Seattle Conference - Day 1

There is so much good information here that I am going to try and send 1/2 day updates (or as often as brain-fulls require). I will never remember it all if I wait to do this until I get home. Please forward this to whomever you think might benefit.

This entire conference will be available in streaming format in a few weeks. Because of this, I have named individuals/teams who might benefit from each lecture in [ ] 's. I also gave " * " ratings to each session.

KEYNOTE: [everyone] ***
-Don't get complacent in skills - the web will leave you behind if you don't pay attention
-Users should complete their errands efficiently and feel special doing it (correspond to IA and VD)
-a click is a commitment - don't let the user down
-"solutions" and "resources" are words that really mean "miscellaneous"
-(there was a camera site where thumbnails of the cameras were all shown and as the user chose price, megapixels, etc. the thumbnails disappeared accordingly). This was done in Flash and was very cool.
-(this speaker showed his process for using sticky notes to determine the design)

CSS: [vd, frontend, ia] ***
-This was mostly a sales pitch for using CSS instead of tables
-This presentation made me want to design our sites around CSS's capabilities rather than let the design dictate the implementation
-If our shop doesn't get good at CSS now we will become obsolete
-some very useful tips were presented

USABILITY [everyone] *****!
-This presentation was INCREDIBLE with lots of new tips. I thought I had heard everything about usability until I went to this session.
-There is no usual path the eye takes through a page. The path is entirely based on visual heirarchy - WE ENGINEER THE PATH THE EYE TAKES BY OUR USE OF VISUAL HEIRARCHY. This desired path should be included explicitly in wireframes and vd's.
-Things that look like ads get ignored (the large feature area on the LDS.ORG redesign, for example)
-(there is an excellent study on the web where people show where certain elements on the page should be located)
-Do users scroll? YES. As long as it is apparent that content continues off the screen.
-For long passages, scrolling is better than segmenting to multiple pages.
-Take out the garden path. The less time it takes to get to the destination, the more time they will have to spend with the content. Lots of features and graphics slows them down
-search and navigating should be considered as a dynamic duo - not as separate navigation tools. The web is moving toward search/navigation hybrid interfaces.
- As a guide to labeling, look at past search logs to see what terms people are using.
-3-click rule is a myth. People will follow the the first link they see that looks "good enough"
-users dont read anything they dig then use their back button over and over again until the find their goal
-this session is worth watching when it comes out on the web

L U N C H -

CSS (continued) [vd, frontend] ***
-Same lecturer as earlier - more great tips on CSS page layout
-We should bring this guy in as a consultant
-discussed float vs. absolute positioning (float wins)
-rebuilt Microsoft.com home page using pure CSS.
-Valuable tips to help us overcome adoption gotcha's

Blogging and RSS [EVERYONE] *****
-Very exciting
-came back to my hotel and stayed up late and could never get Movable Type to work. I couldn't even get Type Pad to work.