A: Users, traffic, and hits.

Yes, this is only one example of the side-splitting humor you’re missing out on by not attending this usability conference. (Actually, that’s not fair: Jared Spool gave a very entertaining keynote after lunch. Though he really needs to let his beard grow back.)

Today comprised the aforementioned lunch and keynote, plus four 90-minute talks which I chose from the eight offered. The first one had lovely slides featuring photos taken at Millennium Park, a fine enough theme (turning data into design), and even one cool case study (the redesign of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh — and I recommend checking out the photos behind that link, because it looks like the place I fantasized living in when I was a little kid — only not so much candy and no pet tiger named Pearl), but unfortunately the speaker couldn’t compete with my lack of both sleep and coffee.

I had promised to let my boss borrow my badge for Kim Goodwin’s talk, which bummed me out a bit but was certainly a fair trade for the budget dollars she smilingly handed over so I could attend the conference. I noodled around the MIT Coop for awhile, hoping to find some blue Parker rollerball refills and instead buying a Zebra Kendo and a sweet little Japanese notebook. I spent the rest of my time in a corner of *$$ reading the presentation I wasn’t attending and listening to Kate Bush, Jane Siberry, and Enya. (Perhaps they were using their soundtrack CD as an example of graceful degradation?)

It’s interesting to queue up for the ladies’ room during a usability conference. The usual commentary quickly veers into recommendations for redesigning the space. “Why don’t they reserve the men’s room for 10 minutes of every hour so women can use it?” “Or put in another set of restrooms on the far end of the foyer?” “You know they have the plumbing to build more stalls in here.” “And what’s with this ‘lounge’? Totally useless.” “I know, there’s all this empty space but yet still no good place for the line to form.”

Next was lunch (what a friend would describe as typical wedding food — chicken-lump). I found an empty seat and struck up a conversation with a nice man who was even more introverted than I am. It was with great relief when Rebecca, who was working one of the booths, sat down next to me. Lunch was followed by Jared Spool’s keynote, which contained much love for Netflix and Jon Stewart and SharePoint dissing. (”Using SharePoint is like saying to someone who wants to build a new house, “OK, I’ll drive you to Home Depot. Everything you’ll need is here — now go for it!”) I loved the next talk on web editing by Gerry McGovern. It whetted my appetite for his information architecture seminar tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I picked for my last session a discussion of ethnographic studies to drive mobile phone design — Kelly Goto was a great speaker and I could totally imagine having lunch with her, and the topic was fun, but it was also completely irrelevant.

I skipped the martini reception in favor of getting home and into pajamas. (I did talk to a vendor for a bit so I could get a free pen. Tramp.) Good thing, too, as it turned crazy Nor’Eastery out there shortly after I got home.

In closing: So happy to discover that the Angels whomped the godless Yankees last night!