This is probably going to be a very useful conference. Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood are sharp people with excellent skills. In fact, one of my favorite usability books is Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design, which they wrote about 3 years ago.

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on June 14, 2002 12:04 PM

 

A few more comments. Larry sent me a note explaining their design decisions. He made some good points that I would like to share:

1. The format of the page works very well for people. While you do have to scroll, all the information is on one page. That is valuable. The at-a-glance format is only possible by breaking some design conventions (e.g., Never Make Users Horizontally Scroll!).

2. They did review and consider several different prototypes. However, nothing provided a one-stop-viewing experience except for this. This was not a random or hasty decision.

3. There are other ways to reach the same information. This is not the only place that people can see the material, so this is actually a bonus page. It is another way to help people find what they need. If you don't like the font and you don't like the scrolling, use a different avenue.

4. They recognize that most of their audience for the site is going to be running at XGA or higher. So, the threat of scrolling is lowers. Their users were considered!

I think that these are all excellent points to think about. My comment was more of a reflection of a question I had: Is it my system configuration or is it the web site design that is causing what I see? In this case, it was the design. However, while the design isn't perfect, it does what it should do. It helps the users that need help in the way they need help.

Larry's email, like others in the past, shows me that he is one smart cookie. Perhaps I should go to the conference...!

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on June 14, 2002 12:23 PM

 

What I dislike about the schedule page is that each event link begins with the names of the speakers. This is a big drawback for me because my primary interest is in the topics being covered, not whose mouths the words come out of.

Yes, the speakers are important, but not on the schedule page. This is the page I use to plan my day. Monday at 4 p.m. I'm Designing Information Portals. I am not Holtzblatt. Sorry.

Posted by: Jack on June 14, 2002 02:11 PM

 

What I don't get is that since they were committed to scrolling horizontally, why did they then compromise that decision by compressing the text with letter-spacing:-1pt.

Made it much harder to read, and I still have to scroll horizontally. Would have been better to scroll horiz. just a little further.

After all, I don't need to compare similar times for different days, so Monday doesn't have to be within visual distance of Friday.

Other gripe: they explicitly turn on underlining of links. I hate that. I've set my preference to turn that off and am only occasionally bewildered as to where the links are. Instead, I'm confronted with a mess of tightly kerned text interleaved with horizontal lines.

Posted by: Eric Scheid on June 15, 2002 03:21 AM