Date
|
Session / Tutorial
|
Length
|
Rating
|
Description
|
Useful Results
|
|
Mon 3/27
and
Tue 3/28
|
XML Intensive
|
2 day tutorial
|
Very Good, Very Difficult
|
Brian Travis of Architag,
Inc
|
Important to know W3C
XML Standards and existing vocabulary for your field
Resources: BizTalk,
from WebChicago class, msdn
developer center, XML
Resource Guide
|
|
Wed 3/29
|
Breakfast Briefing: Web data integration: leveraging
web data to turn "visitors" into "customers"
|
1.5 hours
|
Good
|
Colleen Carey, Director of Product Marketing, WebTrends
- market leader in web traffic analysis |
Managers have no idea of the scale of web visitor information!
Called "click-stream info" - every mouse click tracked
and analyzed.
Good site research information available from http://www.webtrendslive.com/
over 100 real-time tables and graphs to study web visitor behavior
and system analysis.
|
|
Wed 3/29
|
Visionary Keynote:
|
1 hour
|
Very Good
|
|
Information is the currency of the new economy; have
to anticipate the "continuous discontinuity" as the key
to change; connectivity and computing potential equal new commodities
to be bought and sold (power, computing, storage, bandwidth). Visit
internetgenome.com
site. |
|
Wed 3/29
|
Paint Shop Pro: Web Graphics that Work
|
1.5 hours
|
Excellent
|
Visual Design Track:
Todd Matzke of Jasc
|
Hands on creating navigation buttons (using layers),
information about their online tutorials and using objects/scripts
such as DHTML. |
|
Wed 3/29
|
The Fine Art of Visual Design
|
1.5 hours
|
Very Good
|
Visual Design Track:
Bob Slote of Groundswell
(Managing Director/Creative)
|
Good web experiences pay off. Have a distinctive identity.
Read communication arts and contemporary design magazines.
Where does good design come from? Keep a visual bank of
things that strike you, influence you.
How do we create visual design? Right imagery for the
right audience (Gen X/Y - edgy, bold, vague, animated, chaotic,
abstract, contrasting colors, avant-garde experimental fonts--not
about navigation/e-commerce, but about exploration and experimentation)
(Baby Boomers - all about lifestyle, clear, concise, human, consumption,
fashion, soothing colors and fonts) (Retirees - simple photography,
even sepia-tones, mellow). Remember less is better - good beauty
to speed ratio.
How do you present visual design? Get into the mind of
your target audience and know site's purpose.
1) Discovery: interview end users before you design.
2) Creative brief: describe your discovery process and connect
to current content "the back bone of site."
3) Design development: user testing of prototype to indicate minor
revisions, refinement.
4) Final design.
Function is paramount--the meter is always running--people
are more aware of wasted time than ever. Keep reducing down, down,
down.
|
|
Wed 3/29
|
Visual Design as Return on Investment
|
1.5 hours
|
Very Good
|
Visual Design Track:
Julian Jackson of CloserLook
Resources:
Click Advance on aiga.org
Coolhomepages.com
Estats.com
Goodexperience.com
Nathan.com
Useit.com
|
Driven by psychology - user-centered
design - experience design. Change behaviors / attitudes / knowledge
/ productivity.
Clarity is important--Amazon uses brute force methods, but
is the fifth most trusted site out there! Use white space, divided
areas, groupings. Remember cultural connotations of color; also
the most subjective of elements.
Their experience as consultants to businesses, ideal site design
from study to completion is 3 months, actual is usually six
weeks.
Nice handout on using visual design as a strategic bridge
(pet site info filled
in as example).
Is site Functional vs. Promotional? Remember speed to market
thing and audience-focused information.
Books:
Understanding Comics (SMcCloud)
Envisioning Information (ETufte)
Information Design (RJacobson)
Experience Economy (Pine/Gilmore)
The Design of Everyday Things (DNorman)
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (A/L Reis)
|
|
Thu 3/30
|
Keynote Panel: Future of eBusiness
|
1 hour
|
Interesting
|
Led by Eric Lunt of spyonit.com |
CEOs/Managers of starbelly.com,
nMinds, Diamond
Technology Partners (see especially their Context
Magazine), iexplore.com
discussed where they've been and where they would like to go with
their eBusiness ventures. |
|
Thu 3/30
|
HTML 4.0: Part 1, The Standard
|
1.5 hours
|
Excellent
|
Programming Track:
Molly Holzschlag
of Web Techniques and Web Review
|
Learned about three sub-groups of the HTML 4.01 standard: 1)
HTML Strict; 2) HTML Transitional; and 3) HTML Frameset. (W3C
for standards--occurred Jan. 26, 2000)
Important to add DTD (Document Type Definition) to beginning
of each html document.
|
|
Thu 3/30
|
HTML 4.0: Part 2, Syntax Details
|
1.5 hours
|
Very Good
|
|
Learned about New Elements (Frame, Frameset, IFrame, NoFrames,
NoScript, Object, Span* tags); Deprecated Elements (Applet, BaseFont,
Center, Font tags); and Obsolete Elements (Listing, PlainText,
XMP tags).
Style sheets becoming the standard practice.
|
|
Thu 3/30
|
Cross-Browser Dynamic HTML User Interfaces
|
1.5 hours
|
Poor
|
Programming Track:
Steve Champeon, author of Building Dynamic HTML GUIs
|
Discouraged by his own discoveries of the browser inconsistencies
and voluminous amount of coding to overcome (when possible). Demonstrated
"wrapping" of code and inserting as object into HTML
documents.
Luckily http://www.dhtml-guis.com/
has lots of code to download, resources, links, and games!
Remember following (helps for XML/HTML practices also): nouns=forms
or "objects"; verbs=submit or "methods"; adjectives=formatting
or "controls presentation and display". Know the cross-platform
bugs before you start. Build your own library of code to cut and
paste.
|
|
Fri
3/31
|
Interactive Online Training Design
|
1.5 hours
|
Excellent
|
Information Design Track:
Bonnie Bucqueroux of University of Michigan School of Journalism
and Digital-training.net
|
Michigan invested $230 million to develop "virtual university."
It's important to know adult learning theory. Homeschoolers have
become a large audience (http://www.mathgoodies.com/).
Very good information on keeping your audience on the e-TRAIN
(e=experiential, t=target, r=relevance, a=accountability, i=interactivity,
n=navigation).
Check out Leelou viewlets at qarbon.com/
(free download); learnfree.com/
(a "console" site); visit bioart.net/
(studio for multimedia); A
Pintura: Art Detective and other
web adventures; a super-interactive site at dartfrogmedia.com.
Avoid battling bandwidth and downloading plugins--each burden
will cause people to quit.
Could have gone on all morning! (separate list of course developer
resources to be linked here)
|
|
Fri
3/31
|
Cascading Style Sheets and HTML 4.0
|
1.5 hours
|
Very Good
|
Programming Track:
Molly Holzschlag of Web Techniques and Web Review
|
CSS separate style (design) from document structure. Three
kinds: Linked, Embedded, Inline. Style is a combination of a selector,
a property, and property values. Can also create custom classes
as selectors (be careful not to use an already reserved word).
Note inheritance - Linked can be overridden by embedded, which
can then be overridden by inline.
Best resource: webreview's
style guide
Professional development: Society
for Technical Communication (STC is a professional association
that advances the arts and sciences of technical communication
|
|
Fri
3/31
|
Usability Applied: 10 Case Studies
|
1.5 hours
|
Good
|
Usability Track:
Parrish Hannah of HannahHodge,
leading user experience firm
|
Usability is: understanding, appropriateness, measurement, balance.
Remember: You are not your customer or audience; Talk to users
(discover their wants and needs, thoughts and feelings, what they
want to do, observe them at work, observe them at play, recognize
patterns); Involve a multidisciplinary team throughout the entire
process; Build and iterate; Make it real.
1) Define - sorry, need a magnifying glass to read (context
of use, patterns of behavior, mental ??), information organization,
information flow, industry positioning, competitive analysis,
brand appropriateness
2) Design - brand validation, functional validation, informational
flow validation, lo-fidelity prototype testing (the wireframe),
hi-fidelity prototype testing, user perception
3) Development - trade-off of information, tradeoff of technology,
partner selection, partner relationship, third-party integration
(ex. adding calendaring to site When.com)
4) Deploy - bug fixes, usability metering/rating, user data
collection and analysis
Great checklists, but again need a magnifying glass to read
(will search usability sites for better views). Some items of
measurement that were readable: Content look and feel; Early and
obvious navigation; Apparent task flow; Apparent hierarchy; Information
hierarchy; Content format and structure; Appropriate page size/content
quality; etc.
|
