Video Basics: Getting Started with Flash and MPEG4 Video

Monday

Nick Floro, Sealworks Interactive Studios

10:30 - 11:30am

Session participants will get a comprehensive introduction to video and compression technologies, and learn which format to pick for your project. You'll also see learn which hardware, software and camera equipment you need to build your own editing and recording studio for less than $2,500.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• How to compress video and audio for the best delivery on the Web
• What you need to have to produce high quality Web videos
• Which CODEC is best for your project
• Which tools to use for compressing your content, and the settings for best results
• About the latest in digital recorders and cameras
• What you need to implement video successfully in your project and how to organize from start to finish
• How to improve comprehension and design with video within your content
• What you need to stream your video, audio or screencasts

Making Metadata Work

Monday

Michael Crandall, University of Washington Information School

12:45 - 1:45pm

Metadata is expensive and time-consuming to build and maintain, yet remains one of the best strategies for managing critical information assets in many situations. A number of recent approaches have been attempting to blend techniques used in design activities and development processes with more structured approaches to thinking about metadata. From user prototyping to agile development techniques, to models such as the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's Singapore Framework, new ideas for focusing and improving metadata development methods are becoming more widely available. Using these tools effectively can systematize metadata development for your taxonomy project and provide a road map to successful design and implementation.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• How recent innovations in using design and development tools can create more effective metadata
• How the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's Singapore Framework can help systematize metadata development
• What's next for metadata as the Semantic Web matures

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Using XML for Book Publication

Monday

Richard Hamilton, XML Press

2:05 - 3:05pm

This session will detail how XML Press is using XML for book publishing.

XML Press has five books either published or scheduled for publication using DocBook, and another two using DITA, with plans for more to come.

The talk will look at the benefits and drawbacks of using XML for book publication. The case study will focus on DocBook, but the talk will also compare the strengths and weaknesses of DocBook and DITA in this domain. Although DITA is "hot," DocBook still has some significant advantages in the publishing world.

The session will cover our process from authoring to production, and will concentrate on how our authors work with DocBook, how we use the DocBook stylesheets to create a characteristic style for the imprint, and how we create publications in multiple formats from a single-source.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• How XML Press uses DocBook to create multiple output formats
• How XML, both DocBook and DITA, has created opportunities for XML Press
• How DocBook and DITA compare when used for publishing

On the Job Twittering: Making It Work for You

Tuesday

Michelle Lentz, Write Technology

8:30 - 9:30am

You already tweet; now how can you apply it to your work? We'll do a cursory overview of Twitter itself, but spend more time talking about how companies are using Twitter for everything from outreach to communication. We'll review different applications that are available for the enterprise level, as well as different ways to apply Twitter and its third-party applications to help you do your job. We'll show examples of using Twitter for tech support and discuss the challenges. Discussion and sharing are encouraged, so bring your own examples of how you are using Twitter in your field.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• How other companies are successfully using Twitter for outreach and customer support
• To understand how your peers are using Twitter via a facilitated discussion
• Learn about third-party and enterprise-level applications that will help integrate Twitter into your job

UA Design and Implementation for iPhone Apps

Tuesday

Joe Welinske, WritersUA

9:50 - 10:50am

The iPhone application development market has exploded since Apple opened the App store. Apple recently celebrated the one millionth application developed for their mobile platform. For UA developers this represents a new market for our services. It is also an area with numerous challenges in uncharted waters.

All mobile apps can benefit from improved UI text. Word choices are extremely important with minimal screen real estate. While many, if not most, mobile apps are fairly simplistic, there is a rapidly growing list of application with relatively robust capabilities. Many of the more robust apps work in concert with web-based applications and knowledgebases.

Joe Welinske is currently working on the design of Help for a range of iPhone applications, where his focus is on features that are not easily discovered. He'll share his experiences in this session. You will also be exposed to the iPhone user interface elements and the development environment. This session is technical in nature but does not require any experience with programming.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• What words and phrases are best for optimal communication
• How micro-concise instructions regarding difficult concepts can significantly improve a users initial experience with the mobile app
• How much text to use within the minimal available screen estate
• How to best integrate content displayed on a desktop or laptop with that of the mobile app
• The vocabulary used by iPhone developers
• How to prototype with the iPhone SDK and simulator

Understanding Gestures in User Interfaces

Tuesday

Jacob O. Wobbrock, University of Washington

11:10am - 12:10pm

Gestures, especially multi-touch gestures, are enjoying a lot of hype these days, as new user interface technologies such as Apple's multi-touch mouse, Microsoft Surface, and even Windows 7 provide for direct-touch user interfaces. This talk will review the state-of-the-art in gesture, show "under the hood" how simple stroke gestures can be recognized, and show some research projects on gesture conducted at the University of Washington, one for mobile touch-screen use by the blind, and another developing a cross-application "gesture language" for Microsoft Surface. Gestures will be a mystery no longer!

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• The state-of-the-art in gestures as they are being used in user interfaces
• The pros and cons of incorporating gestures into user interfaces
• How a simple gesture recognition algorithm works, and how to employ it in user interfaces (including the detailed pseudocode that even a non-expert developer can implement straight off the page)
• Two current gesture-related projects at the University of Washington, one which makes touch screens accessible to blind people, and another which employs a user-centered methodology to elicit the best cross-application gestures for use on a surface computer, like Microsoft Surface.

eBook Conversions: A Tutorial for UA Professionals

Wednesday

Joshua Tallent, eBook Architects

8:30 - 9:30am

This session will cover the technical details related to eBook creation. Because there are so many formats available, the majority of the session will cover how to convert and format eBooks into the most popular formats, Kindle/Mobipocket and ePub. However, we will also touch on ideas for PDF, eReader and .LIT files, and questions on any eBook format will be welcomed. The session will be interactive. Each attendee will be given sample eBook files that will be opened and used in the course of the session. We will take apart an ePub file and a Mobipocket file and talk about what formatting works and what does not. This session will include a lot of HTML formatting tips, so some familiarity with HTML is recommended. It is also recommended that all attendees attend the first eBook session, "An Introduction to eBooks", to become acquainted with the basics of eBooks.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• Converting files from various formats (PDF, InDesign, Word, etc.) into HTML
• Cleaning up HTML to be usable and easy to format
• Formatting Kindle/Mobipocket eBooks, including the differences between regular HTML and Kindle HTML
• Formatting ePub eBooks
• Pros and cons of converting between different formats using automated software
• A brief overview of other formats (PDF, eReader, LIT, etc.)
• When to convert it yourself and when to hand it off to a conversion company

The Psychology of User Interface Responsiveness

Wednesday

Steven C. Seow, Microsoft

9:50 - 10:50am

Every interaction with the computer - from performing a search for information on the web lasting a few seconds to installing an operating system that can last for hours - requires users to expend time. As such, time is a commodity and when users are using software, they are, in essence, trading it for productivity, entertainment, information, or something else of value.

Using concepts presented in his book, Designing and Engineering Time, Steve Seow presents a simple framework to look at how to diagnose time and timing issues - such as performance, downloads, perception, and waiting times - from the user's perspective, specifically in terms of temporal dimensions and temporal perspectives. Following the delineation of the framework is a discussion of the treatment of various techniques (as well as violations) culled from psychology, consumer research, and business practices.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• What has 40 years of HCI research has taught us about software time perception
• Why understanding perceived time is important
• Why understanding perceived time alone is not enough
• How Disney theme parks' wait management strategy works

Wireframing Tools and Techniques

Wednesday

Michael Hughes, IBM Internet Security Systems

9:50 - 10:50am

By the time a user interface gets coded, most of the design work is done, and UA professionals have lost a valuable window in shaping the user experience or embedded user assistance. Wireframes are common design tools used by UI developers and those who define requirements, and these tools can be useful communication channels for UA developers who want to be part of front-end design. By adding wireframing tools and techniques to their skill sets, technical communicators can have a more proactive impact on the user experience.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• How to classify wireframes by their level of fidelity
• How to choose the appropriate class of wireframe based on the needs of the design team
• How to select appropriate wireframing tools

Interaction Design meets Expertise: Representation, Understanding, and Problem-solving

Wednesday

Axel Roesler, University of Washington

1:05 - 2:05pm

Interaction designers develop user experiences for new products, systems and services. Interactive systems are present in many areas in everyday life where people coordinate tasks and engage in activities in collaboration with others - examples range from mobile phones to computer software, from GPS systems for cars or techniques for navigation in the open ocean. But interactive systems do also play crucial roles in high-stakes expert domains in the form of information systems that support the work of expert practitioners in technology-driven domains such as aviation, medicine, and process control.

In this session, I will examine how interactive systems become representations of domain knowledge - how the design of an interface is driven by the conceptual model of practitioners that will use the interactive systems as support during work tasks. The design challenge is that an interactive system that is required to complete work tasks in one domain may be used by practitioners at different levels of expertise, therefore its interface needs to be able to accommodate guidance for how to operate it at various levels of an underlying conceptual model, ranging from straight-forward procedural instructions to comprehensive, declarative representations. To make this design challenge more difficult, interaction designers who are brought in as interface design specialists oftentimes enter expert domains as novices. How do interaction designers acquire deep conceptual understanding of the domain under design? How do interaction design approaches that are model-driven provide constructive linkage points with software documentation, assistance, and training?

I will illustrate these issues and promising directions in the design of interactive systems as representation of domain knowledge with a cross section of Interaction Design methods, case studies, and research techniques as these apply to the development of representational artifacts at the intersection of people, technology, and work.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• About the state-of-the-art in Interaction Design
• How to develop representational artifacts in a participatory design approach that converges the perspectives of users / practitioners, technologists, and innovators
• How to integrate design practice into technology development for expert domains
• How design practice in expert domains can inform best practices for design work in everyday use / non-expert contexts

An Introduction to Quality Audio Production

Wednesday

Omaha Sternberg, Sound Podcast Productions

1:05 - 2:05pm

Audio and video tutorials, wizards, and other online training methods are increasingly popular methods of communicating with software users. Podcasts are being used to communicate everything from conceptual information to business processes, and the user can listen to that information on their time. While the latest tools have made creating and distributing A/V much easier than in the past, there is a lot of craft involved in producing quality audio output. This session is designed to help you understand the nuances of quality sound and how to bring that into your own development process.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

• What factors affect the quality of recorded sound
• How to select an appropriate microphone
• How to set-up a recording environment
• What tools to use for recording and editing