(November 2008) Agility and User Experience: The Final Frontier

Thursday November 20, 2008
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

Last year, at our 7-Minute Soapbox event, Declan Whelan gave one of the night’s most popular presentations, titled “Tips for integrating user experience and agile development” (if you missed the event, check out the video here). We’re happy to announce that in November, Declan will be exploring this topic far beyond a 7-minute time limit. So if you enjoyed his earlier teaser, be sure to join us next month!

Event description

These are the voyages of star-struck UX’ers. Our mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new ways to meld UX practices and agile development. To boldly go where no UX’er has gone before.

Well, perhaps a tad over-stated. But as agile development crosses the chasm and becomes mainstream in many organizations, there are significant challenges to putting in place effective user experience practices.

Declan Whelan will provide an overview of agile principles and practices, highlighting the potential dissonance that can arise when they’re combined with traditional UX methods. He will then draw on practices used by UX professionals on agile teams to show how these challenges can be overcome. Be prepared to rethink what you currently do to provide a leaner, more iterative approach that will deliver incremental value to stakeholders and users.

We’ll have plenty of time for discussions. So whether you are currently doing UX on an agile team, just testing the waters, or trembling in the face of working with agile teams, come on out. It is indeed a bold new frontier!

About the speaker

Declan Whelan is an active software developer and agile coach. He is also a professional engineer with twenty-five years of experience in a wide range of software industries including the financial, medical, educational, and manufacturing sectors. He has started three technology companies and has consulted with many other technology organizations in Canada.

Declan is a certified Scrum Master and a member of the IEEE Computer Society, Agile Alliance, and Scrum Alliance. His focus is on working in the trenches with teams to deliver better software value, quality, and time-to-market through agile principles and practices.

(October 2008) What can we learn about design from Pixar?

Thursday October 16, 2008
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

Event description

The product design community has long considered dramatic arts as a related discipline, albeit perhaps more of a distant cousin than a direct sibling. Brenda Laurel first explored this relationship in some depth back in the early 1990s, in her highly-regarded book Computers as Theatre. More recently, the arrival of NUIs (natural user interfaces) such as the iPhone has marked a renewed interest in dramatic concepts such as character and narrative — which can help any software interface come alive, regardless of its application or underlying technology.

Join us on October 16 as we take a close look at what might be the world’s most successful product design firm: the movie studio Pixar. Every film released by Pixar has been a commercial and critical success, something that no other studio can claim. Is it luck? Doubtful. In last month’s Harvard Business Review, Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, credited their success to “our adherence to a set of principles and practices for managing creative talent and risk”. Interaction designers can learn a lot from these principles and practices, despite designing different types of products.

Henry Chen (RIM) and Mark Connolly (Primal Fusion) will lead this group discussion about lessons to learn from Pixar. They’ll draw upon the recent HBR article and on Michael Johnson’s engaging keynote at UX Week in San Francisco. Michael leads the Moving Pictures Group at Pixar, where he’s responsible for the pre-production pipeline — a pipeline that feels eerily familiar to those of us designing software user experiences.

RSVPs not required

No RSVPs required this month. Hope to see you there! Feel free to spread the word, as everyone’s welcome.

(September 2008) "Innovation in Action" co-hosted with the Infusion Angels

We’re kicking off the 2008 UX season with a bang! Join us on September 30 for an event co-hosted with the Infusion Angels — where you’ll not only hear first-hand about Microsoft’s redesign of Office, but will get several chances to win over $3000 in prizes. Seating is limited so be sure to RSVP soon.

Tuesday September 30, 2008
4:30 to 7:30 pm
Accelerator Centre
Main foyer
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

Event description

Poster for the Innovation in Action event

Get inspired by two case studies of innovation in action:

• First we’ll hear from Jensen Harris about the thinking and design process behind Microsoft’s new Ribbon user interface, introduced in Office 2007. Jensen is Group Program Manager of the Office UX Team and was a key designer of the Ribbon, so he’s able to speak from personal experience about what it was like to design something that’s now used by millions of people.
• Next, the creative design team at Infusion Development takes the stage to talk about their work with Microsoft Surface, the interactive table that ushered in a new wave of commercial development in multi-touch (or NUI) devices. They will present demos of Surface applications they’ve built for clients in hospitality, retail, and government, discussing their designs and the challenges in building usable interfaces for this relatively new technology.

RSVPs required

Given the cool topics, the free food, and the great prizes, we’re likely to have a full house at the Accelerator Centre. Please RSVP if you plan to attend. To RSVP, send an email to Kayla Spiess at Infusion Angels.

So you think you’re a Guitar Hero?

Tech Capital Partners in Waterloo is giving you a chance to prove it, on June 24th. From their blog, where you’ll find full details:

Tech Capital is searching for the Ultimate Tech Guitar Hero. Is it you? Is it somebody you work with?

Show us your stuff at the 1st ever Tech “Guitar Hero” Competition, or simply join us for an evening of techraderie… A great opportunity to meet your peers and the founders of Waterloo Region’s most exciting and innovative, venture capital funded, technology companies.

(June 2008) Design Garage

Thursday June 19, 2008
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Accelerator Centre
Main floor networking area (aka kitchen!)
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

Event description

In this, our last get-together of the 2007-2008 season, we’re wrapping up with an interactive, entertaining, and (gasp!) even educational event. Working together in small groups, we’ll tackle two design challenges: one at a strategic level, designing the concept for a product or business idea; and one at a tactical level, designing the form and behavior of a concrete product.

We’ll have some fun with this, as the design challenges will be quite unlike anything we face in day-to-day work (they’re remaining a secret until the 19th, so nobody gets a head-start!). At the end of each challenge, we’ll present our solutions to each other for a brief critique — and in the process will learn some new ideas about how to tackle design problems, even the ones we do face day-to-day.

Everyone is welcome to participate! Please don’t feel you need to be a superstar designer — or for that matter, a designer at all. With only 20 minutes for each design challenge, all you’ll need is some imagination, a willingness to encourage each other’s ideas, and a desire to learn and have fun.

RSVP

RSVP is optional, but if you know you’ll be attending, please fire us an email. It’s helpful to know approximately how many people to expect. Feel free to invite anyone you know who might be interested.

(Note: No need to RSVP again if you’re a Communitech member and have already done so via Wanda Eby.)

(May 2008) User Experience Design at Microsoft

Thursday May 15, 2008
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Accelerator Centre
Main floor networking area (aka kitchen!)
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

Thanks to our co-host for this month’s event, the Infusion Angels Innovation Centre (sponsored by Microsoft) — who will serve refreshments and give away prizes throughout the evening. Woot!

Event description

How is Microsoft changing its culture from engineering driven to experience first? What are some cutting edge human-computer interaction projects at Microsoft Research? What new applications are available to me?

In this session, join us as Qixing Zheng, Microsoft Canada’s first User Experience Advisor, answers these questions through insights and real-world examples. Qixing will describe Microsoft’s efforts to create a seamless user experience across all its platforms, while enabling designers and developers to work more productively together. She will also discuss various academic-focused design programs at Microsoft, different job opportunities in User Experience Design, and some innovative technologies being adopted in the UX industry.

Here are some useful links:

• Microsoft Design
• UX technology platform: Silverlight & Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• Design tools: Expression Studio
• DreamSpark
• Imagine Cup

This free event is open to everyone, so spread the word to co-workers or friends who you think would be interested.

RSVP

To help us estimate numbers for ordering refreshments, please RSVP to the UX group coordinators if you’re hoping to attend. (Note: No need to RSVP again if you’re a Communitech member and have already done so via Wanda Eby.)

(April 2008) Usability Lab Tour & Discussion at Research In Motion

Thursday April 17, 2008
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Research In Motion (RIM)
Usability Lab, first floor, RIM 1 building
175 Columbia Street (southwest corner of Columbia and Phillip)
Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 5Z5
[Map]

Parking at RIM

Although parking at RIM can sometimes be a challenge, it shouldn’t be a problem at this time of day. Security knows that we’ll be descending on the usability lab, so feel free to park in any available spot — even outside the designated visitor parking.

Event Description

Join us for a tour and demonstration of RIM’s usability lab. While snacking on coffee and cookies, we’ll hear about some of RIM’s work on testing their Blackberry devices and talk with each other about current methods in usability testing.

RSVP

To help us estimate numbers, please RSVP to the UX group coordinators if you’re hoping to attend. (Note: No need to RSVP again if you’re a Communitech member and have already done so via Wanda Eby.)

(March 2008) Driven to Distraction? Hands-on at the University of Guelph's DRIVE lab

Thursday March 20, 2008
6:00 to 8:00 pm
Note the late start time because we’re making a field trip to Guelph this month!
DRIVE Lab
University of Guelph
Building: Thornbrough 1311
[Directions and parking info]

Event Description

Are you willing to risk life and limb in a start-of-the-art driving simulator? Want to get hands-on experience with the very portable faceLAB eye tracking system, a competitor to the Tobii system we saw demonstrated in January’s meeting? Then join us at the University of Guelph’s DRIVE Lab (Driving Research in Virtual Environments) on March 20. You’ll get a chance to drive the simulator, try out faceLAB, and talk with the researchers about their work. To top it off, Auto21 will be supplying refreshments and food; so come with an open mind and an empty belly!

Thanks for the munchies, Auto21, and to DRIVE Lab’s Blair Nonnecke and Lana Trick for the offer to host us this month!

RSVP’s Requested

Due to space restrictions, attendance will be limited to 24 people. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to the DRIVE Lab Manager, David Wilson.

As usual, this event is free and open to anyone who’d like to attend.

Need a ride? Able to offer a ride?

Please use the comments for this blog post to either request or offer a ride. It’d be great to reduce the number of cars heading to Guelph and offer a chance for people without a car to join us. We suggest leaving your email address in your comment and connecting directly with each other. To reduce the risk of spam, use a format such as myname AT mydomain DOT com.

Directions

The DRIVE Lab is in Thornbrough 1311 on the University of Guelph campus.
A map and parking info is available here on the University’s website. Note the lab is midway down the building on the side opposite to the busloop, beside a door to an external parking lot.

(February 2008) Interaction08 Redux

Wednesday February 13, 2008
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Please note the DIFFERENT DATE AND LOCATION this month:
Terapath Inc. (That name is changing to “Primal Fusion”, as noted on the door sign)
258 King Street North, Waterloo
Unit #7 (upstairs from University Pharmacy and King Tin Chinese Restaurant)
Parking: in spots around the side and back marked Terapath, on nearby side streets, or in diagonal spots in front of the building next to the sidewalk
[Map]

Event description

If you’re unable to attend the Interaction08 conference starting February 8, never fear! At least three of our group’s members will be there and next week, right after their return, you’ll be able to experience the conference vicariously. Sandra Loop of Sybase, Navid Sadikali of Agfa, and Robert Barlow-Busch of Terapath will serve up a buffet of highlights, anecdotes, lessons learned, and practical tips gleaned from the conference’s many sessions.

Interaction08 is a landmark event. It’s the first annual conference of the Interaction Design Association, one of the organizations with whom our group is affiliated. The conference has attracted 250 designers from across the world, with keynotes from experts such as Alan Cooper and Bill Buxton (Go Canada!). Check out the conference website for a glimpse of the topics that Sandra, Navid, and Robert are likely to cover.

If you’re attending Interaction08 and would like to share your experiences too, please let us know!

As usual, this event is free and open to anyone who’d like to attend.

(January 2008) Eye-Tracking Forum: "What should we make of this?"

Thursday January 17, 2008
5:00 to 6:30 pm
Please note we’re NOT at the Accelerator Centre this month:
Quarry Integrated Communications
Brand Experience Lab (Ground Floor)
180 King Street South, Waterloo
[Map]

Event description

Has eye-tracking “crossed the chasm” from cognitive science to a mainstream
professional tool for understanding and improving user experience with
digital interfaces? Is it a god-send or a gimmick? And has the usability
field seen such a polarizing discussion since the bickering began on sample
sizes?

This informal event will begin with a brief presentation on how eye-tracking
is currently being applied in Quarry’s usability practice, followed by a
panel discussion including practitioners and academics on the potentials and
pratfalls of this technique.

Confirmed speakers

• Dan Skeen, Quarry
• Blair Nonnecke, University of Guelph
• Glen Drummond, Quarry