Conference wrap-up: IRWD 2010
Ai had a great week at Internet Retailer’s Web Design and Usability Conference in Orlando. We’re still happily processing the many people, companies and ideas we encountered.
As in the past, Ai’s crack user experience team gave complimentary design consultations to conference attendees, ranging from major department stores to mom-and-pop businesses. We set up camp and enjoyed two busy days of consults.
More notably, Ai took a booth on the expo floor, a first for our company. We met a lot of interesting folks and learned plenty, which we’ll put to good use at IRCE in Chicago in June.
We also learned a lot from the conference itself, particularly from Lauren Freedman’s annual post-holiday metrics roundup. Among the news: 40% of the top 100 ecommerce sites held Gilt Groupe-style flash sales last fall; and of the 60% of sites that have instituted social networking links, fully (only?) 85% of them point to Facebook.
This author enjoyed a moment in the spotlight–two, actually–doing a pair of live website critique sessions on the main conference stage. Everyone from Big Al’s Aquariums to B&H Photo Video got in on the action.
But our proudest moment came Wednesday morning, when Jack Love, publisher of Internet Retailer, took the stage to show the room Ai’s designs for the new Internet Retailer website. We can share the news now: Alexander Interactive, creator of many sites in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, is now working on IR itself. We loved gauging the crowd’s reaction, which was similar to our own, and are diligently working on getting the site ready for a spring launch.
If you saw us at IR and want to follow up, drop us a line. See you in Chicago.