May 2013: Design workshop

We’ve done design workshops in the past, and they’ve proven to be popular events where our uxWaterloo community has been able to design solutions for real-world problems in a highly collaborative hands-on session.

For our May event, we have another great project lined up for the design workshop treatment.

How can a physician or pharmacist know whether a patient understands the directions provided for taking their medicine? The question is even more challenging when the patient is a senior citizen. Kelly Grindrod, of the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy, thinks that a tablet app would be a great tool in answering that question. But what should the app look like? How should it behave? We’ll work in groups to generate ideas that explore possible solutions. We’ll even have some real-world users on-hand to work with on the design!

Bring your creativity and your curiosity!

Please note that this event is at the School of Pharmacy at King and Victoria in downtown Kitchener!

Register for the uxWaterloo May meeting. Hope to see you there!

Where and when

Tuesday May 21, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Room 7004, School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo
10 Victoria Street South (at King Street)
Kitchener, ON N2G 2B2

Sign up now to join the fun!

April 2013: Sound design for user experience

Designers continue to push the limits of mobile display while hardware manufacturers continue to expand the size of their devices’ screens. As hardware manufacturers reach the limits of what constitutes a mobile device, interaction designers need to start thinking outside the screen by exploring alternative sensory pathways.

Anyone who has experienced the intrusion of music or sound effects on a website understands the drawbacks of audio interface objects. From a user’s perspective, sounds in websites and applications are an unexpected and unwelcomed intrusion that, in most cases, offer no additional information or value. For most UX designers, the emotional impact of audio makes the risk of turning away customers is too high to justify wading into the highly complex and technical domain of audio design. Many have simply accepted the old adage ‘silence is golden’ and abandoned audio altogether.

Patrick Noonan, of Akendi, will present audio design recommendations that target the limitations of mobile GUI’s. These recommendations will highlight the suitability of audio features on the mobile platform and illustrate how when the same user-centered design process traditionally applied to visual elements is applied to audio elements, the result is rich, immersive mobile experiences that can save your next mobile interface design.

Register for the uxWaterloo April meeting. Hope to see you there!

Where and when

Thursday April 18, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

Sign up now to join the fun!

March 2013: The story of Swearnet

If you’re a fan of the Trailer Park Boys, you will NOT want to miss this month’s event. Even if you’re not a fan, mark your calendar anyway because the discussion is guaranteed to be lively.

Introducing Swearnet

Mike Smith, Robb Wells, and John Paul Tremblay — otherwise known as “the Boys” — are Canadian actors and comedians you might know from the Trailer Park Boys, The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour, and now Swearnet. This month, we get an inside look at the design and launch of Swearnet.

Swearnet is a new channel for the the Boys to share their style of humour online. It permits them to keep ownership of their intellectual property and better monetize their lives as actors — in other words, they can own the business instead of handing it over to major media outlets and multinational empires. It also frees them from regulatory bodies such as the CRTC and FCC, which to their frustration impose limits on the number of times they can say ****, ****, or even **** *** **********.

Learn about the design and launch of Swearnet

Our guide for this journey is Dan Nedelko of ArtBarn and Honeypot Marketing in Cambridge. Dan has worked with the Boys to make Swearnet’s vision a reality, guiding the production of the website. He’ll share lots of juicy insights into both the design process and the outcomes of the launch, in a 90-minute meetup you won’t soon forget.

The design concept behind the launch of Swearnet is a lot of fun: in a series of weekly videos, the Boys create a narrative arc in which the Swearnet website gets designed and developed by Randy, one of the show’s characters. In each video, they harangue Randy for being such a terrible designer while resetting his priorities for the next week; and with each new video, the website itself changes to reflect Randy’s most recent work, which continues the cycle.

If you’ve ever complained about having a nightmare client, you’ll relate to Randy’s situation. Though it’s unlikely you’ve ever had a client speak so… well, so frankly of their feelings about your work.

Please register for this free event

WARNING: Expect to encounter LOTS of foul language! We’ll be showing videos from Swearnet that make it obvious where the site got its name.

Tuesday March 26, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Private room at The Barley Works
(upstairs in the Huether Hotel)
Note the location change. We are no longer in the Lion Brewery downstairs.
59 King St. North
Waterloo, Ontario

Reality was indeed augmented at our last meeting

Daniel Iaboni delivered a wonderful intro to designing for augmented reality last week at our February meeting at Felt Lab. Thanks again to Daniel for traveling from Toronto to generously share his knowledge with us. Thanks, too, to REAP for hosting us at Felt Lab, a perfect venue for this particular event.

Daniel has made his slides available on slideshare for those of you who want to able to review them, or who missed the event.

See you next month!

February 2013: Intro to Augmented Reality with Daniel Iaboni

The last few years have seen augmented reality finally breaking into the mainstream. Designers have an exciting opportunity to create augmented reality interfaces. To do so, they need to consider not only the context of use, but also the environment in which the information is presented.

Daniel Iaboni is dedicated to creating and improving designs to provide an exceptional interaction among users, their environment and their tools. To do so, he draws upon extensive knowledge from the fields of engineering, computer science, psychology and anthropology. In this session he’ll walk us through important concepts in designing for augmented reality, including input and display technologies, current interaction techniques, and approaches to prototyping.

Daniel is currently Lead User Experience Specialist at Akendi, where he works on projects for a variety of clients.

Thursday February 21, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
FELT Lab at Quarry Integrated Communications
1440 King Street North, St. Jacobs, Ontario
[Map]
Sign up now, as space is limited!

January 2013: Designing the restaurant experience

This month, we stretch our skills (and tease our taste buds) by getting an inside look at the role of design in the restaurant business. Many of the principles behind designing great experiences are universal, so there’s lots to learn by exchanging ideas with our compatriots in industries outside our normal fields of interest.

And as far as fields of interest go, it’s tough to knock great food & drink!

Jody Palubiski (Managing Partner) and Cindy Perri (Brand Guardian) of the Charcoal Group are hosting us at the newly-opened Beertown in Waterloo Town Square. Jody and Cindy will describe the goals, considerations, and challenges involved in designing the restaurant experience. They’ll cover ground such as the physical space, menus, logos and visuals, and more. Much of our time together will be open Q&A, so it’s a great chance to learn something new and to draw connections with your own design practice — regardless of the medium in which you work.

Come prepared to buy your own drink during this event, and there’s a strong chance you’ll find a nice selection of foods to accompany it…

Attendance is limited, so please register for this event!

Wednesday January 23, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Beertown Restaurant
(ask for UX Waterloo when you arrive)
Waterloo Town Square
75 King St. South
Waterloo, Ontario

December 2012 event: UX product potluck

For our December meetings we’ve featured a product potluck event in past years, and we’re resurrecting the beloved format for this month.

Our meeting on Tuesday December 18 will extend the potluck tradition with a relaxing and, almost certainly, enriching evening of conversation and bonhommie. Please join us for a potluck with a twist: instead of food, we’re asking you to bring a product. Make it a product that you either love or hate, because we’ll be sharing stories with each other about these products.

Here’s what to expect:

• You’ll have a few minutes to introduce your product and describe what you love or hate about it. If the product you want to share isn’t something you can physically demonstrate at the event (like a particle accelerator, a Wankel rotary engine, or a table saw), then bring something that helps you talk about the product.
• If you’d like to share software or a website, a laptop would be best, but a printed screenshot will do the job if technology is scarce.

If you’re hoping to attend, please register for the event. This will help us make an appropriate reservation, as we’ll be meeting at a local pub or restaurant. Thanks! Everyone’s invited, so spread the word.

Tuesday Dec 18, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
McMullans On King
56 King Street North, Waterloo

November 2012 event: UX on agile teams

Our November event is special, in that we’re teaming up with Waterloo Agile Lean to explore how UX works in an agile environment. Working together, we’ll share our collective experiences and insights in wide-ranging discussion. Amongst the questions we hope to address:

• Are their alternatives to UX designers working an iteration ahead of developers?
• How can Agile cross-functional teams think more about user experience using tools like personas?
• How can can designers, developers and technical writer/content designer work as an integrated team?

We’re sure that you’ll have many of your own questions, and bring your own answers to the discussion. Don’t miss this great opportunity for UX stakeholders and development stakeholders to share ideas, stories from the trenches, and useful tips and strategies.

Note that once again we’re meeting on a Tuesday this month, rather than a Thursday.

Where and when

Tuesday November 27, 2012
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

Sign up now to join the fun!

October 2012 event: Pub chat

Our uxWaterloo pub nights are very popular, as there’s plenty of opportunity to meet people, talk about UX, and generally relax in good company. Our October event plays to that popularity, and is a gathering at the Firkin at the Tannery. As usual,  there’s a shared love of user experience on tap, alongside the beer. Come on out and enjoy the fun!

Note that we’re meeting on a Tuesday this month, rather than a Thursday.

Where and when

Tuesday October 23, 2012
5:30 to 7:30 pm
Firkin at the Tannery
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

Sign up now to join the fun!

September 2012 event: Fluxible preview

As exciting as a monthly uxWaterloo event can be, the big user experience event in Waterloo Region in September is going to be Fluxible, which is happening on September 22 & 23. This very first Fluxible event features a great lineup of talks and workshops by UX experts from four continents! You may recognize speakers James Wu, Dan Szuc, and Whitney Quesenbery from uxWaterloo events. There are many more joining them for what organizers Bob Barlow-Busch and Mark Connolly describe as a UX party disguised as a conference. Plus, Fluxible has a theme song — how cool is that?

For this uxWaterloo meeting we’ll have a bit of a preview of Fluxible, with some special Fluxible guests joining us for a discussion around various UX topics. Hope you can make it out, and that you also consider registering for Fluxible.

Register for the uxWaterloo September meeting. Hope to see you there!

Where and when

Thursday September 20, 2012
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

Sign up now to join the fun!

One more thing. As a special offer to uxWaterloo folks, you can register for Fluxible and receive a big $200 discount over the regular price. What a bargain! Register now!