Speaking on AJAX Usability at CFUnited

I've attended CFUnited since it was called "CFUN" and held in a single room (how it has grown!), and I'm excited to say that I will also be a speaker this year. I will be speaking on AJAX Usability. My talk, as of this writing, will be on Tuesday June 19th at 9:30 am.

A little bit about my talk...

When AJAX first became widespread, several usability gurus aired concerns about how this new power could be abused, and we've seen no shortage of AJAX usability mistakes on the web. Thankfully, many design patterns and best practices have also emerged, and following these guidelines can help you avoid those pitfalls. In my session, I will cover some of the top usability issues you should be aware of when using AJAX, and show practical examples of how to overcome them.

Because there are so many AJAX libraries and toolkits the code can vary greatly, my session will focus more on the usability principles and design of the interaction, rather than code snippets. Where possible I will recommend specific libraries or resources that help address these issues. If there is time (still working on the presentation!), I will also touch on how you tweak your design workflow to better incorporate rich interaction.

This session will target the intermediate UI designer. I will assume you have designed websites in the past and have studied basic usability, but you do not need to be a guru. If you are a developer with limited design experience who uses AJAX, this session is for you. If you are a designer who is now expected to design applications that incorporate AJAX, and you want to be sure your usability knowledge is up to date, this session is for you. If you think your AJAX applications are "as usable as they need to be", this session is for you! (Because there is no such thing as too usable!)