SXSW Day 2

Again, I caught two panels today. The first was CSS3 Design with HTML 5 and it was absolutely incredible. Well, ok, not absolutely incredible but it was extremely informative. I will say this: HTML 5 and CSS 3 look pretty damn sexy, and I will have to do some reading up on the specs, browser compatibility and other tips, tricks and neat little things you can do. But, in the meantime, here's a few links for you:

• The demo website from the presentation
• The List of Resources mentioned during the presentation
• The HTML 5 Spec
• The CSS 3 Spec

The second panel I caught was Video Game Research: Failing Our Way to Victory presented by my coworker at Linden Erica Firment. It focused largely on how most of the users interacting with your product (application, web app, whatever) are going to use it incorrectly; by which I mean they are going to do weird things and fail to use your product in some fashion, which will then make your product frustrating to use and sour the user's future intent or even desire to use your product in the future. The key take-aways were to:

• Assume your users will fail in some way
• Identify user failures as early in the process as possible
• Make it a habit to go through the product/process frequently
• The most vocal users probably do not identify the most common problems

I hope those were the key take-aways. If they weren't I'll probably hear about it at work on Thursday.

Tomorrow is looking to be a very long and very full day. But, in the evening, there is an i-can-haz-cheeseburger party tomorrow night. I am hoping for awesomeness.