I’ve been using a new programming technique for markup, known as Zen Coding. It’s a combination of XPath and CSS syntax that greatly speeds up markup generation.

For example, to automatically create the following markup…

    <ul id="nav">
	<li class="tier1"><a href="#" class="tier1"></a></li>
	<li class="tier1"><a href="#" class="tier1"></a></li>
	<li class="tier1"><a href="#" class="tier1"></a></li>
	<li class="tier1"><a href="#" class="tier1"></a></li>
	<li class="tier1"><a href="#" class="tier1"></a></li>
    </ul>

…you need only type the following Zen Coding snippet:

    ul#nav>li.tier1*5>a[href="#"].tier1

It’s a really elegant, streamlined syntax and something I’ve found incredibly useful so far. It doesn’t affect your source code, because it’s just an inline helper in your editor — a bit like auto-complete in Word, or Intellisense in Visual Studio.

The best thing is that Zen Coding is available as an add-on for loads of different programs – on PC and Mac – including 3Sixty’s two favourite code editors:

• Visual Studio
  —via a download from Codeplex
• Komodo Edit
  —go to Tools → Add-ons and select Zen Coding from the list

You can find out more about Zen Coding over at Smashing Magazine.

E3 is set in the heart of downtown Los Angeles and has a fearsome reputation as being one of the most punishing of any technology industry events. But E3 can also claim to be one of the most defining points of its industry; a fulcrum around which multi-billion dollar businesses time their announcements and officially reveal their latest products.

This year’s E3 is expected to be no different. In fact, this year – after a spell of disappointments, and even the outright cancellation of the show a couple of years back (for a drastic rethink of its format) – promises to show some of the most exciting technology any consumer has yet seen.

Chief amongst these is Microsoft’s motion-based Project Natal, which has since been officially renamed Kinect. In essence, Kinect is an add-on for the current Microsoft Xbox 360. Inside Kinect are small cameras that detect movement – specifically human movement – in front of the device and relay this back to the Xbox. Games designers can then use this information within their games to change what happens on screen.

Recently, only fairly rudimentary demonstrations have appeared — such as players hopping about in front of their TVs trying to block footballs from entering a goal. But when Microsoft first introduced the original Project Natal prototypes, they demonstrated what appeared to be an incredibly advanced Human-Computer Interaction simulator, called Project Milo.

Project Milo was developed in conjunction with British computer games designer extrodinaire Peter Molyneux, and his team of designers and engineers at Lionhead Studios in Guildford, England. The Project Milo demonstration centred around a computer-generated boy – the titular Milo – with whom the player could converse and interact with simply by standing in front of their TV.

Whilst the ideas captured by Project Milo are certainly exciting, my feeling is that Microsoft Kinect isn’t going to provide these sorts of experiences for the consumer outside of PR videos and carefully controlled press demonstrations. But that’s not to say it won’t happen, or that it won’t be fun however Kinect eventually plays in your living room.

Nintendo Wii has been a massive success, despite the arguably shallow and disposable nature of the vast majority of its software. The reason for this success is simplicity; Wii still relies on a controller, but this controller is no more intimidating than your average stick. And everyone knows how to play hundreds of games with a humble stick.

Kinect is a glimpse perhaps one or two steps further down the same road; removing the stick entirely and instead making the player the controller, making virtual play feel more natural and tangible, and hopefully dropping further barriers to enjoying video games to yet more people in the same way Nintendo did with Wii.

Whilst the inevitable, eye-rolling Minority Report parallelisms abound, it’s not a stretch to say Kinect won’t provide this high-fidelity interaction. But it does bring a technology that everyone can understand a little bit closer. It’s certainly going to be the talk of E3 at any rate.

Eloise (7), Thom (3) and Emily (5) get their first look at the iPad.

My children tried it first and were captivated by the huge screen and tactile interface. Tilting the unit to steer around a race track in 3D, or flicking licorice torpedoes about for the dodo and his friends in Atomic Antelope’s Alice in Wonderland. In short, they adored it, and it was difficult to finally pack them off to bed after half-an-hour’s exploration and discovery.

The other people I really wanted to try the iPad were my 60+ in-laws, who live just… next… door…

Anyway! Being “the only geek in the village,” so to speak, means you get lumbered with tech support for the entire family and surrounding area. Now, my in-laws are pretty good with a computer, all things considered, but they certainly don’t enjoy the process of using one. (You can probably guess the operating system…)

Not so with the iPad — something I fully expected as soon as the rumours about Apple’s planned “iSlate” began circulating many months ago. I have never seen either of my in-laws smile when using a piece of technology, but they were equally as smitten with the iPad as my kids.

They loved the huge, pin-sharp screen, as well as the way the device feels in your hands; not a single utterance of “heavier than I expected” was heard.

However it’s also worth pointing out that my in-laws very quickly recognised the iPad isn’t an all-singing, all-dancing replacement for their current laptop; quite far from it, in fact. They can’t load their photos onto it easily, nor their music. They can’t watch films on it without a lot of manual faffing around on a separate machine before-hand — not likely to happen with two people enjoying their retirement.

Let’s be honest; the process of having to plug things into other things, make sure they’re talking to each other by whatever mystical, opaque process is necessary, then find and literally drag a long list of serial numbered files across this connection still isn’t as easy as it should be, regardless of how highly Apple thinks of its iTunes software.

But the fact remains that the iPad has really captured the imagination of the whole gamut of computer users. Would I have one? No. But then I already have a desktop, a laptop, a netbook, an Xbox 360, a Wii, an iPod nano and an excellent Android phone to keep me connected and entertained whenever and wherever I want.

Would my in-laws want one, though? Yes, I think they might.  And I’m still certain it would be an excellent fit, once they get used to the media-related shenanigans.

Joshua had a few interesting websites to share:

• Flickr microcopy group: where Joshua keeps interesting bits of microcopy he’s come across
• 52weeksofUX blog: a blog co-authored with another Josh
• ABtests.com where people can upload their results from split-testing

And here are a few interesting thoughts I noted down:

Focus on the small things, a ton of little changes can make your design significantly better / can increase conversions considerably.

The only data that matters is your own – don’t rely on other people’s testing to make your decisions.

Usability used to be about “Is your software usable”, now it’s increasingly about convincing users “Why should I use this / What can it do for me?” This is a shift from a tool problem to a cognitive / domain problem.

The usage lifecycle goes like this

• Unaware of the service
• Aware of the service (interested) – acquisition
• First time user (signed up) – activation
• Regular user (finds the service useful) – retention
• Passionate user (engaged) – referral

It’s more important to know where a user is in the usage lifecycle than to know who they are, because that tells us what their immediate problem is.

Usability of form design (reducing friction) is not the major hurdle to getting users to sign-up, the biggest challenge is giving them a reason to sign-up. Once users are motivated they’ll battle through relatively unusable interfaces to get what they’ve been promised.

Design strategies for increasing sign-up

• Immediate engagement (lazy registration)
• Write to reduce commitment (answer the immediate questions and concerns might have around sign-up)
• Have different levels of descriptions for different levels of users’ commitment
  • I know I want to sign up
  • I want to make sure this is for me
  • I’m skeptical
• Leverage social influence (let undecideds observe the actions of current users)

Our goal is user happiness!

Dan Lockton – Designing with intent: How to influence behaviour online

Dan’s research was interesting as it transpires he’s read my wife’s PhD and I think he might have used some of it as the basis for his own! It’s a small world…

His talk was all about designing with intent, that is design that’s intended to influence, to change users’ behaviour.

He’s catalogued his findings as cards that can be found on designwithintent.co.uk. The cards can be used as a source for inspiration when generating ideas, much like Stephen P. Anderson’s getmentalnotes.com.

I thought Dan’s workshop was particularly interesting because he was one of the more leftfield speakers at the conference. His background is very much in industrial design and a lot of his example are from the world of product and industrial design.

Clients want great user experiences and they want them faster.

Wireframes are good for documentation, but not for exploring possibilities, they don’t show any flow or journey.

The danger of wireframes is to fall in love with 1 idea and to design yourself into a corner.

The answer to this is to generate lots of ideas to a very low fidelity, to exhaust the different options before you settle on one that you choose to refine.

You can then put together these lots of ideas on a sketchboard – which shows all ideas next to each other at the same time, and within the user journey. This makes it an ideal tool to discuss and critique with others, including the client.

The second workshop was How to think with pretty pictures (demystifying concept models) by Stephen P. Anderson. Again, the gist of the workshop is below:

Concept models are used to make sense of complex stuff

The process flow for creating a concept model is to first get the data together through research. Wikipedia is a great source of information.

The second step is to see where the patterns and similarities in the data are.

The third step is to see which shapes can support those patterns.

The fourth and final step is to come up with a metaphor that brings the concept model to life.