In February 2009 I attended the Interaction Design Association conference in Vancouver, Canada and in March I attended the Information Architecture Summit in Memphis, Tennessee. These are the premiere conferences for designers in the field of user experience, interaction, and information architecture.

My purpose in attending these conferences was to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing User Experience Designers and learn what I can do to help make Web sites easier to understand and easier to use.

Each conference provided me with fresh perspective, new ideas, and a wealth of information gained from participating in sessions, keynotes, hallway conversation, drinks, meals, and social networks.

The amazing people that I met at these conferences were welcoming, supportive, kind, warm, friendly, and overwhelmingly positive. I owe them all a great debt and promise to do my part to champion the ideas they’ve been so kind to share.

Throughout each conference (and particularly at IA Summit) I made a point to jot down any book recommendation or article mentioned. What follows is an unordered and by no means exhaustive list so please add your own recommendations in the comments.

Articles

• Peter Boersma: T-model: Big IA is now UX
• Tina Brown: The gig economy
• Ross Mayfield: Power law of participation
• Peter Morville: User Experience Deliverables
• Brandon Schauer: The Long Wow
• Christian Schormann: Sketching and prototyping in Expression Blend
• Jean Seok: The Elements of User Experience
• Jared Spool: The Magic Behind Amazon’s 2.7 Billion Dollar Question
• Jared Spool: The $300 Million Button
• Paul Taffinder: The Seven Types of Leaders
• Javier Velasco: From Social Communication to Information Architecture
• Kevin Yank: Derek Featherstone: Accessibility is More Than Compliance

Books

• 2009: A Project Guide to UX Design (Russ Unger, Carolyn Chandler)
• 2009: Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web (Christina Wodtke)
• 2009: From the Bureau to the Boardroom (Dan Carrison)
• 2009: Nudge (Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein)
• 2009: Modular Web Design (Nathan Curtis)
• 2008: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, Robert Cialdina)
• 2008: Value-Based Fees (Alan Weiss)
• 2008: The Milkshake Moment (Steven Little)
• 2008: The Trophy Kids Grow Up (Ron Alsop)
• 2007: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School (Matthew Frederick)
• 2007: Made to Stick (Chip Heath, Dan Heath)
• 2007: The Myths of Innovation (Scott Berkun)
• 2006: The Craft of Intelligence (Allen Dulles)
• 2006: Innovation Games (Luke Hohmann )
• 2005: The Art of Project Management (Scott Berkun)
• 2005: Windows and Mirrors (Jay David Bolter, Diane Gromala)
• 2005: Don’t Make Me Think (Steve Krug )
• 2004: The Elements of Typographic Style (Robert Bringhurst )
• 2003: The Influentials (Jon Berry, Ed Keller)
• 2003: The Book of Bunny Suicides (Andy Riley)
• 2002: Site-Seeing (Luke Wroblewski )
• 2002: The Design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman)
• 2000: Boggs: A Comedy of Values (Lawrence Weschler)
• 1998: Orbiting the Giant Hairball (Gordon MacKenzie)
• 1994: Design Patterns (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John M. Vlissides)
• 1993: Hit the Ground Running (Gene Garofalo)
• 1991: Thinkertoys (Michael Michalko)

Commentary

• Matt Balara: The IA Summit Blues
• Dan Drown: Reflections on the 2009 IA Summit
• Javier Velasco: 10th IA Summit in Memphis: Reflections
• Chiara Fox: Why I am no longer calling myself an information architect
• Louis Rosenfeld: Engagement and stakeholding. And steak.
• Lee Rainie: Life Changes of the new information order
• Howard Rheingold: Tuning and Feeding: My best practices for getting the most out of Twitter
• Dale Wolf: Net Promoter Score. To be or not to be? That is the ultimate customer experience question

Conferences

• Art and Code Conference
• bplusd: Business + Design
• IDEA: Social Experience Design

Definitions

• Neural Marketing
• Transformation Design
• Transformative Design

Food for thought

• Amazon.com: Denon $500 cable (see the tags)
• Amazon.com: Playmobil Security Checkpoint (fake product, read the reviews)
• Top search result for “not my job”

Slides

• Interaction ‘09: Vancouver, Canada

  • Kars Alfrink: Play & Embodiment
  • Nadya Direkova: What’s in a Game?
  • Simon King: Tailored Interactions
  • Manuel Lima: Network Visualization at the age of infinite interconnectedness
  • Dan Saffer: Carpe Diem: Attention, Awareness, and Interaction Design 2009

• IA Summit ‘09: Memphis, Tennessee

  • Cindy Chastain: Experience Themes: An Element of Story Applied to Design
  • Erin Malone & Christian Crumlish: Designing Social Interfaces
  • Michael Dila: Innovation Parkour
  • Colleen Jones: Usable, Influential Content
  • Whitney Hess: Evangelizing Yourself
  • Dorelle Rabinowitz: Motivating UX Teams
  • Fred Beecher: Integrating Effective Prototyping Into Your Design Process
  • John Pettengill: An internet watered down or How to save the Mobile web
  • Stephen P. Anderson: The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions
  • Livia Labate & Austin Govella: The User Experience Health Check
  • Andrew Hinton: Digital Space and The Context Problem
  • Colleen Jones: Content Quality (It’s More Than Fixing Typos)

Software

• Adobe InCopy CS4
• Axure
• OmniGraffle
• Visio

Videos

• Design Prototyping (Dan Harrelson, MIX 2009)
• Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web (Kevin Kelly, EG Conference 2007)
• An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube
• Digital Ethnography of YouTube project
• United States of Whatever
• Monty Python: The People’s Front
• New Media Douchebag

Web sites

• Alben Design
• Architecture of Life
• Designers Accord
• Designs of the time 2007
• Eco Designers Guild
• EightShapes “UNIFY” Deliverables system
• Explore Zappos
• Seed Magazine
• Sustainable Minds
• This is Indexed
• Twitter Snooze
• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
• Words are delicious