Review Of The Nn Group World Tour

The gods of usability, the Nielsen Norman Group, are currently on a world tour. Is it worth attending? Well, it's expensive, so that'll depend on who's paying...

Conclusions

• If you have to pay yourself it's probably not worth the expense. You may be better off finding alternative sources of information on the Web.
• If your company is paying, then go for it.
• If you have to choose between a course or the main event go to a course.
• Jakob Nielsen has got some impressive body language going...

Main day

Very entertaining; Jakob Nielsen was surprisingly interesting. Tog was less interesting for me, Brenda�s bit was alright (think Captain Janeway) and Donald Norman�s presentation was disappointing since he wasn�t there and we got to see a video.

Review of the courses

• Advanced Usability Testing Methodology
  

  Everyone thought it wasn�t detailed enough, but it definitely made me a better usability professional. Worth it. I concluded that all Web sites of any complexity have thousands of little usability problems. Focus on the main ones. Lots of good tips to do testing. Also, train your designers / programmers in usability! That will improve the product a lot more than testing.

• Introduction to Web Usability Testing
  

  Only for beginners.

• E-Commerce Usability
  

  Better to go to the advanced usability course.

• E-Marketing for Non-Marketers
  

  Very good if you�re into this stuff.

• The Art & Science of Web Design
  

  Good overview, touching on IA issues and lots of related stuff. If you�re into this stuff you already know all this. Also sections on stylesheets and different browsers and such which may be less relevant to you. Very good for a general overview of the state of the art things to know if you�re in webdesign.

• Content Design & Usability-Writing for the Web
  

  Didn't catch this one. If anyone else did, please add a comment to this article.

• Designing Usable Web Forms
  

  Didn't catch this one either.

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