not such an issue any more. However it is a very interesting question."

Q. “When you talked about changing interfaces – I think bomb exploded in my head. You said to model the user is the first thing, but isn’t he modelled already? This particular issue of changing interface being confusing is a characteristic to older generations. Younger generations move to Linux since you can make interfaces of your own. It is very important for systems to offer personalization of the interface. It is important for people to be able to change interfaces to their taste. When interfaces changes, it is either time to stop what you are doing, or start training yourself on the daily basis! People who do design have to be educated, since they need to learn all the time. If they are not willing to learn, they shouldn’t be doing design. I have got several expensive books on some software, but they are useless now, since they changed so much. I think people who make interface should allow users to change them.

Authenticity plays a much important role than the original, up to a certin extent. Single originals needs to be redefined, and appreciated there is of course relevance on cultural terms.

I was surprised about the intellegent people that are on the web but then I realised it's obvious, if you dont want to learn then you are not in there!"