Back from the south

photo of 'Jasvir Shukla'
Jasvir Shukla

Interaction08 was the first conference for Interaction Designers – and I’m really happy to say that I was there! It was one of the best conferences I have ever attended and I will definitely be back next year. Hopefully it will be in Savannah again as the town is gorgeous, the buildings are steeped with history, and the weather is fantastic.

There were way too many sessions at the conference to discuss them all in this blog post, but needless to say there was a lot to take away and be inspired from. You can check out videos for most of the sessions on BrightCove, but here are a few that I like and recommend (of course, there are so many others that were good too, but I can’t list them all!):

An Insurgency of Quality (Keynote), Alan Cooper:
Inspiring and entertaining take on products that aren’t first to market, but rather best to market.

Designing for SpaceTime, Building in No-Time, Matt Jones:
Interesting discussion on space and time given by one the founders of the website that is crossing that boundary – dopplr.com

Intervention-Interaction, Sigi Moeslinger:
Great, innovative ideas from the company that designed the New York subway Metro card system.

The Deign Ecosystem, Bill Buxton:
Interesting discussion on what a design phase is vs. the construction phase, plus more about sketching.

Don’t Make Me Click, Aza Raskin
Good interaction design might just be about minimizing interactions.

The rest of the Day 1 videos are listed here, and Day 2 is here. Enjoy!

Posted on Monday, February 18, 2008 at 1:48 PM in Uncategorized, User Experience | Comments (0)

Ready for Interaction08

photo of 'Jasvir Shukla'
Jasvir Shukla

The Interaction 08 conference is less than 5 days away, and I’m getting pretty excited about heading down to Savannah, Georgia. Joni and I will be there late Thursday night and ready for the workshops starting on Friday. The conference is over the weekend and is relatively small (about 400), so it should be a good time!

Another unique part of this conference is the use of Crowdvine to network with others before the conference starts. I’m not a huge ‘social-networker’, but I do have profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook that I check from time to time. Sometimes I do feel like I’m developing a case of social network fatigue though!

Anyway, I like how CrowdVine is just meant for temporary use and it’s ok for my profile and network ‘to die’ so to speak. It seems easy to use too, I updated my conference picks in about 2 minutes - and others can easily which ones I’m going to. This is especially useful if more than person at your company is going to the conference and you want to try to spread out. It’s also cool how most people have uploaded photos already, hopefully I’ll be able to recognize some faces. I think this is one place that actually does create some ‘buzz’ before a conference and starts the networking early.

Watch for more info in this space as Joni and I head to Georgia in a few days!

Posted on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 2:14 PM in User Experience | Comments (0)

Tired of your personalized Google home page?

photo of 'Barbara Richards'
Barbara Richards

There are a couple new and different themes for the Google home page. The Earth Light theme is very nice if you want to see if your friends around the world are in daylight or not, and the Simplicity is Complex is a cool and very different look from the other themes.

By the way, despite two recent posts about Google products, I’ve not taken it upon myself to promote Google products. Google and I just happen to spend quite a bit of time together.

Earth Light:

Earth Light

Simplicity is Complex:

Simplicity is Complex

Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 7:32 PM in Design, Personalization | Comments (0)

Better user experience for Vancouver bus riders

photo of 'Barbara Richards'
Barbara Richards

Good news for people in Vancouver guessing whether they should walk or take the bus (especially when it’s raining). You can now text the number of the bus stop to 33333 and you’ll get a text back telling you what time the next six buses are coming.

I tried it out, and it seems to work pretty well, except that it looks like it doesn’t tell you buses coming within the minute, as my text told me I had six minutes to wait and a bus came in about 30 seconds. So better not to run from the bus stop right away to get your coffee after you get your text.

Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 7:29 PM in User Experience | Comments (1)

Convenient travel feature from Google

photo of 'Barbara Richards'
Barbara Richards

Another nifty feature from Google: you can now get your flight status directly from the Google search box. Typing in Westjet 76 or whatever flight you are on will tell you the exact departure and arrival time of your flight, and whether it’s on time or delayed.

Very handy for the winter season.

Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 at 6:01 PM in Search, Uncategorized, User Experience | Comments (0)