Jeffrey Veen is doing a full day workshop the day before Web Essentials in Sydney called “Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps”.

It sounds like really good stuff – RIAs and Ajax stuff, user interaction and usability – and Mr Veen is, of course, the guru of all such things. Unfortunately I have to work Tuesday, and still make the long trek over to the Eastern states, so I won’t be going – typical!

Is it just me or has usability been one of the big topics this year? It seems even designers developers working on smaller projects have been thinking and talking (and blogging!) about it. Like it’s not only for people with big budgets and testing labs anymore. It probably helps that cool people like Jeff are out there talking it up too, because let’s face it, Jakob Nielsen isn’t exactly beloved in the designer community for being hip and happening. Anyway, usability combined with Ajax, the buzzword of the year, the workshop should be pretty interesting. *Sigh*.