Expression, Silverlight, User Experience and Web Futures - my 2.5 sessions at Tech.Ed Oz

Here are the details for my sessions at Tech.Ed Australia:

My Breakout Sessions

The art and science behind creating a great user experience

ARC301
03/09/2008 12:00-13:15

A great user experience means more than drop shadows and rounded corners. It might end with placing elements on a screen, but user experience starts much further upstream, maybe even before requirements! In this presentation we’ll discuss the elements of user experience and how to apply them. We will talk about the role user experience design plays - not just in delivering successful end products and services - but also in facilitating communication and direction within project teams. We’ll cover a mix of tactical and strategic steps to improve user experience. If you could only do one thing to improve your application’s UX, what would it be? (You might be surprised.) What about designers? What do they do? How can you work effectively with them? This talk focuses on practical, realistic ways to ensure your next project delivers a great user experience.

Designing Compelling Silverlight User Experiences with Expression Studio

WEB311
03/09/2008 14:15-15:30

Expression Studio 2 delivers powerful tools to create natural and engaging user experiences. In this session you’ll learn how the full suite of Expression tools works together to streamline user experience design. With a focus on designing for Silverlight 2, we’ll walk through each of Expression Media, Expression Encoder, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Web – highlighting new features and discussing where they fit in the user-centred design process.

In this session I'll be walking through building the RFID visualisation in Expression Studio. Hmm, it says I'll be using Expression Web. Need to think of an angle to work that in...

But That's Not All!

Also keep an eye out for the suability talk from my old colleague, Susan Wolfe from Optimal Experience:

Self Service Usability

WEB312
03/09/2008 17:30-18:45

Recently there has been a push by many organisations to shift more customers to self-service channels like in-store kiosks, telephone systems and the web. It makes sense - self-service can save organisations a lot of money when customers use more cost effective channels to accomplish routine interactions such as checking balances. The trick is ensuring that self-service is simple, speedy and satisfying. Otherwise there is the very real chance that you will end up with disgruntled customers and more calls to the contact centre. This session will show you ways to ensure that customers have a consistently good experience across all your channels. Trent Mankelow from Optimal Usability will talk about the keys to designing easy-to-use, customer focused self-service applications, using examples from New Zealand and overseas. The session will help anyone who is responsible for the self-service design or management, or anyone wanting a better understanding of self-service usability practices.

(Trent is doing the New Zealand version of this talk.)

And Also...

There are also a heap of sessions and hand-on labs covering Silverlight. So if you've been trying to work out how to get your head around Silverlight (including Silverlight fro Mobile), come along to Tech.Ed and say g'day...