Online gaming is huge. I tried to find out just how huge is huge, but I had a hard time getting up-to-date statistics. According to an article on BNET about online gaming statistics, 200 million people were playing online games in August of 2007. Most of those people were playing action/adventure/roll-playing games, puzzles, and sports.

But with so many companies climbing on board to produce games, many end up with sub-par user experiences. Mark Hurst of Creative Good started a list of games with great user experiences. It’s a lengthy list of games ranging from 2005 to present. He has even taken the time to jot down if the game has a long or quick playtime.

There are of course the classics, like Hearts. But Mark has taken the time to identify his favorite version of online Hearts: Yahoo! Hearts. But Mark has also found odd games like Fishing Girl. As the site describes, in this game you get to “[r]eel in those fish one by one as you attempt to save a boy who’s trapped on the other side of the ocean.” Here’s what Mark says about this game: “Very nicely designed fishing game with a clever payoff.”

For anyone thinking of following the trend, take a look to see what sets some online games apart.

In today’s world, it’s hard to take time out of work and life to attend conferences. And in today’s economy, many of us are opting to save the money needed to attend these conferences. But for anyone who missed the 10th Anniversary IA Summit that was held in Memphis, TN on March 20 through 22, you can still catch some of the sessions online.

Several of the staff at Boxes and Arrows captured many of the main sessions and posted them on their site. As of now, they seem to have posted everything except Days 2 and 3. But they have a message up saying that more sessions should be rolling in over the next two weeks, so hopefully those will get filled in soon. The conference theme was “Expanding Our Horizons”.

Michael Wesch opened the conference with a keynote address about “fresh and ambitious direction for all designers”. I also like how Boxes and Arrows embedded the IA Summit’s music theme at the top of each page. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a conference (at least not a usability conference) with it’s own jingle.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the IA Summit, here’s a brief description from the summit’s website:

The Information Architecture Summit is the premier gathering place for information architects and other user experience professionals. It’s grown from a special interest group’s efforts to define an emerging field, to a rich and expanding community of practice shaping and informing multiple disciplines. You don’t have to be an IA or User Experience professional to enjoy the Summit. You simply have to love the art and science of structuring information.

View a full schedule of the 2009 IA Summit.

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, TX. My colleagues and past attendees told me it was a “must attend” event and I have to tell you that it was great fun, exciting, inspiring and, of course, productive.  Full disclosure – Webgrrls International was a media sponsor for the event

The SXWSi team put together an amazingly well organized and coordinated  conference featuring five days of thoughtful and thought provoking sessions, amazing people to meet  and really fun parties. According to the SXSW team, “the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology”. Kudos to the entire SXSW team…I though it was great…

As a first-timer, the conference could have been overwhelming had I not attended the How to Rawk SXSW: The Basics, which is a panel geared to first-time attendees, and focuses on how registrants can leverage all the different elements of the event to achieve personal and professional goals…I recommend this panel for all of the first-timers next year.

Lot’s of Sessions….

I attended sessions every day…for five days. Some of the sessions that really stood out to me were:

• Journey to the Center of Design led by Jared Spool, founding partner of User Interface Engineering. Jared discussed how user research affects design, the importance of measuring the right things, how to measure brand engagement, and 3 core UX (user experience) attributes for great experience.  Watch the highly edited version of the presentation:  Part 1 & Part 2
• Building Your Brand with Web 2.0 Tools with Saul Colt of Freshbooks, C.C. Chapman of The Advance Guard, Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs and Loic Le Meur  of Seesmic.  The expert panel discussed the importance of building your brand and how easy it is to do it now with all of the social media tools accessible to everyone.  They also mentioned that not every social media tool is right for every brand and the importance of choosing the right tools for your brand. Check out a the blog post from Kate who live blogged the session.
• How to Protect Your Brand Without Being a Jerk! With Twanna A Hines (funkybrownchick.com),  Elena Paul   Exec Dir ,   VLA, Oren Bitan   Atty,   HIQI Media, Eric Steuer   Creative Dir,   Creative Commons, Danny O’Brien  eff.org.  The panel discussed ways to protect your brand & content from copycats.  Check out this detailed outline for the session.

There were many more session that were great but these are the ones that stood out in my mind. You can also explore all of the archives of the daytime programming for this year’s event by checking out videos and audio podcasts.

Lot’s of Events and Lot’s of People to Meet….

There were so many parties to attend and I did my best to attend the best one’s…and I think that I did.

• The TechSet Meets The Rat Pack at SXSWi – this was my kick off party hosted by and brought together Microsoft.
• Frog Design – with wine and beer all around, this party was a huge gathering of almost every one at SXSW in attendance (at least it seemed it)…I had a lot of fun and met the most people.
• Conversify – with SweetRiot chocolates and MiddleSister Wine to set the tone, the conversify women threw an intimate soirée for a few of their closest friends…
• Kirtsy – this was an amazing gathering hosted by the Women of Kirtsy and Guy Kawasaki of Alltop.  I reconnected with all of the friends I made at the Mom 2.0 Summit and made some new ones.
• Tumblr – Tumblr hosted another huge event that was great fun and I met a lot of people who have become some new great friends

Here are some photos that I have taken of my week in Austin.

I found the most value in meeting the attendees, making new connections and re-connecting with the people that I already knew. I met some great people in the hallways between sessions, in the TechSet Lounge, at the parties, and even on the streets there were people to meet.

I have to say that the SXSW conference is a “must attend” event and I look forward to next year’s event and to seeing you all there….

We all want to grow and expand our brands, but a recent move by Tropicana reminds us why we need to make the shift slowly so we’re still recognizable to customers. Along with many others, I recently was perplexed by Tropicana’s new packaging.

A few weeks ago, I was heading to a friend’s house for brunch. I had been asked to pick up orange juice, and the host specifically requested Tropicana. I popped into my neighborhood grocery store and wandered to the OJ section, but I couldn’t find the Tropicana. After scanning the refrigerator shelves, I noticed a Tropicana bottle that said “100% orange pure & natural” and assumed it was a new organic version. I wondered if I should go to a different store to get the regular Tropicana OJ that the host requested, but I ended up buying it. When I arrived, the host was slightly disappointed that I got the special organic kind and not the tried and true kind, but we all drank it and liked it.

The next week while watching CNN, I saw a report on Tropicana and how their sales dropped significantly after they gave the orange juice carton a face lift. The Tropicana spokesperson was saying that they were switching back to the old design because customers complained that their grocery stores no longer carried Tropicana juice (which, of course, was not actually the case). I realized I hadn’t bought a new organic drink at all; I actually had bought the tried and true favorite but just didn’t recognize it.

Since then, I’ve seen several articles that mull over when to redesign a brand’s look and feel and how far to go. Most focus on the iconic orange with the straw sticking out, and people claim that customers would recognize a variation of a design that maintained those iconic images.

Today I came across an interesting new take on the situation. Khoi Vinh, the Design Director at the NYTimes.com, points out on his blog that usability is an important brand attribute as well. He compares the 15 old and new labels of the 15 different varieties of OJ (no pulp, some pulp, with calcium, etc). The old labels used different colors to represent each variety, while the new labels relied on the writing on the package.

Pepsi is a great example of a brand that has been able to reinvent its logo over and over to stay current while still staying recognizable. Many ommented about how the latest iteration resembles the Obama logo.

BNet recently made the case that the new Pepsi logo actually looks like the old Diet Pepsi logo, which means it has a great mix of old and new.

We all need to keep our brands and our websites fresh and exciting, but Tropicana’s experience is a good reminder to make sure we’re designing strategically.