I've always loved the WritersUA (formerly WinWriters) Conference, and this year is no exception. I think that Joe did a fantastic job with this year's program...I've heard so many people say "I have to choose!", which is always a good sign of a great conference. The speakers include both old-timers and newbies, which is always fun. And the attendees have been wonderful to talk to and interact with. I've met several folks whose names are familiar (many are on HATT or TechWhirl or TCP), and it's so nice to be able to put faces with names. (Although, as I've discussed a couple of times here at the conference, I have a great memory for names and a great memory for faces...I just don't do so well all the time putting them both together ;-).)

Brian Walker and I gave our "Implementing Accessible Web Design" session today. Apart from the fact that we practiced with my laptop and then used his for the session ;-) (which means that we were doing some really quick testing right before we started), the session went great. Brian used JAWS to read the headings on the slides, and was nice enough to slow the rate wwwwaaaaaayyyyyy down (to 20%) so that we could understand it. (Brian's normal setting sounds like the old FedEx commercial with the fast talker!) We ran some demos that showed just how different accessible and inaccessible websites are...as a sighted user, I know that demos like this really help other sighted users understand. I had a great time, and I know Brian did, too.

The last day of the exhibition was today, and I think I managed to talk to everyone. As is usual at the WritersUA Conference, there was a lot of information on upcoming features (many that I covered yesterday), and I think we're going to see some really cool stuff in the next six to nine months from all of the vendors.

I did find an interesting post on Adobe's Technical Communication blog, where they mention that "There is an increasing trend of promising features in the later versions. This makes the comparison of HATs an exercise in futility. Also,a customer can use only what exists today, not what will come 12 months later." I agree with the first sentence...this year is the first time when I remember hearing so much about upcoming features (typically vendors time their releases to coordinate with the WritersUA Conference). And I think the third sentence is just logical...customers can only use what exists today. But I don't agree with the second...anyone looking for a HAT now will (hopefully) be comparing existing features, not those that have been announced. When the new features are released, they will then be available for comparison. (Altogether now...duh ;-) ) But the list of new features is, in my opinion, exciting (because it shows just what the vendors are planning on implementing and it shows the different innovations being considered).

Speaking of new features...RoboHelp will support both Windows Vista and Office 2007 in their next release, due out before the end of the year. I also heard today that Frame 8 will go to beta sometime in the next several months, and that a new product (kinda-sorta similar to RoboHelp for Frame) is under development. No news yet on the feature set, but that's OK...I can wait until it's released. (Given that I don't use Frame, I obviously won't be a beta tester!)

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. I'm going to attend several sessions, and then enjoy dinner with friends before our road trip back to San Diego.