Only 40 hours of conference to go...

This is the scene. We're both in my honeysuite of a room, tapping away at laptops, overlooking Dam Square decked with it's Christmas lights. We're sipping coffee that Rob has just made from my espresso machine, listening to his Lighthouse Family collection, talking about where we'll eat tonight (table for 2 please). This is the life. But first I gotta do my homework and make notes about what's been going on, because in Amsterdam it's easy to forget...

Yesterday was good. We checked in, went out, and watched football in the nearest pub. They don't show rugby here - if you like watching men having a cuddle I think they have specialist clubs for that sort of thing. Sadly beer ain't cheap, nearly £6 a pint. Especially as we must have gone to the first tourist trap we saw. So what you need to do is set up a tab at your table, then move table a few times so you can see the TV screens better, and then wait for the staff to change shifts. 3 hours later when we asked for the bill they didn't know what we were talking about. So we got £24 worth of ale for free. Might be advisable not to go back though, just in case.

That free beer didn't taste so good this morning. We're only an hour ahead of Norwich, but that hour makes SO much difference at 7am on a Sunday morning. But we are responsible adults and we know that we're here to further our pursuit or usability expertise and nothing will get in the way of that. Now we were late leaving the hotel because Rob took ages getting ready (yeah I know this link should open in a new window but I haven't worked it out yet) but soon enough we were dodging the trams and early morning dope-heads as we dragged ourselves across Amsterdam for our first day of learning - The Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability.

Thankfully it was a bit of an introduction to UE. Getting everyone (us) up to speed. Nielsen - the people running the whole thing - talked through a load of their studies, highlighting good and mostly bad points about web usability. How we laughed at the poor design of all these sites, wondering which idiots put them together. Hopefully next year they won't be using v.10 as an example. So it wasn't exactly rocket science, but then it's good to have your ideas reaffirmed by the experts too. And there are certainly a few ideas that we can bring back with us across the water.

So what have I learnt today???

• Most users of search (75%) are now by-passing the homepage, going straight to landing pages.
• More and more users are aware of the scroll facillity, but are often just too lazy to do it.
• When writing web copy get straight to the point. Confirm to the user that they are on the right page.
• cheese.com is a weird old site, but has rather good navigation.
• Users scan text links and headings, so make them relevant.
• Dutch people are so tall, and consequently have trousers that show too much sock.
• Users read most web pages in a F-shape, so put the good stuff in these areas.
• The mako shark is the worlds fastest shark and swims at speeds of up to 40mph.
• Most users aren't web experts, even vaguely so. We have to design for the majority who are still coming to terms with relatively simple ideas such as multiple windows.
• Use bullets to break up a paragraph, tick.
• Rob doesn't like cheese, which is odd because when he takes his trainers off in the conference room that's all anyone can smell.

Right. Getting hungry now. There's a nice little Argentinian restaurant round the corner that's got my name on a t-bone.

Bon Apetito.