Workshops

Search Engine Marketing: How It Works, How to Do It Well & What It Means for Designers

Lance Loveday, CEO, Closed Loop Marketing
Amy Konefal, Director of Search Marketing, Closed Loop Marketing

Pay-per-click search engine marketing now accounts for almost half of all online advertising dollars, equating to over $15.5 billion dollars spent on search engine marketing in 2008. Expectations are that this figure will double within the next four years.

The growth in the online marketing arena over the past decade has created a huge demand for people who know how to run Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns and run them well. What does this mean for designers? While the need for people who know SEM is great, the need for people who know SEM and how to design and build web sites is even greater. Attain a strong skill set in both design and SEM, and you'll find yourself in a highly marketable position as a professional.

In this half-day workshop, you'll learn how to create a SEM campaign and how to avoid the common pitfalls. Strategies covered include account structuring, landing page design, keyword research, ad copywriting, bidding and budgeting, and analytics and reporting.

Through a live, interactive campaign build-out, you will learn:

• How search functions as a marketing component
• The difference between search engine optimization (SEO or organic search) and search engine marketing (SEM, PPC, paid search).
• Core strategies that make up an effective SEM plan
• Guidelines and best practices
• Insider tips on what works and what doesn't
• How to avoid common, costly mistakes
• How to measure a campaign's success through diagnostics and analytics

Packed with helpful tips, tools, and shortcuts that you can use to make your SEM life easier, this highly interactive workshop will teach you exactly what you need to know to put SEM to work.

Getting to Insights: A Radical Approach to Usability Testing

Dana Chisnell, Usability and User Research Consultant, Usability Works

Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

For many designers, usability testing has become a staple activity in the design process. Grab some prospective users, sit them down in front of the design, and gain the insights about what to improve. Sounds simple, right?

Yet there are still many organizations that aren't conducting regular usability tests. Is this because they "don't get it?" Is it because they feel that testing is flawed?

No. It's because creating an effective usability testing program isn't as simple as it seems. To integrate testing into their process, today's teams have to think beyond lab coats and fancy one-way mirrors. Instead, they need to focus on the insights that will help them choose the best direction for their designs.

In this workshop, usability author Dana Chisnell joins forces with the user experience researcher Jared M. Spool to break usability testing down to its bare essentials, showing you how to you can integrate testing into even the most financially tight and chaotic development environments.

Like most activities, 80 percent of the value from usability testing comes from less than 20 percent of the effort. In Part 1, "Where's the Magic?", Dana will deconstruct the testing process, drawing out those pieces that get the biggest return. You'll see how easy testing becomes when you have the right recruitment process, an effective moderator, and a solid planning technique. Even if you're already conducting regular tests, you'll learn ways to quickly extract key insights by optimizing your techniques.

Quickly distilling testing data into actionable design enhancements is what user research is all about. In Part 2, "Mining the Data for Gold", Jared will walk you through proven techniques for digging the most important elements out of your testing data. You'll learn how to combine qualitative and quantitative information, giving you the best of both worlds. You'll learn tricks for comparing multiple design alternatives, how to quickly build robust personas, and a 45-minute trick to bring a team to consensus on the most important design issues.

If it's important that every design decision you make be infused with up-to-date information about whom your users are and what they need from your design, then this workshop is a must-attend. It will change how you think about usability testing forever.

Adobe CS4 Focus Day

Greg Rewis, Worldwide Senior Evangelist for Web Tools, Adobe Systems
Stephanie Sullivan, Founder/Principal, W3Conversions

Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks: chances are you don't spend a day without using at least one of these Adobe tools. That's why we've assembled a full-day workshop packed with practical tips and how-to insights on the entire Adobe Creative Suite.

And not just the Creative Suite—the brand-new CS4. The newest versions of Adobe's industry-leading tools will soon be landing on hard drive near you, and they'll bring significant advances across the board. We'll have the very latest scoop—and from two of the most knowledgeable and engaging Adobe experts on the planet.

It's simple: If you use anything Adobe, you can't afford to miss this tip-packed, full-day workshop.