Attending Usability Week 2009 in Berlin

This week I attended the Usability Week conference by the Nielsen Norman Group in Berlin. It was really fun. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend two seminars and the evening plenary on Monday evening. For some reason it was renamed from User Experience to Usability Week.

Kara Pernice telling how websites are like dating

The conference was quite the similar to last year’s conference in Amsterdam. Each day you can attend one of four seminars. Each seminar starts at nine in the morning until around five. Actually, it is pretty intense, it feels like having a lecture for eight hours.

I attended Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability (by Hoa Loranger, Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice) and Interaction Design 2 (by Bruce Tognazzini). I was able to attend as a volunteer and thus avoid the registration fees in exchange for some light volunteering duties.

The evening plenary Website design is like dating was fun, although not as fun as last year’s Usability for Evil presentation by Chris Nodder. However, Kara Pernice was really hilarious in mixing her personal anecdotes with web design, I really liked it.

The other volunteers I met were really nice. On Monday evening after the networking session (which we were allowed to attend, yee for free drinks!) we went for dinner in a German pizzeria. I was really fun having diner with people from Denmark, Malta, Greece, Germany and the United States. So many people. Some small cultural clashes naturally occurred, but it was really fun.

Dinner with all volunteers in a German pizzeria

Berlin was fun, although I was unable to see much of the city due to being at the conference all day. I had already visited Berlin back in April as a tourist, so it was not really a problem. My German is really coming along well. During the conference, I spoke English, German and Dutch, it was no problem but I did have to get used to speaking Dutch again back in the Netherlands.

Next year the conference is supposed to be in London, however, I am afraid I won’t be able to volunteer then: volunteering is only allowed for students, and most likely I won’t be a student anymore then. Perhaps I’ll find an employer willing to send me to London in November 2010, I’d like to meet the other volunteers again. Thanks Julia, Lexi, Dimitris, Becky and Janne! I had a great time. See you next year.