Conferences from Thinking and Making

EightShapes announces UX deliverables workshop in August

Austin Govella — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:13:48 GMT

"EightShapes":http://www.eightshapes.com/, the user experience consultancy has announced a "UX deliverables workshop in August":http://www.eightshapes.com/workshop.php on 08/08/08. Led by documentation wunderkinds, "Dan Brown":http://www.greenonions.com/ and "Nathan Curtis":http://www.nathancurtis.com/, the workshop should be pretty awesome for helping you hone your chops. We've had them in at "Comcast Interactive Media":http://cimlife.com several times. Their workshops are very informative, well-paced, and educational. Well worth the $345. (Includes workshop, materials, and lunch.) There's "more info":http://www.eightshapes.com/workshop.php on the EightShapes website.

The U.X. health check, a Summit side conversation

Austin Govella — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:57:00 GMT

At Comcast Interactive, we've been working on a new method for evaluating our work. What's emerged, we've been calling a UX Health Check, and I think it might have a lot of potential.

So, while we're milling about the Summit with all you great minds, I'd like to talk to you about the Health Check and get your opinions.

What does it do?

The health check is a method for quantifying the quality of a user experience.

It can measure experience at one point in time, or be used in a repeated way to track the quality of an experience over time.
It can be used for any product or service.
It can measure very detailed feature-sets, or very generalized notions of service.

Where'd it come from?

The health check was created to help product management communicate progress and improvement to executives. Instead of measuring design, it measures how well your users interact with your experience.

What are the outputs?

A measurement of where you are now
A measurement of how your experience has improved or not over time
A recommendation for product managers on where the biggest problems and opportunities are

Interesting?

If this sounds interesting, catch me at the Summit, and I'd love to talk to explain how it works and get your feedback.

Practical prototyping: 2008 IA Summit Panel

Austin Govella — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:57:06 GMT

Sunday April 13th, I'll be moderating a panel on Practical Prototyping featuring Chris Conley, Anders Ramsey, Todd Zaki Warfel, and Jed Wood. They plan to show and talk about a range of actual prototypes, and it looks like it will be really interesting.

Presentation Info

Panel: Practical prototypingSunday April 13 2008, 1:30 - 3:00PM

Presentation description

Prototypes are a great way to involve customers early in the design and development process. With the decreasing barrier to entry and an increasing availability of tools today, like Flash, Fireworks, iRise, Expression, and an endless supply of JS/AJAX libraries prototyping should be in every interaction designers’ toolbox. So, why isn’t prototyping as common place in software development as it is in industrial design and architecture? The failure to include prototyping is rarely due to lack of skills with the tools, but instead naiveté about the kinds of prototypes to make and how to use them productively with colleagues and users.

This panel brings together a seasoned group of practitioners to discuss various methods for prototyping with a focus on why we don't prototype in software as much as we should and why we should be doing it more. We'll also discuss what's available today that makes it more accessible and easier today than it was a few years ago (e.g. JS/AJAX libraries, tools like Expression, Flash, Fireworks, iRise) and how to make better decisions about picking the right kind of prototype for the job.

Who Should Attend

Information architects of all levels will benefit from this panel discussion, especially those who are currently dealing with, or planning to deal with Rich Internet Applications or DHTML heavy applications of any kind.

What You Will Learn

When you leave this session, you’ll be equipped with a broader understanding of some of the more commonly used toolkits, reasons why you should be prototyping, how to prototype better, and a greater understanding of some of the pitfalls of prototyping.

Designing with patterns: Lessons from Yahoo! and Comcast

Austin Govella — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:00:00 GMT

Christian Crumlish and I will share design pattern lessons learned at this year's IA Summit in Miami. Christian will talk about his experience with Yahoo's design pattern library while I'll share what we've done at Comcast Interactive Media.

Presentation info

Designing with patterns in the real world: Lessons from Yahoo! and Comcast

Monday, April 14 2008, 11:45 - 12:30PM

Presentation description

Can you streamline web design and development with design patterns? Really? How?
Do patterns help or hinder agile user-centered design?
Do design patterns stifle innovation?

We’ll share what we’ve learned about bootstrapping pattern libraries from scratch and how to “extract” patterns from existing products. We’ll share stories (er, I mean real-world case studies) to illustrate ways pattern libraries can both aid and stifle innovation, how they help solve real-world web design problems, and how they support rapid production of common IA deliverables. We’ll bask in the glow of the “magic triangle” of patterns + code modules + wireframe templates that enable rapid prototyping and agile development, and then cower in the miserly shadow of the “iron triangle” of fast, cheap, or good. How to structure and maintain a pattern library? Check. We’ve got you covered. How do you trick… er… get people to adopt patterns and help improve them? What tools help you do this? Are wikis the answer? How far can you get with an open-source CMS, a boatload of other people’s mistakes, spit, baling wire, and wing and a prayer? To find out, come to Austin and Christian’s presentation where we’ll share what we’ve learned, what works, and what we will never ever do again at Comcast and Yahoo!

More information

You can find more information about the 2008 IA Summit at the conference website.

The International Conference on Managing Design in Global Environments call for papers

Austin Govella — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 11:18:00 GMT

The International Conference on Managing Design in Global Environments will take place on November 20, 2007, in Seoul, Korea. The Korea Institute of Design Promotion -- with the assistance of DMI -- is now seeking submissions of a broad range of papers that discuss the globalization of design and design management, including those focused on theory-building and empirical research as well as case studies.

All proposals must be emailed to the Scientific Committee Chairs by October 11, 2007.

For complete information about the conference, please visit the DMI website.