Dan Cooney

Design Jam III (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

It’s design jam time again!  Our last two browser design jams were a great success, and our events were featured in a Mozilla Labs blog post: http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/10/concept-series-design-jams-at-university-of-michigan/

SOCHI and SCSI now bring you the third design jam in our browser redesign series, answering Mozilla’s call for participation.

WHAT: Prototype or create storyboards for your ideas for improving or
redesigning Firefox
WHEN: Thursday, November 13, 6-8PM
WHERE: Design Lab 1, Duderstadt Center (North Campus)
RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=33711718121

Please indicate via the Facebook event if you will be attending so that we have an accurate count for ordering pizza.

We will also be having a vote for the best mockup or prototype.  There will be great prizes and recognition for the winning team!

Submissions should be sent to lizblank@umich.edu and must be received by midnight on Thursday November 20th.

—
More information about the event:

You don’t have to be a Firefox user or an HCI student to attend. Everyone is welcome.    Pizza will be provided, as well as a chance at free Firefox t-shirts for anyone in attendance.

Haven’t prototyped before, or looking for an idea to work on?  Check out the latest post on the SOCHI blog (
http://sochi.cms.si.umich.edu/?q=content/design-jam-prototyping-and-storyboards-november-13th
) for some information about tools available and ideas generated in our previous design jams.

This event is sponsored by Mozilla and SourceForge.

Hope to see you there!
SOCHI and SCSI

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Design jam
Tags: SOCHI
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Learn More About Your Users with Less Time and Money: Remote User Testing and Research (Ann Arbor, MI)

At ProQuest in Ann Arbor, MI

User Experience Practitioners at TechSmith, maker of Morae and UserVue, Hernandez, Scott, & Wright have attempted a variety of unique methods of getting feedback from varied users in diverse locations. In their presentation, they will talk about how the practice of remote testing and field research has evolved alongside network technologies and conferencing tools. Now, researchers can visit and observe users in their offices or homes from their own offices or homes. The variety of networking tools available makes it less expensive and time consuming to gather more feedback from more users. They will discuss their own experiences conducting a variety of research methods remotely, as well as the tools and methodologies used, and challenges and successes experienced.

Barb Hernandez, Josephine Scott, and Casey Wright

When:
Monday, October 27.
6:00-8:30PM (Food and networking at 6, program begins at 7)

Where:
This meeting will be held at ProQuest in Ann Arbor, 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway, Ann Arbor, MI 48108

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=proquest+ann+arbor&fb=1&cid=15347453525386593868&li=lmd&ll=42.253108,-83.735905&spn=0.032464,0.073214&z=14&iwloc=A

Cost (includes food and beverage):
$5 Students, $10 UPA members, $20 all others

Register:
Please RSVP to events@miupa.org

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Detroit, MI, USA | UPA
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Introduction to Usability: An Interactive Discussion (Grand Rapids, MI)

“Introduction to Usability: An Interactive Discussion” will take place in Grand Rapids on Wednesday, October 22nd starting at 6pm. If you have heard terms like “usability” and “user centered design” and “usability testing” and so on and would like to learn what they’re all about, then this is a great opportunity to ask questions and get answers. To learn more, you can visit http://miupa.org/fresh/introduction-to-usability-an-interactive-discussion/

Please RSVP to jbornemeier@gmail.com for “Introduction to Usability: An Interactive Discussion.”

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Detroit, MI, USA | UPA
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Mozilla Design Jam - #2 (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

SOCHI and SCSI bring you the second design jam in our browser redesign series, answering Mozilla’s call for participation.

WHAT: Sketch your ideas for improving or redesigning Firefox
WHEN: Thursday, October 16th, 7-8:30PM
WHERE: Design Lab 1, Duderstadt Center (North Campus)

You don’t have to be a Firefox user or an HCI student to attend.  Everyone is welcome, but if you were unable to attend the previous design jam, we ask that you read through SOCHI’s summary of the event and check out the photos.  Bring your sketchbooks if you like, (especially those students taking 682, this might add valuable content to your design notebook,) or do your sketches on a whiteboard.  Snacks and swag will be provided, including a chance at free Firefox t-shirts.

This event is sponsored in part by SourceForge and Mozilla.

Hope to see you there!
SOCHI and SCSI

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar
Tags: design | Mozilla | SCSI | SOCHI
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Mozilla Design Jam (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

At the University of Michigan, Duderstadt Center, Design Lab One The SOCHI and SCSI student groups have joined together with SourceForge to bring you the school year’s first design jam. At the event, participants will answer Mozilla’s call for participation, which requests that we put our heads together to come up with revolutionary new ideas for a browser, from a simple improvement on how new tabs work to a more complete browser interface redesign. You don’t have to be a Firefox user or an HCI student to attend. Everyone is welcome to share browsing habits, frustrations, and ideas. The groups will follow up with the ideas generated at this event during two additional design jams later in the semester at which they will sketch ideas and create prototypes. This is an opportunity to build experience and portfolio materials in interface design and contribute to open source in a way that matters with no long-term commitment. SourceForge will provide T-shirts to all the participants. If you plan to attend, RSSVP on Facebook to ensure enough pizza for all ( http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=23492638077 ).

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Emergent | Local meeting
Tags: design | Mozilla | SCSI | SOCHI
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UX discussion and pizza with LA2M - The Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing Group

At next week’s LA2M meeting, Jamie Cope from N Formation Design will lead a discussion on “Engaging User Experiences”.

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Local meeting
Tags: LA2M marketing
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Features of Adobe Acrobat (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

The next Refresh Detroit <http://www.refresh-detroit.org> meeting will be 6:30pm, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at Ann Arbor SPARK in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. We are fortunate to have Adobe representative Doug Halliday lead the presentation.

Doug will highlight features in Acrobat, including creating PDFs, sharing, forms and usability. He’ll also discuss the new features in the upcoming Acrobat 9 version, due for release in mid-summer 2008. Adobe expert Greg Pisocky will join our meeting remotely to explain the accessibility features in Acrobat.

Location
Ann Arbor SPARK <http://tinyurl.com/6jt8nf>
330 East Liberty Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Doug Halliday is Business Development Manager, Manufacturing, at Adobe Systems Inc. In this capacity, he is responsible for driving customer awareness of Adobe solutions in manufacturing, developing partner relationships and formulating strategies with key customers, particularly in the automotive and heavy equipment sectors.

Greg Pisocky is a Business Development Manager in Adobe Systems’ Corporate Product Management Group. As an accessibility specialist, he advises Adobe’s customers on techniques for developing accessible content for those with disabilities.

For more information, visit the Refresh Detroit website
<http://www.refresh-detroit.org> .

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Detroit, MI, USA | Local meeting | Refresh
Tags: refresh detroit
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How Remote Contextual Inquiry Got Us Up-Close with Users (Okemos, MI, USA)

A presentation from Joanna Markel and Serena Rosenhan, ProQuest.

As members of the User Experience Design team at ProQuest, a company that produces information products for libraries, we wanted to know more about how our users approach research. While we routinely conduct usability tests and evaluations as part of our product development processes, we needed a new method to help us answer questions about the tasks and situations for which our products are designed. We turned to contextual inquiry and designed and conducted a series of field observations of college students doing library research. After conducting 13 rather time-consuming in-person observations, we modified our methods to remote online observations and quickly discovered that there were unexpected benefits to this approach in addition to time-savings.

Between the two sets of tests, in-person and remote, we gathered a wealth of data about our users that has impacted both our interface designs and our larger corporate culture.

In our presentation we:
* Share our experience with two methods of contextual inquiry (a more traditional approach and a remote approach), including tips for an easy approach with a big payoff
* Share selected videos to highlight the power of the research method for getting up-close with users
* Share how we used our study findings to improve user experience and drive organizational change
* Inspire attendees to try their own field studies

When
Wednesday June 4, 2008
6:00-8:30PM (Food and networking at 6, program begins at 7)

Where
Techsmith (here’s a map)
Okemos, MI

Cost (includes food and beverage):
$5 Students, $10 UPA members, $20 all others

Register
Please RSVP to events@miupa.org

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Detroit, MI, USA | Local meeting | UPA
Tags: MI-UPA
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3 Presentations with a Monkey (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

May’s Refresh Detroit meeting will be on the 21st, from 6:30 to 8:30 at the downtown Ann Arbor District library in Ann Arbor. Map to the location.

SPONSORED BY YAHOO SEARCH MONKEY DEVELOPER PREVIEW

TOPIC: There will be a few quick presentations by members of our great group, and general discussion on the latest news, challenges, projects, and ideas that the group members have encountered in their web related occupations/hobbies/activities.

The event like always is free to anyone who is interested.

The current speakers will be:

Nick DeNardis
Designer of the Wayne State University Library and Information Science website. He will discuss the latest release of the website, their goals, process and challenges.

Brian Kerr
Information architecture, user experience, and django development guru. Exact topic details to come…

Paul Tarjan - Yahoo! SearchMonkey
The fine folks at Yahoo! are sponsoring this event and promise to bring lots of swag as well as give a short presentation on their new open source semantic web search in your own applications and websites. This new product they are releasing is called “Search Monkey” and you can read more at:

http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000523.html
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/yahoo-open-search-platform-launches-into-private-beta/
http://searchengineland.com/080424-113600.php

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | Refresh
Tags: refresh detroit
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Second Life (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

Michigan Chapter of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (MI-ASIS&T)
Spring Meeting at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens
Second Life - Presented by Allison Brueckner, Technology Librarian, Dexter District Library

Thursday, May 15, 2008 from 3-5 p.m.
Matthaei Botanical Gardens http://www.mbgna.umich.edu/ – Small Meeting Room – Room 139
1800 North Dixboro Road - Ann Arbor, MI

Please join us for an interesting presentation, refreshments and a walk in the gardens.

The gardens are open until dusk. The Conservatory will be open prior to our meeting (closes at 4:30 p.m.). Conservatory admission is FREE for meeting participants. If you wish to visit the Conservatory, please stop at the front desk and let the receptionist know you are attending the ASIS&T meeting.

Be sure to return the Reservation Form below by May 9, 2008.
Registration is limited to the first 20 registrants.

Questions?: Please contact Robin Sabo, “sabo1r” at “cmich.edu”

Reservation Form:
Name: ___________________________________
E-mail Address: ____________________________
Phone: ___________________________________

I am a member of (circle all that apply):
ASIS&T,
Special Libraries Association (SLA),
Medical Library Association (MLA)

_____ $8 for Members of ASIS&T, SLA or Medical Library Association
_____ $5 for Students
_____ $10 for all others

Please enclose a check made out to Michigan ASIS&T and mail to:
Allison Brueckner
7249 York Street
Dexter, MI 48130 “Allison.brueckner” at “comcast.net”

Reservations must be received by Friday, May 9, 2008

Posted in ASIS&T | Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Local meeting
Tags: second life
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