[MNASIS-L] Usability Workshops

[Fred.Beecher at jwt.com]

Both of these presenters are very highly regarded in the field of User
Centered Design.

Regarding the "Don't Make Me Think" title, what this refers to is "Don't
make me think about how to make this thing work." Users of Web sites and
computer applications do not *intend* to use the Web or an application;
that is not their end goal. Their end goal is to learn about some subject,
or create a report, etc. They shouldn't have to think too hard about *how*
to do this because that gets in the way of the actual goal. This is the
argument in "Don't Make Me Think."

Lou Rosenfeld literally wrote the book on Web information architecture. He
has a great deal of experience in the field, and the subject of this
particular workshop is both intense and timely. However, it will likely be
very technical in the sense that participants should probably have some
experience in IA in order to get the most out of it.

Are they worth the price? That depends. If you administrate a Web site and
deal with people's complaints about how it's hard to use or hard to find
things, Krug's presentation would probably be valuable. It is very specific
to the Web, so keep that in mind. If you are an IA with some experience and
are finding yourself taking on larger and larger tasks (intranets,
extranets, content management systems, etc.), the Rosenfeld presentation
will likely answer a lot of questions and offer some new perspectives. I
would like to go to this one myself.

I hope this helps,
Fred.

Frederick Beecher
Information Architect
J. Walter Thompson

p: 612.752.5551
e: fred.beecher at jwt.com



                                                                                                                                       
                      "Janet M. Arth"                                                                                                  
                      <arth at tc.umn.edu>        To:       mnasis-l at asis.org                                                             
                      Sent by:                 cc:                                                                                     
                      mnasis-l-admin at as        Subject:  [MNASIS-L] Usability Workshops                                                
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                      02/16/2004 01:21                                                                                                 
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Anyone know anything about the presenters of these two workshops that will
be held locally in early April?  Are they worth the money?  From an
academic perspective a title like "Don't Make Me Think" raises my eyebrows,

if college and research isn't supposed to make one think, what is?

fyi, Janet

====================================================================

Web Usability Workshop - 'Don't Make Me Think' with Steve Krug

Learn how to think like a usability expert in eight hours or less with
Steve
Krug, author of best-selling web usability book, Don't Make Me Think.

Expanding on the topics in his best selling Web usability book, Steve's
workshop will teach you how to recognize and solve the usability problems
in
your own site, and how to make low-cost/no-cost testing an everyday part of
your company's design process. The day includes a live usability test and
expert reviews of a number of Web sites using URLs submitted by
attendees-perhaps even your own. Useful for designers, programmers,
writers,
business developers, sole proprietors, VPs-anyone who works on, manages, or
signs the checks for Web sites.

Workshop Dates and Locations: April 2 in St. Paul, MN; April 27 in Dublin,
Ireland; May 8 in Washington D.C.; and May 28 in Seattle, WA

Cost: $795 ($695 on or before February 27). Group discounts, plus special
package price when registering for both Steve and Lou's workshops.

Contact Information: Visit: http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html or send
email to workshops at sensible.com

AND

Enterprise Information Architecture with Lou Rosenfeld

A day-long seminar on Enterprise Information Architecture with Lou
Rosenfeld, co-author of the best-selling Information Architecture for the
World Wide Web, aka the 'polar bear' book.

Many large organizations' websites and intranets are really just a
disjointed conglomeration of hundreds of smaller sites, all controlled by
different departmental fiefdoms. Lou's workshop tackles the frustrating
challenge of getting a large, politically-charged, multi-departmental web
environment to behave like a single, unified, user-centric web site. This
seminar includes a balance of lecture, discussion, exercises, handouts, and
the O'Reilly 'polar bear' book, and concludes with a lively happy hour.

Workshop Dates and Locations: April 1 in St. Paul, MN; May 7 in Washington
D.C.; and, May 27 in Seattle, WA.

Cost: $795 ($695 on or before February 27). Group discounts, plus special
package price when registering for both Steve and Lou's workshops.

Contact Information: Visit:
http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia or send email to:
seminars at louisrosenfeld.com


PCR Consulting
408-379-8354
Cell: 408-655-7513

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