Cameron Moll’s Authentic Boredom and CSS Mastery are standard reads here at the Lab. If you’re not yet aware, Cameron has a new book coming out in one week entitled Mobile Web Design, which we’re sure will be worth picking up.

Cameron says about it ...

This is the book that ... contains more than 40 full-color screens from several mobile devices (including iPhone).

This is the book that includes what I feel is only the most important and relevant information — roughly one-third the length of most tech books — but, I believe every bit as thorough and helpful as lengthier volumes.

It’s available for immediate download in PDF format on the 28th, and there are some fun giveaways for getting it early.

Cameron’s post
The official site with sneak peek

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Earlier this week, I was lucky enough to spend the day engaged in thought-provoking discussions with our industry leaders at Adaptive Path’s annual UX Week 2007. Although I was only able to attend for a single day, there was more informative and thought provoking discussions to keep my brain churning for the rest of the week.

While the topics varied from usability and prototyping techniques to agile process and accessibility, the theme was clear: we can join in finding solutions to the challenges we confront in the evolving web industry. Last weekend at BarCampDC, I spoke about some of the obstacles visual designers face. At UX Week, that sentiment was reinforced as we talked about the rise of technologies like JavaScript, AJAX, and RIA —and their impacts on usability, interfaces and documentation. I quickly realized that these challenges are felt across all disciplines (information architects, experience designers, visual designers, and developers) of our field. Throughout the day, we discussed how to adapt to these trends so we can be better user experience designers and, in the end, simply create better products.

Jared Spool’s “Making Smart Clients Usable” was among the most engaging and entertaining presentations. He talked about how the “cool features” of client-side technology can be abused and reminded us that audience research is essential to avoid this cluttered user experience. Always ask, “Is this useful for the user?” Good usability isn’t only about taking away frustrations and structuring the way your internal team thinks best; it’s about adding “delight” and intuitively leveraging what the end-user needs. He used Netflix as a prime example of a company that has successfully integrated user research and feedback in their processes.

Stephen P. Anderson’s presentation on Creating the Adaptive Interface was personally thought provoking. Stephen believes that established products can flourish if they evolve intuitively to provide a personalized experience to their users. Currently, most user interfaces are designed to fit a script that is “in a zone of safe mediocrity.” As designers, we are forced to make design decisions knowing that one approach is more desirable for one user group then another. Stephen argues that using an adaptive approach will allow designers to leverage various data and determine which approach the individual user needs. So, for example, under the adaptive solution, a beginning user might see more descriptive information about a product than a power user, who has already visited the site 100 times. Check out Stephen’s IA Summit presentation on Adaptive Interfaces for this and more examples.

Another fantastic discussion, “Using Prototypes to Visualize Interactions” came from David Verba of Adaptive Path. He mentioned that traditional wireframes can no longer adequately communicate issues and solutions in an age of rich AJAX features because any particular page can have some 27+ states. Instead, he prefers making prototypes (be it low-fidelity or high fidelity), which can deliver more impact and allow designers to explore divergent ideas with more detail than paper wireframes. He suggests that prototypes would be more cost effective when developed with an agile approach, especially in the case of a high fidelity prototype where the end product is production-ready, front-end code.

Leisa’s Reichelt’s session on the Agile Process & User-Centered Design was particularly interesting. (Pat and I just pitched a proposal for a SXSW talk on a similar topic. Fingers crossed!) Leisa argued that the traditional waterfall method is obsolete,—especially with large and technically challenging projects – because it makes unrealistic assumptions too early and doesn’t consider how designers naturally solve problems. Her solution is called the washing machine method, which is a combination of agile and user-centered design that incorporates user testing and feedback throughout the process. That testing and feedback harkened back to Jared’s Netflix example and further emphasized its importance in today’s evolving web industry.

Two other noteworthy highlights of the day included an exciting keynote demonstration of the Design and UI Behind the One Laptop per Child project and the release of Adaptive Path’s Charmr – The Design Concept for Diabetes Management.

The day ended with a panel discussion led by DC’s own Dan Brown . Panelists shared their experiences, discussed challenges (aside from RIA) and ways the industry has changed, and even shared what they look for when evaluating resumes/portfolios. I never imagined a single day would leave me so inspired, motivated, and, quite frankly, excited about our industry and the challenges we work to overcome each day.

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There continues to be a common misconception among some clients and designers that we must get anything “important” that we want our users to see above the fold.

For those who may not know what “the fold” is, it is basically the part of a web page you can see before having to scroll. The fold varies from user to user based on a number of variables – primarily screen resolution and the combined height of the menus and toolbars at the top of your browser window. While on a friend’s computer not long ago, I opened up her browser and there were nearly four inches worth of menus/toolbars at the top of her window. It was amazing the loss of screen real estate and, in this case, great attention to the fold wouldn’t have mattered. To the point ...

Milissa Tarquini’s post at Boxes and Arrows goes to great length to debunk the myth of the fold and builds off her very real experience and some very factual user data. It doesn’t throw concern for the fold entirely out the window, but brings us down to earth and puts the importance of the fold in proper contemporary perspective.

Some of the points that I found quite interesting are:

The technical considerations of designing for the web can (and do) change quite regularly; but, the human variables change at a slower rate. Sometimes, the human variables change at such a slow rate that we have a hard time believing that it happens. This is happening right now in web design. There is an astonishing amount of disbelief that the users of web pages have learned to scroll and that they do so regularly. Holding on to this disbelief – this myth that users won’t scroll to see anything below the fold – is doing everyone a great disservice, most of all our users ...

Screen performance data and new research indicate that users will scroll to find information and items below the fold. There are established design best practices to ensure that users recognize when a fold exists and that content extends below it ...

Jakob Nielsen wrote about the growing acceptance and understanding of scrolling in 1997, yet 10 years later we are still hearing that users don’t scroll ...

Research debunking this myth is starting to pop up, and a great example of this is the report available on ClickTale.com ...

The most basic rule of thumb (in considering the fold today) is that for every site the user should be able to understand what your site is about by the information presented to them above the fold. If they have to scroll to even discover what the site is, its success is unlikely ...

Stop worrying about the fold. Don’t throw your best practices out the window, but stop cramming stuff above a certain pixel point. You’re not helping anyone. Open up your designs and give your users some visual breathing room. If your content is compelling enough, your users will read it to the end ...

The biggest lesson to be learned here is that if you use visual cues (such as cut-off images and text) and compelling content, users will scroll to see all of it ...

Other relevant articles that Milissa cites:
Jared Spool’s Utilizing the Cut-off Look to Encourage Users To Scroll
Jakob Nielsen’s Changes in Web Usability Since 1994
ClickTale’s Unfolding the Fold

So, in general, as we continue to overcome the fear of the fold, it appears that our attentions can best be focused toward creating both engaging designs and compelling content that encourage users to explore the page and the site, and that opening our designs up a bit to create some “visual breathing room” might be the alternative medicine that our users need.

Know the trends, but also know when they bend or when they end – the web and users are constantly evolving, and so should our approaches.

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