(March 2011) 7-Minute Soapbox on User Experience

Tuesday March 22, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

An evening of bite-sized ideas

This month, we’re harking back to our roots to repeat one of the very first events we held in 2007: the 7-minute soapbox. At this fast-paced event, we’re giving people a chance to share ideas about UX — for no more than seven minutes each.

If you prefer simply to take it all in, you’re welcome to participate as an audience member. But of course you’re sure to have the most fun by stepping onto the soapbox yourself!

Format

You get up to seven minutes on the soapbox to talk about anything related to user experience. At seven minutes: BZZZZZZT! You’re done. After each soapbox talk, we’ll spend a few minutes in discussion or Q&A.

Visual aids are not required, but feel free to use them if you’d like. We’ll have a laptop hooked up to a projector and speakers. If you have a Powerpoint or Keynote presentation, bring it along on a USB drive or email it to uxgroup@gmail.com in advance. The laptop will also be connected to the Internet if you’d like to demonstrate something online. Available browsers include Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Topics

Anything goes, as long as it’s related to user experience. Obvious choices might include design (product, Web, interaction, industrial), usability, and information architecture, but please don’t feel limited by those examples. Our field draws from so many disciplines that we couldn’t possibly list them all.

Want some ideas? Here’s a short list to get you thinking:

• Question something you’ve read recently.
• Make observations about current trends.
• Predict the future.
• Share a design problem you’re facing.
• Rant about a device you don’t like.
• Effuse about your favorite product.
• Show some results from a usability test.
• Relate an experience from work.
• Ask the crowd for advice on improving something.
• Perform an interpretive dance on applying game mechanics to enterprise software. (Someone please do this, it’d be a real crowd pleaser.)

No sales pitches, please!

Besides the 7-minute time limit, that’s our only other rule. Please do not sell anything. The goal of this event is to share ideas.

You’re welcome to demonstrate something you’ve worked on. In fact, we love hearing from each other in this way. But please do so in the spirit of teaching or sharing ideas: use your work to illustrate a more general theme or issue about UX.

RSVP and grab a soapbox timeslot