February 2016: Get hands-on with the award winning Palette

Join us this month to hear the story behind Palette Gear, a startup in the Velocity Garage that recently won top prize at the UX Design Awards in Berlin. Palette makes a very cool “personalized peripheral” system that augments mice and keyboards with physical buttons, sliders, and dials to provide fast and precise editing. Get hands on with the devices, which can be reconfigured in a snap thanks to their simple plug-and-play hardware design. Learn about some of the tough design challenges they’ve overcome in both hardware and software — and maybe even sketch some ideas for further improvements on the Palette team’s radar.

About Palette

Palette is a modular controller designed for creative professionals. You can snap together physical buttons, dials and sliders in any layout (they are magnetic!). The tactile and intuitive controller improves the efficiency for editing photos, videos or music. Palette can also be used to control any other applications and games using the keyboard and joystick mode.

Since the start in 2013, the team successfully participated in the HAX Accelerator (China), Velocity Garage (University of Waterloo) and the Creative Destruction Lab (University of Toronto). Palette has won several competition grants (e.g. Velocity Fund Finals, AC Jumpstart) and also placed 1st in the UX Design awards at IFA Berlin (2015). The company has also been funded by Extreme Venture Partners and SOSventures. Palette has been shipped to thousands of customers already and continue to sell more.

When and where

Thursday February 18, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub
Atlas/Matrix Room
[View on Google Maps]

Please register for this free event

January 2016: Melissa Bernais on designing for TV

This month, Melissa Bernais joins us to provide a view into the world of designing for TV. We’ll learn that TV is TV is TV – except when it’s not.

For the past five years, Melissa has been documenting mental models and designing software used by TV broadcasters and service providers, and she’s learned that while roles and responsibilities may be similar from master control room to master control room, there’s wide variety in terms of goals, needs, workflows, business model, industry structure, technological standards, and even political concerns. And that’s just in North America; add the rest of the world into the mix, and… oh man.

Knowing what the end game is isn’t always enough. Understanding how a customer needs to get there is everything. The fun includes:

• exploring the differences between Canadian, American, Asian, Australian and European broadcast business models
• figuring out how to finesse the goals and needs that these models bring in on-site & remote customer engagements
• disseminating that information out to Product Strategy
• incorporating those needs into tools that can be sold worldwide

Melissa will share what happens when a small UX team champions the need for customer research to a multi-national company serving an International customer base. She’ll talk about everything from finding and gaining internal, organizational trust and locating customers that you can talk with, to the language barriers, cultural differences, opposing priorities, and product frustrations that come with consulting directly with the people who buy the things you design.

She’ll also look at what happens when you need to distill a wide range of competing needs into products that accommodate current use patterns, anticipate future needs, and can scale to new, unforeseen methods of connecting people with content — doing all of this for customers in very different situations.

About Melissa Bernais

In her own words:

“Practicing UX for over a decade, I’ve had a lot of job titles – architect, engineer, designer. And while none of them are wrong, they’re not quite right either. I draw boxes. I talk with people. I solve problems.”

“UX is my second grown-ass person career. Looking back on things, I can honestly say that what I do now has its roots in what I used to do, and what I went back to school for – connecting people with what they want in the easiest way possible. I’ve worked in the music industry in sales, licensing and publicity, trained to become a librarian, and spent time both agency and client-side as a UX practitioner. It’s all been pretty great fun.”

“I have recently added a broken finger tip to my list of self-inflicted, completely avoidable, accidental injuries. Just a little bit about me, y’all.”

When and where

Thursday January 21, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub
Atlas/Matrix Room
[View on Google Maps]

Please register for this free event

September 2015: A design case study from Christie

We have something extra special this month: our good friends at Christie Digital are hosting uxWaterloo at their Kitchener headquarters!

Christie is known for their leading digital projectors, used around the world in cinemas, offices, conferences, and more. And while the content that’s projected onto big screens is, of course, what’s of interest to most people — we’ll instead be digging into the question of how do you control the projected image?

Join Chris Kirby and Alan Woo from the Christie design team as they show how the team went about creating a remote control for a new projector. You’ll see and learn about:

• Examples of early to late-stage physical prototypes
• Their design process
• Incorporating user research into the project
• Many logistical details of bringing a design to life in a large organization

This uxWaterloo session is part of a full week of UX events in Waterloo Region, culminating in Fluxible, which is happening on the weekend. Celebrate UX in our community!

Parking and building entrance

Please click the photo below for a zoomed-in aerial view of where to park and enter the building at Christie.

RSVP required

Note that registration will be checked at the door. Christie does some amazing stuff, and they need to be careful with visitors to their facility! We manage our monthly events at Meetup.com, so please join us there and register for this free event.

Tuesday September 22, 2015
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Christie
809 Wellington Street North
Kitchener, Ontario

May 2014 bonus event: Product Design at ZURB

We already have a terrific UX Book Club event happening this month on May 22. Register now if you haven’t yet done so.

But now there’s more!

Fluxible 2013 featured ZURB founder Bryan Zmijewski presenting on Design that Drives Action. This month, two of Bryan’s colleagues will bring a new talk to uxWaterloo as part of the ZURB World Tour.

The folks at ZURB have been practicing product design since 1998, long before people even realized they were building digital products and not just websites. Yet most companies are still struggling with the concept of product design in a digital world. But they don’t have to. In this special uxWaterloo event, learn how you can elevate your game and design online products that everyone will want to use.

Alok Jethanandani is one of ZURB’s stellar designers. He’s worked on several client projects and is the main designer on ZURB’s product suite of apps.

Rafi Benkual is ZURB’s Foundation Advocate. He works on the world’s most advanced responsive framework, helping others design responsively.

Thursday May 15, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

January 2014: Designing a product for Kickstarter

Andrew Gardner is an industrial designer whose love of pens and magnets led to the creation of the Polar Pen, an ingenious product that took Kickstarter by storm. Starting with a modest goal of raising $14,000, the project ended up raising over $800,000 by the time it closed.

Andrew’s approach to the project, and the various hurdles that he faced along the way, make for a compelling story with, valuable insights into the process of designing and bringing a new product to market. He’ll be sharing his story with us this month, and it’s sure to be an enlightening session!

Andrew’s design firm, INDIEDESIGN, has worked on projects for a variety of organizations, including Canada’s Olympic team. The company’s stated mission is to “take ideas and dreams and transform them into reality”. Aim big!

Thursday January 16, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

Help use design to improve rural health care in Guatemala

Last month we held a design workshop to brainstorm designs for a software tool that supports rural healthcare workers. This was in support of Tula Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit, and an organization it supports named TulaSalud.

Ray Brunsting, our guest from Tula, was quite happy with the design ideas that emerged and would like to go further. If any of you would like to continue with the design work that was started at the workshop, Ray would love to hear from you. Of course, this would be on a voluntary basis, but I can say from my own experience that working on a project like this is quite rewarding.

Can you help Tula on this design project? Please let us know, and we’ll connect you with Ray.

(April 2010) UX Show and Tell

Monday April 19, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 (Then drinks afterwards if you’re interested!)
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

A chance to share our work and learn from each other

This month we’re hosting our first UX Show and Tell, an event that’s become fairly popular with other IxDA and UX-related groups around the world. It’s no wonder, as it’s quite a lot of fun and is a great way to learn from each other.

Bring examples of anything from your work: research artifacts, personas, sketches, wireframes, design comps, prototypes, documents… anything goes. Tell us a challenge you faced. Or show us a problem you solved. Bring a question you have, or simply show off something you’re proud of.

We’ll keep things brief, so please choose only one or two pages from that 5-pound design specification. 🙂

Do I NEED to bring something to show?

No, it’s not required that you bring something to show. But we certainly encourage you do so, as you’ll be surprised how much fun it can be. Remember, you don’t have to show a lot. Even a single screenshot can be plenty. And yes, you DO have something that others would find interesting or valuable!

RSVPs requested

If you’re hoping to attend, please click here to RSVP via Communitech. As usual, everyone’s welcome to join us, so spread the word!

Join us for informal drinks and chitchat afterwards

After the event ends at 7:00, we’re planning to get together at a nearby pub or restaurant. If this sounds like fun, just hang out for a few minutes afterwards while we see who’s interested and decide where to go.

Beer and design conversation go together quite well

Well, the weather last Tuesday was frightful, with freezing rain turning area roads into sheets of ice. Even so, 6 brave souls found their way to McMullan’s on King for our second annual product potluck, and the resulting evening was delightful.

The products (either actual artifacts or printed representations) included a label maker, a musical shaker (much like a güiro), a beautiful field camera with a wooden body and brass fittings, a Graflex Grafmatic film holder, a magnetic strip interface used in hospitals, MP3 player ear buds, and a compact musical instrument tuner.

The range of products, and the curious and interested folks around the table, led to some wide-ranging discussions. In addition to the merits of the various product designs, we also had a great discussion about eye/face tracking systems for use in user research.

There’s a great user experience community in Waterloo Region, and an event like this really showcases the design thinking that is available to share. News about our January event will appear soon.

(December 2009) Annual Product Potluck

Tuesday December 15, 2009
5:30 to whenever!
McMullan’s on Kin
56 King Street North, Waterloo (enter off Princess Street)
[Map]

‘Tis the season to share, admire, complain, laugh, eat, and drink.

Last year we held our first “product potluck”, a chance to swap stories and get hands-on with some fun and frustrating products. It was so much fun that we’ve decided to make it an annual December holiday event.

Please join us on December 15 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. And the juicier the story, the better!

Some guidelines and tips:

• 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.

This year, we’re meeting at McMullan’s on King — because what’s a potluck without food! (Note the UX Group is volunteer-run and without a budget, so plan to pick up your own tab.)

RSVPs requested

If you’re hoping to attend, please help us make an appropriate reservation by RSVP’ing to Wanda Eby at Communitech. Thanks! Everyone’s invited, so spread the word.