MIX08: From Internet Explorer 8 to User Experience

There are now but six weeks left until MIX08. The conference will take place between March 5 - 7, 2008, at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Featuring keynote presentations from Microsoft Chief Executive Officer, Steve Ballmer, the General Manager in the Microsoft Developer Division, Scott Guthrie, and the Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures, Guy Kawasaki, MIX08 aims to be a conversation about the future of the web in Microsoft's perspective. The third edition of MIX08 is bound to bring to the table additional details about Internet Explorer 8, the next iteration of the Microsoft Internet Explorer proprietary browser, and the successor of IE7. But of course that there are additional aspects at MIX08 that deserve your focus. Such as MIX UX - a series of sessions centered around user experience.

"MIX UX, a three-day user experience track that debuts at MIX08, is dedicated to exploring and evolving the practice of user experience. Through unique content delivered by user experience thought-leaders, MIX UX broadens the content choices for designers and creative professionals to include broad and relevant UX topics that are not specifically related to Microsoft products and services. Each day MIX UX will focus on a particular theme, the sum of which exposes the essence of MIX UX: Discovery, Exploration and Inspiration. It is no coincidence that these qualities are also at the core of designing great products and software," reads a message posted on the MIX UX page.

ReStyle is an example of what has now become somewhat of a traditional CSS web design competition at MIX. If you want to put your CSS skills at work, then by all means put a design together, and make it in the top three. The prize is paid registration to the conference, on top of which Microsoft will add no less than three nights at the Venetian hotel and $1,000 for travel expenses. That's a total of $3,000 for a CSS design. And then, there's The Signal.

"Have you been listening to The Signal? Each week a new episode debuts featuring a speaker or MIX crew member talking about some of the upcoming coolness happening at MIX08. Listen to their interviews with Molly Holzschlag, Kip Kniskern, Jonathan Snook and others as we countdown to Vegas," revealed Qixing Zheng, UX Advisor, Microsoft Canada.