November 2013: Changing the way streets are designed

This month, our special guest is Cory Bluhm, who is manager of downtown development for the City of Kitchener. Cory will be sharing insights about the thinking that went into the user experience of the downtown Kitchener streetscape.

For decades, streets in North America have been designed around utilitarian needs, rather than user experience. Durability, vehicular access and infrastructure servicing took precedence over creating spaces that are attractive and inviting. But in 2010, the City of Kitchener completed the transformation of King Street – one of the first streets in North America to be designed entirely around user experience. Now, King Street has become the model for other cities, like Toronto, Buffalo, Guelph and Niagara Falls, who are building new pedestrian-focused streets. Learn about the thinking behind the new King Street design including the not so obvious changes that have helped breathe life into this street. For example, why do the sidewalks seem wider when in actuality they got smaller? Why does the street seem lively at night, even at times when there aren’t many people around? But be warned, you may never look at a street the same way again.

Please note that we’re meeting at Kitchener City Hall for this event!

Thursday November 21, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Kitchener City Hall, Conestoga Room
200 King St. W.
Kitchener, ON

Here are some parking options for City Hall.

October 2013: The state of UX in Waterloo Region

Thursday October 17, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

There’s no denying it: Kitchener-Waterloo is a happening, hopping place to be these days. We’re known as one of North America’s hotspots for technology startups. And despite some big questions about our anchor company (we’re still rooting for you, Blackberry!), new and exciting businesses are choosing Waterloo region as home. In the last 2 weeks alone, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced that Square is opening an office, and Google has decided to expand its presence by setting up a Motorola Mobility office.

With all this activity, we’re seeing a heightened interest in and demand for user experience design. Join us for a lively discussion about the state of UX in Waterloo region. If you’re new to the area, it’ll be a good introduction to the scene; if you’re an old-timer, come prepared to share some of your insights and war stories. We’ll cover such questions as:

• What local companies are interested in UX?
• Which of them have UX people/teams on staff?
• What kind of work is being done by local UX’ers?
• How has UX changed in our region over the last 10 years?
• How do we see our landscape evolving in the near future?
• What could we do to strengthen our local UX community?

Bring your questions and your own experiences. We look forward to a great discussion!

Fluxible draws experts to Waterloo Region from around the world

User experience has become a familiar phrase to just about everyone in the technology business. For companies looking to distinguish their products in a crowded marketplace, UX is the not-so-secret weapon for turning potential customers into raving fans.

But how do you create a great user experience? How do you set up a team or an organization to deliver it? How do you even break into the field as a career?

All these questions and many more will be addressed on September 14–15 at Fluxible, the UX party disguised as a conference. This is the second edition of Fluxible, a home-grown event in downtown Kitchener that has already developed a reputation outside Canada for its solid content and quirky sense of fun. Last year’s inaugural event was a resounding success, with cheers of encouragement from the audience when asked if they want it again in 2013. Well, here we are!

This year, you’ll enjoy talks and half-day workshops from some of the most respected and knowledgeable experts in their fields. Topics include the culture of design teams, the power of metaphor in design, starting out in UX, design that drives action, Lean UX, and much more.

With a mix of excellent content and ample opportunity to meet UX practitioners from around the world, Fluxible provides an immersive and enlightening weekend for everyone. Add a healthy dose of live music, art, and hand planes — and a great experience gets even better.

Whether you’re an aspiring designer, a practicing researcher, a hiring manager or startup founder, or just someone with an interest in learning how to design great experiences, Fluxible has something for you.

And it gets better. Fluxible has provided a special “uxWaterloo” promotional code that unlocks a $200 discount off regular registration. Don’t miss this chance at an exceptional UX learning opportunity. Register today!

StartupWeekend KW looking for UX mentors

Startup Weekend returns to KW on September 20-22, 2013 at the Communitech Hub. If you missed it last year, here’s your chance to get involved with a fun weekend-long, hands-on experience in which new startup ideas take form and come to life.

Communitech is looking for some UXers to participate as mentors during the event. Lend your expertise to the participating teams, make new friends and connections, and help create something awesome. Mentoring doesn’t necessarily require a commitment of the entire weekend. For more information or to express your interest, please email KW (at) startupweekend (dot) org.

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

The non-profit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend-long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups. If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now for the best weekend of your life!

September 2013: Making a career in UX

A career that focuses on user experience in creating products or services is one that is engaging, enlightening, and rewarding. It’s one that many people are attracted to, and yet, as a still-young field, it isn’t always clear what the best career path is, either when starting out or when trying to grow mid-career.

We’re here to help!

In this session we’ll have a group discussion on UX careers, led by a pair of people whose deep knowledge will benefit anyone interested in a career in UX.

Kate Wilhelm has been owning her development as a user experience practitioner since she became the first Information Architect at BlackBerry seven years ago. She creates opportunities to learn and grow through whatever scrappy means she can devise, both on the job and off, and finds ways to bring others along for the ride. At BlackBerry, Kate works on making it easier for developers to create apps for BlackBerry. She also works on bringing a user focus to projects and on building awareness and capacity for UX in her company and community. Kate is delivering a career-related workshop at Fluxible (September 14&15), Starting Out or Bulking Up: UX Circuit Training for Any Fitness Level.

Kristina McDougall has spent more than 15 years working with local software companies, delivering recruiting solutions, and also working directly as a software sales rep and consultant. Kristina leads recruitment and executive search for The Laudi Group, managing critical senior level searches for high-growth tech clients. It is her goal and passion to help the leaders of Canada’s tech sector, by connecting them with the talented individuals who will drive their success.

Bring your questions and your own experiences to this session, and together we’ll discover ways to illuminate your UX career path.

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

Where and when

Thursday September 12, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

August 2013: Another informal pub meetup

If July’s event wasn’t enough, we continue our lazy summer schedule with an August uxWaterloo session that features more informal talk and drinks! The laid-back atmosphere and conversations remain a welcome addition to any summer schedule. Join us!

Yet again, there’s a very good chance that Bob and Mark will provide an update on Fluxible 2013. There are some exciting things brewing!

Please register for this free event

Thursday August 15, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Patio at The Barley Works
(upstairs in the Huether Hotel)
59 King St. North
Waterloo, Ontario

July 2013: Informal pub meetup

It’s time to chase away those summertime blues with a July uxWaterloo session that features informal talk and drinks! We’ve done this before, and the laid-back atmosphere and conversations are a welcome addition to any summer schedule. Join us!

As an added bonus, there’s a very good chance that Bob and Mark will provide an update on Fluxible 2013. There are some exciting things brewing!

Please register for this free event

Thursday July 18, 2013
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Patio at The Barley Works
(upstairs in the Huether Hotel)
59 King St. North
Waterloo, Ontario

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