As expected, the day started off with Jared Spool’s keynote.  Always funny and provocative, his presentation was based on an expression the left everyone perplexed: “User-centered Design has never worked”.  After digesting everything he said, my understanding was that he questioned using UCD systematically in every situation, in every case, and on every project, without first asking whether all the steps and all the tools are really necessary or pertinent.  In fact, we already understand this and use the standard user-centered design method only as a toolbox here at Yu Centrik.

A few other interesting presentations filled the rest of the day.  Luke Wroblewski’s “Content Page Design Best Practices” is a good example.  He described how to optimize internal pages to compensate for the fact that a growing number of visitors are bypassing the welcome page.

But the strongest point of the Summit is the free exchange between the professionals attending.  For example, a wall of deliverables shares ideas for better communication of design solutions, allowing us to actively discuss why the creators chose one approach over another.

It’s also worth mentioning that our friends from Techsmith were present – as always – and also that Axure 5.0 will be available soon, though they are still working on a Mac version (according to the company representatives).