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.

May 2012 event: A UX Q&A

Wow, could we have gotten fewer actual words into the theme for this month’s event? I think not!

This month’s Q&A session is, surprisingly, a format that we haven’t explicitly done before.

Do you have questions about some aspect of UX, but haven’t had a chance to find answers? Now’s your chance. Whether you’re wondering how to quantify the usability of a product, or curious about what card-sorting is, there’s bound to be someone in our extended family of UX practitioners and researchers who can shed some light.

Why use a pencil and paper to create prototypes? How does multi-variate testing work? What’s the difference between a wireframe and a prototype? What is it you want to know?

Bring your questions, your answers, and your willingness to engage in a group discussion with the uxWaterloo crew.

Details

Thursday May 17, 2012
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub
151 Charles Street West, Suite 100, Kitchener

Sign up now, as space is limited!

November Recap- Thinkering at the FELT Lab

On Thursday, uxWaterloo had the privilege of being one of the first groups to tour the new FELT lab.  We got a chance to practice “thinkering,” which happens when you tinker with technologies and think about how they can be applied to your daily life.

Our evening began with an introduction from students from the University of Waterloo’s Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP).  Our challenge was to get together in groups, and brainstorm ways that we could combine the various technologies in the lab with a tool called Apptui. 

Please click on the photo below to see a photo slideshow and the various technologies that we were able to play with.  Thanks to REAP,  Quarry Integrated Communications, and everyone who attended for such a fun and collaborative event!

(November 2011) An Evening of Serious Play at the New FELT Lab

Our November event is an exciting opportunity to get some hands-on play time with a variety of interactive technologies in the recently launched FELT lab, located in St. Jacobs. uxWaterloo is one of the very first groups to make use of this terrific new facility!

A digital sandbox for serious play

Founded by the University of Waterloo’s Research Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP), the FELT lab is designed to spark “research entrepreneurship” between UW students, faculty and industry experts. It focuses particularly on interactivity and responsiveness in digital display environments, and has numerous corporate partners who’ve brought some terrific toys to the table.

The lab is located in the offices of Quarry Integrated Communications, but has a separate entrance off King Street in St. Jacobs. Inside the lab, you’ll find a range of emerging technologies such as Christie Canada’s MicroTiles, GestureTek’s Cube and Kiosk, Float4’s interactive FX, and Kommerz’s Mixed Reality Interface (MRI).

And we’re going to have some serious fun!

uxWaterloo’s event will feature some hands-on creative, integrative thinking, and building. Guided by students from the REAP program, we’ll work in groups to brainstorm (and bodystorm!) unique combinations and innovative applications of the lab’s technologies. We’ll pitch our best ideas to each other while learning about all the lab’s capabilities and technologies in the process. And, we’ll be documenting the process and ideas on video, ensuring that our creative energy is captured for posterity.

Play! Create! Share! Learn! It’s going to be an awesome event!

Thursday November 24, 2011
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!

(September 2011) Tom Robinson on designing for novices, experts, and others

We’ve all seen the frustrations of novice users struggling with a piece of software not designed for them. Novices need features to help guide them through complex software. On the other hand, features designed to help novices may slowdown and frustrate expert users. Before we can design for novices and experts, we need to know how both groups interact with software. Knowing what novices and experts need from software, and which group we should design for, will help us decide what features to include and exclude.

During this session, we will look at who novices are, who experts are, and who’s in between. We will then have an extensive group discussion about which level of expertise people design for and how they approach design for that group.

Tom Robinson is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo. He is researching how people learn to use computer software, looking at the stages of knowledge that people pass through as they learn. Previously, he worked at Maplesoft and TD bank as a GUI developer. He has a bachelors and masters degree in Computer Science, also from the University of Waterloo.

Thursday September 15, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

RSVP

Our Google event is full

Wow! When we were planning our November 16 event on Lessons from designing at Google, we thought that there might be a good turnout. Well, we’ll certainly get that, as more than 80 people have registered already. As a result, we’ve had to close registration because the space simply cannot accomodate any more people. And, as it’s a workshop with group work on the agenda, it isn’t practical for us to move to another location.

Thanks to everyone who has shown interest, and be sure to check out our event the following week on User Experience at Research in Motion. It’s not full yet, but is filling up fast. Grab a reservation while you still can.

November 2010 meeting: User Experience at Research In Motion

We have a special treat for November.

Joey Benedek, RIM’s Director of UX Research, will discuss how RIM approaches designing the Blackberry user experience. Joey will discuss the importance of the UX to the Blackberry development process, basic outline of the process and the key disciplines that play a role. Come hear how the UX process was applied to the development of Blackberry6 with specific examples from the recent release.

Joey joined Research in Motion as Director if UX Research in the summer of 2009, just in time to kick off the Blackberry6 development effort. Prior to RIM, Joey spent 9 years at Microsoft spending most of his time in the User Experience organization for Windows finishing his career there as the UX Research manager for Windows 7. Originally from Canada, RIM has provided a homecoming for Joey who completed his graduate work at Carleton’s HCI lab.

Time/location details:
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

October 2010 meeting: designing mobile readers at Kobo

For today’s meeting we’ll hear from James Wu, UI Architect at Kobo, about making the transition from designing for a web/desktop to designing for a mobile user experience. Issues that he’ll address include smaller screen, touch screen, gestural UI, wildly different user contexts, and unreliable connectivity.

Kobo is a company dedicated to enabling people to “read any book, anytime, anywhere, and on the device of their choice”. To that end, they’ve created a suite of products that run on iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), Android smart phones, RIM BlackBerry smart phones, and even their own well-regarded Kobo eReader.

James has a great depth and breadth of experience, and is an engaging and generous speaker.

Time/location details:
Thursday, October 21, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

August 2010 meeting: paths to a UX career

For our August meeting, deep in the dog days of summer, we’re convening again at a local bar for an evening of  food, drink, and fine conversation. As a way of getting the conversational ball rolling, we’ll explore how each of us made our way into a UX-related position. For those of you not in such a position, we can look at ways in which a UX-oriented  viewpoint and techniques can be introduced into your current position.

Come on out and enjoy a night of camaraderie and UX chatter.

August meeting
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Barley Works, Huether Hotel, 59 King Street North, Waterloo, ON N2J 2X2

Please register for this UX Group event. Thanks! Hope to see you there

July 2010 Meeting: European Conference Highlights

Thursday, July 22, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

This month’s meeting focuses on highlights from the 2010 UPA and UX Lx conferences. James Stewart and Ryan DeGorter, two of our group members, recently attended these conferences in Europe. They will each present highlights of what they learned, with an opportunity for questions and discussion too. We’ve had some great discussions in recent meetings, and this month is certain to be no exception.

Topics under discussion will include:

• Do-it yourself usability testing, by Steve Krug
• Influencing Strategy by Design, by Luke Wroblewski
• Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE), by Richard Douglass and Carol Smith

Please click here to register for this UX Group event. Thanks! Hope to see you there.