The DSE has created a handy Show Planner site for attendees and I started using it today.  Since my schedule is filling up and all, I have to a handy way of keeping organized.

It’s pretty good.

It took me a few minutes to figure it all out, but now I’m cooking.  Selecting those sessions I’m going to.  And the booths that I want to stop by.  It gives me access to everything on my mobile phone and even lets me request eDocs, which plays to my eco-friendly side.

The centerpiece of the site is an interactive map of the convention center and showroom floor.  I saw the same wayfinding map/tool on a touch screen monitor last year, (it was tucked away behind one of the customer service booths) and found it a bit clunky.  I’m glad that the DSE has migrated it onto their site because, despite its clunkyness, it is handy.  It allows me to search by exhibitor name and/or booth number or just click into the convention center for a floor plan.  I can poke around to the different areas of the floor, see where each exhibitor is exhibiting, and get a nugget of information about them in a click.  The information ties directly into my customized planner, for convenience.  Handy. 

Also, if I’m so inclined, I can search restaurants, coffee shops, and bars in and around the convention center.  Again, it’s a bit clunky, but the features are there and they’re usable.  Don’t know if I’ll use them, but if I need this information, I know one place I can find it.  (I’ll probably just use Yelp, though.)  Regardless, another handy feature.

But what is not handy is the non-scrolling-zooming feature + the non-grabbable-moving feature.  Perhaps it’s a limitation of technology and/or budget, but I found it frustrating.  If I were using my fingers to interact with this on a touch screen, I would expect all of this functionality to be fluid and non-linear.  I also found the absence of speakers in the session details not handy either.  I think it would just take adding a few more lines of content (with the speakers’ information) at the very least.  But hey, you win some and you lose some. 

All in all, this site is much more handy than clunky.  I think it’s going to help me out.