Well, today is the final day of UX Week. It’s been a very good, eye-opening experience for me all week and I’m actually a little disappointed it’s ending already. I’ve been able to learn a lot from all the speakers and the other attendees.

9:00AM-9:15AM — Introduction by Jesse James Garrett
Your standard-fare “Good Morning … It’s been a good week … here’s our next presenter” introduction. He gave us a few announcements but nothing major.

9:15AM-10:00AM — Designing “America by Air”
“America by Air” is a new exhibit currently being designed and built by the Smithsonian Institute to be put on display in the National Air and Space Museum. Barbara Brennan came in and gave us a speech about how the exhibits the Smithsonian Institute develops is all about “user experience” (which is how this ties into the conference). She gave us an overview of what the exhibit is and the processes involved in developing the displays. It takes several years to design and build an exhibit and this “America by Air” exhibit is still about a year from being unveiled. This was a rather interesting look at how user experience is a part of fields outside of the Web and software.

10:00AM-10:45AM — Communicating Concepts Through Comics
Now this was an interesting workshop as it took a drastically different approach to communicating concepts to customers and clients. Instead of the typical storyboard word document, he showed us how you could make a comic strip explaining the process a user might follow when using the potentially new product. He used an example from Yahoo! Local where a user wants to find restaurants in her area and can look at reviews. It very effectively expressed what a user can do with Yahoo! Local and I immediately could see how it would make make communicating a concept to a customer or client much easier and more engaging than say a 7 page-long Word document. He also had each of us draw a picture of the person sitting to our left, and he did that as a demonstration that anyone can draw. It doesn’t need to be life-like or even that good to get the point across. Everyone is an artist and there’s no need to be self-conscious of your abilities.

11:00AM-11:45AM — Information Visualization
This was another great presentation. In case you haven’t noticed yet, the common-theme for today’s conferences has been “visualizing concepts.” Michael Migurski demonstrated several of the projects he has worked on in the past and how visual representations of data make it very easy for you to figure out what is going on in the data you might be studying. Things like size and color play a very important role in quickly figuring out what’s going on. Again, I was able to learn a few new concepts and ideas when it comes to presenting data to the user and I could use what I’ve learned all throughout the presentations today and apply it to my future work.

11:45AM-12:45PM — Panel: Learning from Adaptive Path’s Mistakes
Much like the previous two days, we ended the sessions with a Q&A panel. Today it was comprised of people who have worked at or worked with Adaptive Path. This was basically a “lessons-learned” session in which those who have gone through the experiences and recognized their mistakes shared with us what they did wrong and what they could do better. They gave us all some insight about what to watch out for and how to stay out of trouble. But at the same time they did explain to us that in the digital world in which we live, making a mistake is easy and by that they mean there are few permanent ramifications from failing. So don’t be afraid to fail, it’s a part of life; just learn what you did wrong and don’t do it again.

And that effectively ended the sessions for the day, and the UX Week Conference for 2006 was over. After that last session, Steve and I went and got lunch at a sandwich place just down the street from the hotel in Dupont Circle. The food was pretty good and a good way to fill the time before we were supposed to be at the Garber facility. We got Steve’s car from the parking garage and headed down to Suitland, MD to go on the tour of the Garber facility.

Today was a better day than yesterday for me. I got up right away at 7:00, took a quick shower, and then Steve and I took off for the Hotel Palomar. Today we decided to take the Metro Rail instead of driving to the hotel because of our positive experience last night going to and from the game. So we hopped on the train in Rosslyn and went one exit to Foggy Bottom. From there we walked the 0.8 miles to the hotel, which only took about 10 minutes. I think this was a much better way of getting to the hotel than driving into DC and looking for a place to park. Plus, we got some good exercise today, heh.

8:00AM-8:45AM — Breakfast: What Can IIT Do For You?
IIT is the Illinois Institute of Technology located in Chicago. This was another breakfast provided by someone else and while we ate, the IIT rep explained to us the benefits of IIT and the courses and graduate programs they offer.

9:00AM-9:30AM — Introduction by Lane Becker
Lane Becker, along with Jesse James Garrett and Peter Merholz is one of the three founders of Adaptive Path, which is the consulting firm that is putting on this UX Week conference. Lane was joking about how he is the only Adaptive Path founder that has yet to coin a four-letter term that has been adopted quickly by the web community, and even in the mass media.

Jesse James Garrett gave us the introduction on Monday, and is fairly famous and very respected within the developer world. He is the one that first coined the term “AJAX“, which as a technology isn’t all that new, but the term “AJAX” has been quickly adopted throughout the web community in the last year or so. AJAX has been revolutionizing and vastly improving the way users interact with web applications. I’ll be going much more in-depth with that concept as I blog about Web 2.0 in a later blog.

I had already heard that it was Garrett who came up with the term “AJAX”, but I was surprised to hear about that Peter Merholz had coined the term “blog”. So this should give you a good idea of how important the people who founded and run Adaptive Path are to the web.

9:30AM-10:30AM — Designing the Next Generation of Web Applications
Jeffrey Veen gave an absolutely awesome presentation about how web applications are being developed. The common theme throughout his entire presentation was that applications should be developed to give the user more control of the data, and make it easier for that user to manage and manipulate that data. This is a very broad and vague explanation, one that I will go much more in-depth later in a separate blog. I will just tell you though that I left feeling inspired about developing my applications that much better, and to share with others all I’ve learned.

10:45AM-11:30AM — Facilitating Collaboration: Web Technologies That Work
So this one was about the tools and procedures the consultants at Adaptive Path use to collaborate on their work and how these tools will help you to be more productive. A range of tools were discussed, and also ideas of how to extend existing tools and technologies were suggested. I got some pretty good ideas of how to collaborate better, so I think from here on out, I should be able to be more productive and communicative with my peers.

11:45AM-12:30PM — The Brave New World: Usability Challenges of Web 2.0
You may have heard of Web 2.0, but most of you probably haven’t. I won’t go into too much detail of what Web 2.0 is now, I’m saving that for a later entry. But basically this was another great presentation that tied into Jeffrey Veen’s earlier presentation. In this presentation, Jared Spool presented the challenges developers face in creating new web applications that put the user experience first. I took a lot from this presentation too and should be able to apply most of what was covered in my future work.

12:30PM-2:00PM — Lunch and Round Table Discussions
Lunch was set up slightly differently today. At each of the tables was a sign stating what topic would be talked about by the people sitting at the table. Then people would sit down at the topic tables they felt like discussing. Steven and I sat at the “Intranet Design” table and talked and shared experiences with each other. I was able to take a few things away from this session as well.

2:00PM-3:45PM — Playing Games and Cursing: The Truth About Remote User Research
This particular seminar didn’t apply to me too much since I’m not involved in user research or conducting surveys, but I did get to see some cool products and learn the more psychological aspects of remote research.

4:00PM-5:00PM — Panel: Next Generation of Web Applications
Like yesterday, this was another panel discussion, but this time it was a panel of developers sharing their experiences and thoughts on web application development. One of the attendees posted the entire session to the wiki, so be sure to check it out if you want to know how it went.

So after the sessions, Steve and I walked down to the Metro Rail station and took it back to Rosslyn where we went to dinner with 2 other co-workers (Carol and Howard) at the Orleans House. I got a very good slice of Prime Rib, which they’re famous for. It was a great evening, we had fun just sitting and talking while we ate good food. Good times all around.

Tomorrow is the last day of sessions. We have sessions just in the morning, and then we will be doing the following:

UX Week attendees will get a rare peek behind the scenes of the National Air and Space Museum at the Paul E. Garber Facility for Preservation, Restoration, and Storage. This facility, where the Museum repairs and assembles its exhibits, is ordinarily closed to public. This special opportunity is hosted by NASM Exhibition Designer Barbara Brennan, who will be presenting earlier in the day.

So needless to say I’m VERY excited about the field trip tomorrow. Then after the tour, I’m going to take the subway up to L’Enfant Plaza and walk up to the monuments and famous buildings such as the Capitol, the White House, and the Supreme Court. You better believe I’ll have my camera with me and will be taking a ton of pictures.

And on that note, it’s bedtime …

You may have noticed that I’m not really giving detailed descriptions and summaries of the conferences I’ve been attending. My main focus as I blog UX Week is not about the conferences themselves, but more about what I have or haven’t learned and what I’ve been able to take away from these conferences.

With that said, if you are looking for more detailed summaries, then feel free to take a look at the blogs for some of the other attendees who are blogging their experiences, many of whom are going into more detail:

• Digital Means ux conference blog – Jane Motz Hayes
• MultiPurposeRoom.com – Ray Daly
• A Modern Fable – Adam J. McIntyre

I’m sure there are more people blogging based on the number of computers at each conference, but these are the best ones I’ve found listed on the UX Week Wiki.

Well today didn’t get off to a good start at all. I didn’t sleep well last night, so when the alarm on my phone went off I just grabbed it, turned off the alarm, and went back to sleep. I was supposed to meet Steve down in the lobby at 7:30, but when I hadn’t made it down there by 7:40, he started calling me, which woke me back up. We left around 7:50, and got to the hotel a little after 8:15 after parking and walking. We grabbed some breakfast from the buffet and went into the conference room.

8:00AM-8:45AM — Breakfast: Microsoft’s “A Tour of Atlas”
So we got to have breakfast on Microsoft’s dime, that’s always fun to say. There was a Microsoft rep demonstrating Microsoft’s new features of Microsoft Atlas, which is a set of libraries and frameworks for ASP.NET and built into Visual Studio. It makes developing and deploying AJAX-enabled web applications actually pretty easy (as long as you’re developing an ASP.NET application in Visual Studio ). I think it was a pretty good presentation, and I think Atlas will be extremely popular with other ASP.NET developers.

9:00AM-9:30AM — Introduction by Peter Merholz
Not much really here, just like yesterday. Peter mostly just talked about the upcoming keynote speaker, and introduced him.

9:30AM-10:30AM — Keynote by Michael Bierut, Pentagram
This was an absolutely awesome keynote. Michael talked about his work with the New York City Public Schools to redevelop and reinvent their library system. He went through the processes and thoughts he went through while taking part in this project. He shared with us five of the biggest mistakes he made and how he learned from them and how we can avoid making the same mistakes he did throughout the development process.

10:45AM-12:30PM — Inside the Innovation Planning Process
Nothing against Jeremy Alexis, the presenter of this workshop, but I didn’t really come away with anything new. To me it was something I knew and mostly practice as it is, so I probably should have gone to the other workshop that was going on at the same time. It wasn’t what he presented or how it was presented, it was just that this was a topic that as the presentation went on, it just struck me as common sense. It was definitely a good workshop for those that needed it, but, not to sound egotistical, I didn’t really need it.

12:30PM-2:00PM — Lunch
The food at lunch today was a bit better than yesterday. There were some issues in one of the applications I had updated last week so I spent the entire lunch working on fixing some of the new issues that cropped up.

2:00PM-3:45PM — The Future of Design
This, like the previous workshop, was one that didn’t contain much new content for me. The title is misleading, even the speaker remarked on how she didn’t come up with the title and that it is misleading. I thought it would be a conference about new and emerging trends in web and software design. Not so much. It was mostly about the designing process and how to go about it. Again, the topics covered in this conference pretty much were common sense to me.

4:00PM-5:00PM — Panel: What Are the Grad Schools Teaching?
This was a pretty good conference. It was a panel set up of three teachers from various colleges and design schools. It gave us some insight into what and how the Grad Schools are teaching User Experience and Design. I didn’t really come out of it knowing anything groundbreaking or something I’ll be able to apply to my work, but I do at least have a good idea of what people are learning in Grad School. The attendees were also able to ask some very good questions of the panelists and the responses were also fairly good.

After all the conferences were over, Steve and I went over to the parking garage to pick up his car (which took forever to get because the parking attendant just took his sweet time to get the car and bring it back to us. Anyway, we got the car and drove back to the hotel, went to our own rooms to change and met downstairs again 20 minutes later. We walked to the Rosslyn Metro Station, which is only about a quarter mile from the hotel. (In case you don’t know, the “Metro” is D.C.’s subway system).

We got to train station and hopped on the subway and took it over to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium to watch the Washington Nationals take on the Atlanta Braves. The subway ride was fine and pretty quick. It was probably twice as fast for us to take the metro than it would have been to drive.

When we got to the game, the first thing I noticed was the obviously increased police presence. Cops and cop cars everywhere; there was even a Mobile Command Post set up just outside the stadium. Anyway, we got into the stadium, and found our seats. After sitting for a few minutes, we decided to go get some food and beer – mission accomplished. The game was great. Former Padres pitcher Pedro Astacio pitched a 2-hit complete game shutout of the Atlanta Braves. The game also flew by quickly, finishing in just 2 hours and 1 minute. Once the game was over, we walked back to the Metro station and rode the Metro back to the hotel.

Now I’m back in my room, watching Family Guy, and getting ready to sleep. I hope I don’t oversleep again tomorrow, it’s not fun. Anyway, tomorrow looks like a great day, much like Monday as it deals with more technical topics again. Then tomorrow night we’re supposed to meet up with some other co-workers from the West Coast that are out here for the week as well.

This morning was the first of day the conferences at UX Week 2006, and I’ve got to say, it went really well. I’ll go through my day, so you can share what I learned.

9:00AM – 9:30AM — Introduction by Jesse James Garrett
As the title implies, this was just the welcome and Introduction. Nothing really groundbreaking here.

9:30AM – 10:30AM — Keynote by Steven Berlin Johnson
This was a very good keynote. Steven Johnson is a very good speaker and was very good at injecting some “industry humor” into his speech. He talked about his book Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate, which he wrote back in 1999. He went over what he got right and what he got wrong in his predictions. He successfully predicted the blogging revolution that occurred a couple years ago and is flourishing today. He also shared his observations of current trends and made some predictions about upcoming trends; and overall I agree completely with him.

10:45AM – 11:30AM — Understanding Your Content by Chiara Fox, Adaptive Path
A rather worthwhile workshop that gave me ideas about how to manage and analyze the content on a website, especially while performing a redesign. It taught how to look at the content, figure out where to place it, and when to throw it away or keep it.

11:45AM – 12:30PM — Business Objects: Enterprise Tagging on the Intranet by Don Macaulay
Again, this was a very good and worthwhile workshop for me to attend. It was a rather technical discussion, so I won’t bore you with the details, but I will definitely be able to the utilize topics covered in this workshop in my work at SPARTA. It gave me new ideas and different ways to look at some of the projects we have out there.

12:30PM – 2:00PM — Lunch
What can I say? It was lunch … The hotel set up a buffet with sandwiches, chips, and cookies. After we finished eating, Steve and I went out to the lobby to find some power to charge our laptops and do some work before the next session started.

2:00PM – 2:45PM — Creating Tangible Value with Design, Part 1
This session wasn’t all that informative or worthwhile to me. Maybe I missed the point but to me all they were saying for 45 minutes was “good design is good for companies.” They also focused a lot on the business aspect and making money on websites, which isn’t really what I do or use. There really wasn’t much in the conference that interested me or that I felt was useful to me.

3:00PM – 3:45PM — Architecting Government Web Sites for the User Experience
Well now this sounds like something a little more up my alley. Since SPARTA’s primary customer is the government, I figured that I would be able to learn some stuff here that I’d possibly be able to to apply to SPARTA work. Little did I know that as the speakers described their experiences with the government and the way the agency was organized that they would essentially be describing SPARTA’s organization and the way they work. So needless to say I was able to come out gaining quite a bit of knowledge and new ideas of how to deal with information at SPARTA.

4:00PM – 5:00PM — Magical Secrets About Thinking Creatively by Kathan Brown
Things really switched gears here. Kathan Brown is an artist who has been in the business for 44 years and she came in to basically give us guidance and a push to be creative. She taught us ways to let the creative process go on and to give it time when you’re trying to be creative in designing products. She had quite a few examples and real-world quotes from other artists that really gave me a new perspective on the deisgn process and how I should approach things when I start a design.

So all in all, today was a very worthwhile and meaningful day. I learned quite a bit and it is great to finally be shown and taught the latest in design techniques and technologies from the big players directly involved in the business and those that actually are closely following the web technologies and trends. Tomorrow looks to be another good day filled with workshops dealing mostly with planning and designing software.

After the sessions today, I went back to my hotel room for an hour after which Steve and I went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. My first time there and I have to say it was pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking but if we had them in San Diego I’m sure I would go to them somewhat often.

Now I’m just going to continue work on my website, hopefully finishing it up tonight. I’m sitting downstairs in the lobby of my hotel listening to my iPod, so I’m feeling pretty motivated and ready to work. I also added a couple of pictures to my UX Week 2006 album.

Until tomorrow …