We’re on break and drinking frappuccinos and red bull. We just got done with Rob Jones talking about web analytics. He brought up some great ideas and furthered my opinion of how important usability testing is. Even if it’s small scale and cheap. He pointed out a book that I’ll be reading when I get home: Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. It talks about how less is more and the psychology behind it.

Before him, we listened to Garrett Dimon talk about the development of UI and keys things to keep in mind and how to open your mind to new things while developing interfaces. He paid great attention to subtle changes of color, bolding, typography, etc. to make impact on the interface without pulling attention away from important aspects of the layout.

He also helped me find exactly what I was wanting for my sketch book. I bought a plain page book and find it still not what I like, but he spoke about the Dot Grid Book. It’s basically a glorified sketch book with a grid of dots to help form lines and boundaries for designing UI ideas. Fantastic. I ordered one.

Next is mobile design.