Facebook and Microsoft Talk Design at DevTO

Toronto’s own Polar Mobile played host to this month’s DevTO. Around 100 members of the Toronto tech community congregated to meet up and spread ideas about all things related to startups, marketing, apps, and entrepreneurship.

This month’s DevTO featured two speakers, speaking about two types of design.

Sachin Monga, a member Facebook Canada’s Platform and Strategy team and alumnus of the Impact Entrepreneurship Group, introduced the DevTO community to a concept he called Social Design. Monga’s presentation covered a variety of topics—for example, he analyzed patterns like relationships (which are built through many lightweight interactions over time), and how platforms and programs are catering to these mechanics (for example, Facebook makes the lightweight interactions easy to do through Likes).

Monga also pointed privacy (personal boundaries around identity) is generally inversely proportional to value, and why companies need to clearly communicate why they need their customer’s data and what value their customers can obtain from the disclosure. Monga will also be taking Social Design at FITC’s Screens 2012 conference.

Microsoft’s tech evangelist Paul Laberge spoke about Microsoft’s Modern Design Language, and referred to the user interface formerly known as Metro. His explorations into Swiss design (Sans Serif fonts; no adornments), Bauhaus, and forces like motion and fluidity offered a brief overview into Microsoft’s design inspirations. He also referred to Microsoft’s Design resources, which seem to delve pretty deeply into helping developers and designers out with a variety of different stages, from design to monetization.

I often hear a lot of people wishing to tap into the Toronto development and entrepreneurship community. DevTO is one way to do it.