Plone, Zope and Python. More names, buzzwords and concepts to absorb in a two day workshop with Richard Ammerman of 7 Tech NW, a Plone developer and cheerleader. A complete Content Management System right out of the box. Not quite, but it looks powerful, if you have some help setting it up.

Then it was on to Interaction Design with Tog Tognazzini, a leading advocate of Human Computer Interaction at User Experience 2006, here in Seattle, with the Nielsen/Norman Group. I was the official "student" volunteer for the 2 days with Tog and one day with Lynn Pausic of Expero, Inc. She gave an interesting workshop on Designing Complex Web Applications and Websites. Couldn't participate much as I was busy handing out materials and the wireless mic to people with questions for the speakers.

Tog managed to cram about 50 year's worth of knowledge into 2 days with lots of humor and "Eureka!" moments. He covered a broad range of topics including, Information Theory, Carl Jung's style pairs, Fitts' Law, Edward Tufte, The Shuttle Disaster, usability testing, iterative design and many good examples of stuff that works and other stuff that didn't and ending with a quick paper prototyping exercise.

I feel right at home with most of this. Great creative happens when you can immerse yourself, especially as a creative, in your client's world - kind of like User Centered Design in a way.

What a week! Two major conferences in Seattle. Plone CMS and Usability with Nielsen and Norman and many others. Since the site we're redesigning will be using Plone, I signed up for two days of basic training. A whole new language, (of course) and ways of thinking about content. Spent way too much time trying to download the program, no luck. Finally got it up on the desktop. Definitely not as easy to download as most proprietary software. Have to put in a long string of funny words just to open the program. Linux, I'm told. Looks like a very flexible and powerful program if I can figure out how to use it. Maybe the developers in the next room can help.

Interesting discussion about the never-ending design versus coding, left versus right, Flash and usability. As a visual learner and pattern-oriented designer becoming somewhat invested in the User Centered Design camp, I find the rigor and methodology of usability seductive, while marveling at some of the highly visual Flash sites this article links to. I've often thought of the Web as it is now about where television was in the '50 - a medium trying to find itself. Of course, the web and technology in general seem to be evolving and morphing at the speed of light, so any pronouncements become ancient history fast.

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