Designing the User Experience at Autodesk

Follow-up from "Agile UX Method Adaptation" half-day course at CHI 2012

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:52:54 -0700

We would like to thank the attendees of the half-day course at the CHI 2012 conference, “Agile UX Method Adaptation,” for their energy, attention, and thoughtful questions.

As mentioned during the course, here are a collected set of references mentioned during the course, beginning with the refreshed series of slides:

Slides from "Agile UX Method Adaptation"
Desirée Sy and John Schrag, UPA 2011.
“Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-Centered Design”
Desirée Sy, JUS, May 2007. http://tiny.cc/agileUCD (or Sy_agile-ucd.pdf)
“Case Study of Customer Input For a Successful Product”
Lynn Miller. Agile 2005.
Agile manifesto
http://agilemanifesto.org/
Mike Cohn's site, http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/, has a lot of helpful information if you want to learn more about the Scrum flavour of Agile Development.
“Interaction Designers and Agile Development: A Partnership”
Lynn Miller. UPA 2006.
“Using Formative Usability Testing as a Fast UI Design Tool”
John Schrag. UPA 2006
“Using the RITE method to improve products; a definition and a case study”
Michael C. Medlock, Dennis Wixon, Mark Terrano, Ramon L. Romero, Bill Fulton.
“Formative usability investigations for open-ended tasks”
Desirée Sy. UPA 2006
“Usability Testing with User Proxies: When is ‘Close’ Close Enough?”
Desirée Sy. DUX blog.
Recurring user studies
“It's Not Rocket Surgery - First Fridays in the U.S. Government”
Nicole Burton, Steve Krug et al. UPA 2010
"Distributed Scrum Primer"
Pete Deemer et al.
"Taking Aim: The Power of User Experience Goals"
John Schrag, UX magazine, Volume 7, Issue 1, 2008

Method 20 of 100: The Magic Thing

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:00:00 -0700

100 User Experience (UX) Design and Evaluation Methods for Your Toolkit

by Chauncey Wilson

This is the 20th in a series of 100 short articles about UX design and evaluation methods. This entry focuses on the use of a prop called the “magic thing” that can serve as an ideation tool in the design of mobile, ambient, and ubiquitous systems.

Method 20 of 100: The Magic Thing
In a 2000 article, Guilio and colleagues describe various role-playing techniques that support the ideation and concept development of mobile services and devices. In their research, they asked participants to carry a “magic thing” as they walked around different locales and use it “to imagine how a portable device could support [them] in a particular situation” (p. 199). The rationale was that the use of a prop might provoke some novel ideas that would not emerge sitting around a table doing traditional group brainstorming. One common approach for this method would be to give people scenarios and then let them walk around a particular area like a city or building to imagine what kind of “magic” a portable device could provide. One scenario might be to find a restaurant in a city that you have never visited before that serves a certain kind of food and is quiet. Another simple scenario might be to envision software that would help you, a brand new employee, locate people with specific kinds of knowledge in a large office. In the graphic below a magic thing is used to evoke ideas about how context-aware devices might help someone in a strange city.

According to different sources, Jeff Hawkins, one of the inventors of the PalmPilot PDA, carried a small block of wood about the size of the Palm device with him to help envision how the device might benefit him at work (e.g. to generate a to-do list or use a calendar) and at home (e.g. to create a shopping list). The block of wood was his “magic thing” and provided inspiration for a generation of mobile devices.

Howard and his colleagues (2002) described “endowed props” that are rough physical simulations of devices that can used in role-playing The props can be used to provide some constraints on the ideas participants generate so the results are “plausible science” rather than science fiction. Howard et al. suggest endowing props with particular capabilities like speech recognition, one at a time, so as not to provide too much magic to the participants.

When to Use:
You can use a magic thing to:

Serve as a rough example of the form factor of proposed devices (e.g. a pen, tablet, phone, or clip-on device)
Complement scenario creation exercises
Add some fun and minimal constraints to role-playing studies
Provide a triggering function for ideas

Procedure:
The two articles referenced below provide several variations on role-playing or scenario enactment that involve magic things or endowed props. Here is a simplified procedure adapted from Howard, et al.

The design/research team introduces the participants (the actors) to a scenario that they are to act out. For example, the scenario might have you lost in a city like Rome after missing your tour bus.
The participants review the scenario with a member of the design team and personalize it to their own situation.
The participants act out a scenario without the magic thing.
The participants are given or choose a prop (their magic things).
They are told what magical powers it has (to start). For example, the magic thing knows where it is (e.g., has GPS) and has information about commercial establishments and ratings of service for many companies.
The participants and design team then engage in participatory role-playing where the magic thing can acquire new powers and lose old ones. For example, you might start with a magic thing that is location aware with information about services and then add a magic power like augmented reality where you visualize information as an overlay over camera images.
The sessions are recorded and the ideas that emerge are captured and applied to a new round of role-playing that expands on promising ideas. Here you take good ideas about how to build magic into a portable device and do a deeper level of role playing to get more specific ideas.

References:

Giulio Iacucci, Kari Kuutti, and Mervi Ranta. 2000. On the move with a magic thing: role playing in concept design of mobile services and devices. In Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (DIS '00), Daniel Boyarski and Wendy A. Kellogg (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 193-202. DOI=10.1145/347642.347715.

Steve Howard, Jennie Carroll, John Murphy, and Jane Peck. 2002. Using 'endowed props' in scenario-based design. In Proceedings of the second Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction (NordiCHI '02). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1-10. DOI=10.1145/572020.572022.

Book Review - Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:00:00 -0800

by Alison Kather

What is a meaningful customer experience? I know it sounds obvious, but I got halfway through the book “Making Meaning” before I really understood the full meaning behind it. The authors weave a magnificent blend of business and design philosophy into a holistic mantra on how experience should be the driving force of a company’s culture.

I found this book to be an inspirational perspective on today’s world. All three authors come from a marketing consultancy founded by Louis Cheskin in the 1960’s. Their experience dates back to the earliest years of market research (yes, think Mad Men) and contrasts this to where companies are at today. Consumers have so many options these days. Success is no longer about innovation or brand recognition, but has become about providing an experience that customers really want and value.

I do not think a seasoned UX practitioner will be introduced to that many new concepts after reading this book. Instead, they will be left with an appreciation of how those concepts can be directly applied to a business process. Designers will be reminded of how important their role has become. Their job is not done when a product is released; the UX professional must now identify all possible touch-points for a customer and ensure that the experience includes all of those areas in a meaningful way.

So how does a designer or a company go about creating meaning? The authors keep it fairly abstract. There is no deep dive into the concepts and some readers may end up with more questions than answers on how to proceed. To give the book credit, it does reference several companies as examples of success, including a fictitious company called Footworks. I also thought the authors did a good job of outlining an extensive flow of best practices.

Overall, I recommend reading this book. It is a relatively quick read and should give you a refreshing perspective if nothing else. You will find some meaning in Making Meaning no matter what.

Notes from UX Camp DC

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 03:00:00 -0800

by Ryan Arnaudin

Recently I attended the UX Camp DC unconference. For those unfamiliar with unconference or BarCamp events, loosely this means that the agenda for the day is open and participant driven. Any attendee can hold a discussion, workshop, or talk on a topic of interest. I’d like to share some of the insights, tips, and takeaways from the sessions I attended.

The Mobile, Global, Digital Revolution

Hilding Anderson, Sapient Corporation

Most will agree: we live in a time of rapid change. Information abundance and the proliferation of digital tools and devices has been rapid, and often taken for granted.

Hilding argues that mobile is the next wave of change in the digital revolution. He drew similarities between this digital revolution and the industrial revolution:

A painful [for some] restructuring of industries
More competition as technology increases. Performance gaps get bigger. Existing corporations can be disrupted by startups.
Out with the old, in with the new. Adapting is essential to survival.
Luddites attempt to stall progress.

Takeaway: We are in the midst of digital and mobile revolutions. Familiarize yourself with the trends and implications to understand how this may impact your business or industry.

Designing for the Future You

Dana Chisnell

Dana challenged us to re-consider including age on personas. As demonstrated in an interactive session, age can tempt the designer to make assumptions and projections, or use stereotypes that may be invalid and could lead to a broken design.

Instead of age Dana suggests ranking personas from low to high on attitude, aptitude, and ability scales in relation to the technology. This will help you create and gage designs for your users without thinking about age.

Takeaway: If a particular piece of information does not help you design for your users and/or is prone to stereotypes and assumptions, don’t include it in personas. One suggestion: replace age with attitude, aptitude, and ability rankings.

VizThink

Dan Willis

CC BY-SA Todd Wickersty

Dan hit with an interactive and high energy session titled “VizThink”. Together we explored how visuals directly impact the details of a message by studying one of the masters – Dr. Suess. We also proved that anyone can sketch/draw and that it is an informative way to convey ideas.

Takeaway: Visuals provide both context and attitude to the content they accompany. Also, they engage your audience!

Critiquing Critique

Jared Spool

As designers we are familiar with having our work critiqued, and critiquing others’ work. By critiquing the personal websites of attendees we identified critique approaches that did and didn’t work, and Jared used this experience to offer further suggestions and insights.

A common pitfall was for the critique to become a group design session with everyone offering their opinions on how to design the site. Avoid this temptation! Critique is not design and should instead attempt to separate “what” from “how” and focus on the issues. Getting to the rationale is what is important; designers are good at coming up with designs on their own.

It will also take some pressure off the presenter to establish roles for the critique session. Jared recommends 'critic', 'presenter', 'facilitator', and 'recorder'.

Takeaway: Critique is about surfacing the problem, not generating solutions.

Remote Collaboration

Jason Wishard

As someone who works with colleagues around the world, I found this session to be a good reminder of what makes a remote team successful.

Team work:

Stay social – make good use of email, Instant Messaging, Twitter
Don’t be camera shy
Have an “Open door” communication policy
Transparency is king
Communications must be actionable

Workspace:

Task out your space
Encourage focus - isolation and quiet

Virtual environment:

Close/hide apps during calls and presentations
Turn off notifications when appropriate
Set status and expectations

Takeaway: Successful remote collaboration requires three pillars: a great team, an effective workspace, and a solid desktop environment.

Going out to Eat

Jimmy Chandler

Jimmy’s session drew analogies between operating a restaurant and designing software. Restaurateurs know emotions play heavily into their customer experience and are masters at exploiting this. There is a lot we can learn from them:

Emotions change how we face and solve problems
Emotions are critical to learning, curiosity, and creative thought
Experience is more memorable than the product itself

Takeaway: Leverage customer emotion in the design of products and services.

Responsive Web Design

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:00:00 -0800

By Joshua Ledwell

Not long ago, designers optimized their websites for a single page width, and worried about supporting only two or three PC web browsers. How should web designers respond to today's world where mobile web devices are proliferating in dozens of different resolutions? In the fourth book from the A Book Apart collection, Ethan Marcotte outlines the Responsive Web Design approach that allows a website to embrace users' needs on any size display, all with the same underlying HTML.

Responsive web design involves implementing three components in a site's CSS files. Flexible grid layouts use percentage widths to maintain a page's proportions over small changes in resolution (like all the slightly different mobile screens out there). Next, fluid images scale to the containing layout. Finally, media queries rearrange page layouts on a macro level for classes of Internet devices such as phones, tablets, and PCs.

Together these techniques can make the web accessible and usable on almost any Internet device available. Examples of websites that have gone responsive include ThinkVitamin and the Boston Globe. However, the approach is not for everyone. Advertising-supported websites, for example, often are contractually prohibited from resizing or moving ad placements.

What sets this short book apart from a CSS manual is the author's empathy for traditional web designers grappling with the mobile web's ascendancy. Marcotte shows why mobile content should be different, and how to delight mobile users without coding an app or a separate mobile site. If you're a web designer or developer this book will have you thinking "mobile first!" on your next project.

Resources:

Book website: http://www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design

Summary article: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

Sample responsive website (pictured): http://responsivewebdesign.com/robot/

Method 19 of 100: Laddering Questions

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:00:00 -0800

100 User Experience (UX) Design and Evaluation Methods for Your Toolkit

by Chauncey Wilson

This is the 19th in a series of 100 short articles about UX design and evaluation methods. Today, the focus will be on the laddering question method, a semi-structured interview technique where you ask “why, how, what, and ‘tell me more’” questions multiple times to drill down, up and sideways to go from general to specific, specific to general, or from one item in a category to another item.

Method 19 of 100

Laddering questions can provide insight into attitudes, beliefs, and values that affect requirements, brand image, consumer preferences, and buying decisions. For example, you might be interviewing someone as she works with software in her office. During the interview, the person says, “This feature is great!” Then you would follow up with a “ladder down” question – “Why is that feature great?” The person might say “It saves me a lot of time.” Then you continue with another ladder-down question – “Why does it save you a lot of time?” The person replies that “I didn’t have to find the dialog box – I could just use the pop-up menu.” You could go further, but in this series of “why” questions, you have gone from a general emotional statement to one that gets at the underlying issue – a particular feature reduces the amount of movement and search time required to perform a task. Laddering is a way to move from surface statements to root causes, details that are actionable, or core values that might affect adoption or satisfaction or loyalty.

In addition to drilling down, you can also drill sideways and ask a set of questions that reveal multiple examples or categories related to a particular topic. For example, if you were interviewing a usability expert about what methods he uses to discover usability problems, he might say “usability testing.” You could then ask “Are there any other methods that you use to get at usability problems?” He would pause and say “pluralistic reviews.” You could drill down on “pluralistic reviews” and then drill sideways and ask for other methods that involve users, getting the answer “diary studies.” A combination of drill-down and drill-sideways questions can provide useful and persuasive data.

There are a number of methods that are based on laddering questions including the “5-Whys” method that is often associated with root cause analysis.

When to Use:

You can use laddering questions to:

Understand organizational culture
Complement other methods
Elicit and understand knowledge from experts
Elicit knowledge and details about a new domain
Determine details about how new features and product attributes affect the user experience
Produce data that are actionable
Link features and product attributes with user/customer values

Strengths and Weaknesses:

+ Laddering is a technique that gets at core values and the underlying reasons for particular behaviors or choices.

+ Laddering is a way to elicit semi-tacit information that might not be revealed by other UX methods.

- Laddering can be tiring for participants who are continually asked “why” or other laddering questions.

- Conducting interviews with many laddering questions requires a facilitator who can keep the participant engaged. People who use laddering questions need to be comfortable with the repetitive questioning style and be prepared to vary their prompts as needed.

- On some occasions, laddering can get into sensitive issues (e.g., how corporate politics affects productivity).

- Laddering questions assume that there is hierarchical information. In some domains, the information may not be represented hierarchically.

Procedure:

You can conduct interviews that are focused on laddering or you can use laddering questions as part of a more general interview protocol. Here is a high-level set of steps for using laddering questions.

Develop a small set of laddering probes that you can use in your study. Consider problems for moving down, up, and sideways. Here are some ideas for laddering questions:

“Why do you think that this product is “great”? (laddering down when a person makes a general statement and you want to get an underlying value, attitude, principle or rationale)

“Why is this important to you?” (laddering up when a person mentions a specific feature and you want to understand the higher level value of the feature)

“Can you tell me about similar/different types of….?” (laddering sideways to get examples or variations)
During an interview, you can elicit features, attributes, concepts, or constructs of interest. You could, for example, ask a person to list the features that she disliked the most or that are most important to productivity.
Ask the person to prioritize the list and then begin doing a “laddering interview” starting with the items at the top of the list. The person might tell you that she most dislikes the collaboration aspects of the product. You could then ask “Why do you dislike the collaboration aspects?”
Ask laddering questions until you get answers that have reached “the end of the ladder” or that are actionable.
Repeat the laddering exercise with the next item in the list or the next item in the interview where laddering is useful.

References:

Corbridge, C., Rugg, G., Major, N.P., Shadbolt, N.R. & Burton, A.M. (1994)
Laddering: Technique and Tool Use in Knowledge Acquisition.
Knowledge Acquisition, 6, pp. 315-341

Hawley, M. (2009). Laddering: A research interview technique for uncovering core values. UXmatters. Retrieved on January 20, 2012 from http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/07/laddering-a-research-interview-technique-for-uncovering-core-values.php

Rugg, G., Eva, M., Mahmood, A., Rehman, N., Andrews, S. & Davies, S. (2002)
Eliciting information about organisational culture via laddering. Information Systems Journal, 12, pp. 215-229

Sherlock, G. & Rugg, G. Using laddering and on-line self-report to elicit design rationale for software Proceedings of EASE & PPIG joint conference, Keele University, 8-10 April 2003 Addendum, pp. 453-472

The ‘5-Whys’ Method. http://www.mapwright.com.au/newsletter/fivewhys.pdf

What’s Next in the Series?

In the next post, I’ll describe the method of “Magic Things.”

My First Plug-In

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:00:00 -0800

My First Plug-In

by Lillian Smith

As architects become more knowledgeable about sustainable building design, they are becoming familiar with metrics such as Energy Use Intensity (EUI). EUI measures the energy a building consumes relative to its size and can be used to compare the energy use of different buildings. Users of our Conceptual Energy Analysis tools in Revit and Project Vasari are using EUI to compare simulation runs. Users often comment that an overwhelming number of results are returned by our analysis tools and they ask, "What do they all mean; why can't I just see this one EUI number really big?". They want a simplification of the complex data that we currently return which would highlight one particular piece of the data to make it easier to compare different designs.

I am an architect and user experience designer and have been working on the Conceptual Energy Analysis tools in Revit and Vasari for the past few years. Through this process, I, like many of our users, have learned a great deal about building science and energy use simulation and analysis. Interpreting analysis results is an exciting area for our field because there are many new user experience paradigms to explore. In addition to learning about building science, I have also wanted to learn more development skills so I could build and experiment more quickly with my own UI prototypes. I thought that building a simple app to display the EUI number really big might be a good beginner's development project. The new Autodesk My First Plug-In Training and a class I took on Expression Blend gave me the skills to get started.

As I worked on the project I learned how much I don't know about coding and why people get degrees in computer science! I was able to build a basic UI in Expression Blend, but the back end was still difficult for me. Luckily, we had really sharp interns over the summer who were able to help fill in the gaps to get my little app up and running. It was fun to be able to make tweaks to the UI myself and get results from simulation runs in this simplified UI.

Once the app was complete we handed it over to the energy analysis experts on our team to see if they might want to consider this prototype for use in our products. They brought to our attention some important points we had not considered. They felt that showing this one number in isolation, while seemingly simple and convenient, could lead users to incorrect conclusions. Just looking at EUI can be misleading. Actions like removing perimeter zoning from a building lowers the EUI, however this is actually harmful because it underestimates simulated energy use. EUI doesn't always paint the whole picture either: EUI can go down, but energy costs can actually go up if the mix of electricity (more expensive) and fuel (less expensive) changes. Our colleagues explained how important it is to understand the interplay of the results rather than just looking at a simple EUI number. We learned that while many users may want to see a simple number, they are better served by looking at a more comprehensive set of simulation returns.

While we ultimately decided not to include the app in this incarnation, in the future, I hope to build on the new prototyping and simulation analysis knowledge that this experience taught me. Then I’ll be able to redesign the app to include a wider set of simulation data that satisfies the user’s desire for better guidance from the data without sacrificing good building science.

On User Research at Autodesk University 2011

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:00:00 -0800

by Alan Millar

Autodesk University is a year-round educational resource for users of Autodesk products. Each year, right after Thanksgiving weekend, Autodesk University's flagship event brings together design professionals from around the world for classes, keynotes, product demonstrations, exhibits and networking events. And as it turns out, quite a few AU attendees also spend some of their valuable time improving the ease-of-use of Autodesk software.

When you bring 8074 users of Autodesk software and services together in one place, it stands to reason Autodesk researchers and user experience designers will also be there, analyzing as many users as possible. This year, 375 AU attendees participated in various user research activities that are critical to optimizing the user experience in Autodesk products.

Like Autodesk University, Autodesk research activities are year-round. At #AU2011, we conducted 140 individual activities such as interviews and usability studies, and 27 group activities ranging from focus groups to participatory design sessions.

In a participatory design session the SWSS team conducted, we prepared worksheets, cards and mock-ups useful for gathering individual input, understanding how users organize tasks and group information, and how users react to existing comparative and internal solutions.

For some additional participatory research examples, read about ACAD Design Jams in Eunice Chang's recent post.

I've found that whatever the study type, participants in these activities seem to walk away feeling as though they've really contributed something to the future of Autodesk products, and frankly, we feel the same way. Consider this post a thank you to all 375 of you who participated in our research sessions at AU, and to the hundreds more who participate year-round in our user research activities. We can't do it without you.

Quotes from a few participants:

"I'd like to learn Revit in two weeks...like a curriculum where you could log-in or have it pop up and guide us along."

“You are showing novice and expert, but there is a lot of gray area in-between. The system should understand based on user activity what is most important to offer right away.”

"I want the cloud to tell me where I can find solutions to problems I have. I want to know what my options are beyond what my personal experience tells me. I want to step out and tap into everyone else's experience and draw that back into my project.

Ideally the cloud will make us more informed about the decisions we make so that we make better buildings and improve the products we deliver. It would not just act like a storage device, not just speed up some of our processes, but actually make us better at design."

And one from one of our researchers:

"This year at AU, our team had the opportunity to speak with over a hundred users. Their interest in Cloud and involvement in redefining their work was extremely interesting. I feel that we'll see big shifts occurring in BIM, Cloud, and distributed work. We are always interested in hearing from our users and encourage people to sign up to participate in our studies at www.autodesk.com/usability"

Thank you to all our users from the user experience design and research teams at Autodesk.

AU Report: AutoCAD Design Jams

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:00:00 -0800

by Eunice Chang

On the Monday before Autodesk University (AU) officially kicked off, the AutoCAD UX team was hard at work brainstorming and co-designing with end users. We were piloting a new methodology, coined the AutoCAD Design Jams, where we collaborated with users to envision the AutoCAD experience in five years. After breaking up into small teams composed of 2-3 users and 2 AutoCAD UXers, we developed concepts that focused on three main topics. The pilot was wildly successful. Not only did our participants roll-up their sleeves to build out and present concepts that would be useful for them, we also had a couple folks from the software development (SWD) team join in on the action! Some of the feedback we received from our participants after the Design Jams included:

“What I enjoyed about the event was the ability to collaborate with likeminded peers in my industry and forward thinking product designers and programmers. This validated that Autodesk is not only actively listening to current customer feedback, but also looking ahead into future trends as it relates to computing technology.” - Shobit B., Principal
“I think that the session was nothing less than a rare and probably singular opportunity to voice our hopes and needs for future releases of the software. I've been using Autodesk products for 23 years and this has been the sole opportunity I've had to speak directly to team members who had direct effect on the user experience of AutoCAD. – Curt M., Owner/Editor
“It was the coolest event I had in AU :-)”– Basam Y., Digital Design Group
“I had a great time dreaming the future and creating a wish-list of what I would want in AutoCAD.”– Arzan W.

And in the words of one of the AutoCAD SWD participants: “It was refreshing to talk with customers, listen to their experience, their problems and how they envision a solution from Autodesk… I personally feel empowered and energized when I know my work is helping somebody specific. The Design Jam Session gave me [this] rare opportunity.”

Given the positive feedback, we hope to run more AutoCAD Design Jams in the future and will continue to include SWD!

HTML5 and CSS3 for Web Designers

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk team — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:00:00 -0800

by Alan Millar

Grab your popcorn, throw your dog a bone, adjust the lighting -- and otherwise prepare yourself for the briefest yet deepest of briefs on HTML5 and CSS3 and what it means to all of us in the WWW. In books one and two from A Book Apart, Jeremy Keith and Dan Cederholm put on a clinic about how HTML and CSS were dragged kicking and screaming into the 21^st Century. But before we go any farther, let us ascertain who you are and why are you reading this post, much less considering a deep-dive below the photic zone of markup and style?

I need to know if you really care WTF is the WHATWG? Do you lay awake at night replaying your carefully crafted argument for (or against) significant whitespace? Are you doing back-flips of joy because you may now wrap other elements inside a single a element?

So you’re moving from presentational to semantic markup but you haven’t found a way past the nuanced (and perhaps elitist?) comparison of b and strong, between i and em, and why big went obsolete while small survives. Before you even consider perusing the content of any web page do you nervously eye-track : ^ ? to your web developer toolbar to pre-verify that this hobo HTML has even validated???

May I ask what band was playing when you pulled off your first JavaScript rollover effect? When you dream, do your backgrounds scroll parallax in harmony with your dreamy electric sheep? Do you hanker for deep form styling? Waterboarding aside, are you gasping for subtly rounded corners?

If you answered yes, yes, yes to ANY of these questions, then the help you desperately need is at hand. So GET YOUR GEEK ON and read these books. Before I call your momma!

In HTML5 for Web Designers, Jeremy Keith begins with a wee tale on the fuss that led up to HTML5 (Chapters 1 & 2). He flies through the Rich Media markup of Canvas, Audio and Video in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is the whatup on Web Forms. Chapter 5 is nothing much…(unless your idea of game on is the semantic web that everyone keeps Yammering about). Finally, Mr. Keith lettuce-wraps it up with a down-to-earth review of things you can actually do today in HTML5 without smoking your browsers.

CSS3 for Web Designers is by Dan Cederholm. Now hold on, because this guy is really, really into space travel. And I’m guessing wine. And definitely design with a capital Dribbble. But without doubt Dan is best known for his uncanny command of stylesheets, the lingua franca of the presentation layer. He is pretty funny too, with handcrafted topics like “Navigating the Moon”, “Hover-crafting”, and ‘The Disappearing Gnome” sprinkled throughout his book like extra butterscotch on a jam donut. Sit up and take note CSS design intern and let it be learned that ingrained in this briefest of tomes Mr. Cederholm dispenses sage advice not just on how, but also on when one should...</spoileralert>.