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Short recap of Interaction 08 day 1

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This is a very short and incomplete recap of my first day of Interaction 08. Overall, an excellent next-step on the road to establishing interaction design. During the day I was Twittering to interaction08 - as were many others - so that is another way to see what happened on Saturday, and to follow along today.

  • Alan Cooper's "best-to-market trumps first-to-market" is a great message that we need to get out to the CEOs. His "time and money are not scarce" reminded me of "You can always get more capital; customers are the scarce resource" from Martha Rogers a few weeks ago. I appreciated his call to action to bridge the worlds of business and IT, but it would have resonated more with me if it was positioned as a user experience team effort; it is going to take many of us, from many backgrounds, to have this large of an impact on the organization.
  • I came in late to Jared Spool's talk, and was glad to not get heckled like some others. Classic Jared - funny and insightful. I am starting to wonder if his schtick would work on a real stand up comedy stage. Enough ordinary people are frustrated with using technology that they would appreciate stories of hard to use web sites and cryptic Microsoft wizards.
  • Sarah Allen's application of cinema techniques was a good example of the other areas of study we need to bring onto the UX team. This was reinforced at lunch when I talked with 2 people from Walt Disney Animation. (Note to my kids: I met someone who worked on the 3d effects of Meet the Robinsons. Does that make me a little bit cooler?)
  • Saskia Idzerda gave an honest recap of the process and designs they went thru for a new Sony Ericsson catalog. The 2 questions I did not get a chance to ask: (1) Did you look at any faceted browsing user interfaces for inspiration, or did you avoid them on purpose? (2) Did you consider localized versions for countries like India or China? Being "consistent" worldwide has some value, but I suspect in this case, being localized and more usable within each locale would be the better experience overall.
  • Bill DeRouchey wins the prize for the best "package": a clear and entertaining presentation (great slide format) fit nicely into the time slot, with a handout and web site to supplement. And, of course, good content.
  • David Armano was right on target with his agency fuzziness talk about DaVinci.

I am late for breakfast, so this will have to do.