Photos as Web Content

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for November 1 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/photo-content.html

Summary:
Users pay close attention to photos and other images that contain relevant
information but ignore fluffy pictures used to "jazz up" Web pages.

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Usability Week 2010/2011 conference

  * Boston: November 15-19
  * Las Vegas: December 5-10
  * Dubai: January 16-20
  * New York City: February 7-11
  * Hong Kong: February 28-March 4

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

DEADLINE to save 10% on early-bird registration for Las Vegas:
  * This Friday, November 5

DEADLINE to save $200 on advance registration for Boston:
  * Next Friday, November 12

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NEW CONFERENCES: Dubai, New York, Hong Kong

Announcing the Usability Week 2011 conferences for the winter months:
we're going to Dubai (United Arab Emirates), New York City, and Hong Kong
(China).

  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/dubai/agenda.html
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/new_york/agenda.html
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/hong_kong/agenda.html

As you can see, we're mainly going to warm places. In fact, the Dubai
conference in January is perfect for anybody wanting to escape Northern
Europe. Envision yourself at Jumeirah Beach after the day's seminars.

I am excited about the Dubai conference, not just because it's warm in
January, but because it's our first event in the Middle East. During the
last two years we have experienced large growth in delegates from there to
our events on other continents. Having been a forceful usability advocate
for 27 years, I am very happy to see the message catch on in new
countries.

It'll also be great to be back in Hong Kong, which is one of my favorite
conference locations. Sadly, because of the high expense, we can only go
every 4 years or so, but now's the time.

Asia always has a lot of intriguing usability projects, particularly in
mobile. We have conducted mobile usability research for more than a
decade, but since the mobile Web is really catching on now, it'll be extra
interesting to watch the findings from the next round of studies we'll run
with Asian users and their mobile devices.
 
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NEW SEMINARS: Web Page Design, Non-Profit Sites, Intranet Case Studies

We're launching 3 new seminars for the winter conferences (besides
updating long-time bestsellers, from IA to Writing for the Web):

  * Web Page Design
    http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/web_design.html

What makes for a good page? What to put where? How to get some benefit out
of the "Twilight Zone" right-hand column that users often ignore?

These are basic usability questions, but sites often get them wrong, so
there's a strong need for putting all this info from our many studies
together in a single day.

  * Non-Profit Organizations' Web Presence
    http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/non-profits.html

People from major non-profits who've attended our conferences in the past
often complain that too much of our test data comes from e-commerce,
big-company sites, or big government agencies. Truthfully, most of the
design issues are actually the same, whether or not the site makes money.
(For example, users *do* tend to ignore the right-hand column, also when
we test non-profit sites.)

But there are also unique challenges to designing a non-profit site, such
as eliciting donations and motivating volunteers. So now we have a full
day focusing just on non-profit websites.

 * Winning Intranets: 2011 Design Annual Winners
   http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/intranet_design_annual.html

The big problem when designing an intranet is that you can't do a quick
review of other intranets. Solution: get the inside scoop from the people
who designed year's best intranets. (Sorry, I can't tell you who they are,
since the award winners won't be announced until January. But having
recently completed the judging process, I can tell you that they're good.)