I am the local ambassador for Toledo, OH, USA (read my personal blog for the Toledo user experience community). I am also on the UXnet board and enter in a lot of content on this site for many other locales.
Website: http://instone.org/
| January 15, 2009 | ||
| 6:30 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
Armin Vit will speak about “More than pixels” at the next Columbus Society of Communicating Arts meeting at Knowlton Hall, on the campus of The Ohio State University.
A good designer cultivates the ability to tease out the core of a client’s business, brand or message. “It’s more like being a shrink who has good taste in graphics,” he’s observed.
See cscarts.org for more about Armin and the event.
| January 14, 2009 | ||
| 6:30 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Daniel Alenquer, Lead User Experience Designer, ASUS will talk on January 14, 2009, 6:30 pm, The Ohio State University, Scott Labs. Learn more at Columbus Ohio Usability Professionals Association.
Call for Papers on “Next Generation Experience Design” in the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 2009 Special Issue.
Guest Editors: Mark Blythe, University of York; Marc Hassenzahl, Folkwang University, Essen; Effie Law, University of Leicester.
“In the old days and by the old days I mean two years ago…” - Eddie Izzard
Youtube, Facebook, Second Life, Wikipedia, Google Earth and even Google itself are all less than a decade old and yet for many they are as taken for granted and indispensable as books or pens and paper. It is not only the pace of technological change which is unprecedented but also the speed of distribution and acceptance. These technologies affect every aspect of our lives: work, play, sex, politics and religion. Small wonder then that studies of human computer interaction (HCI) have adopted a term as wide as “user experience” to address their impact. HCI has begun to consider such areas as: fun, enjoyment, beauty, aesthetics and affect. As users become more concerned with the social and environmental impact of their technologies “user experience” is being conceived in still wider terms to include such topics as ethics, politics and sustainability.
“User experience” has become the default label for almost every study in HCI. It appears to have replaced usability as a focus for interaction design in both academia and industry. Courses in User Experience Design are offered at many universities and job titles such as “User Experience
Engineer” are commonplace. Yet there are a very wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches to user experience some of which are radically opposed to one another.
A variety of methods and techniques have been developed from social science disciplines such as psychology, which tend to break user experience into component elements in search for general models and rules. Others employ more holistic and situated approaches, taking contextual factors into consideration. These two types of approaches have their advantages and disadvantages - together they provide new opportunities to transform HCI into the practice and science of experience with technology.
This special issue will reflect the diversity of approaches to user experience and explore the limits of current methods. We encourage submissions of both empirical and theoretical work.
Possible topics include but are not limited to
The deadline for submissions is the 20th of February. Submissions may take the form of research papers or shorter technical notes and should be submitted electronically at the Journal’s Manuscript Central site.
Important Dates:
Paper submission 20th February 2009
Notification of Acceptance 3rd April 2009
Final papers due 28th April 2009.
Informal enquiries may be sent to: mblythe@cs.york.ac.uk
Also, see the instructions for authors.
| December 11, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
Bowl with us for the first annual AIGA Toledo Holiday Party at King Pin Lanes.
Please Bring:
1) a canned good item for The Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank
2) $5 (to go towards the cost of renting the lanes).
We encourage you to create bowling teams (if you are interested).
See the Facebook event page for more information.
| December 6, 2008 | ||
| 5:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
Join us for a holiday party at Garden Bowl, sponsored by the Wayne State Chapter of ASIS&T.
Garden Bowl is located on Woodward in Downtown Detroit, close to the Wayne State Campus in the Majestic Theatre Center. It is the oldest active bowling alley in the United States!
We are reserving space for a large group that will include pizza, salad, munchies, soda, and beer. If you would like to hang out with us, or come and meet new people plan on bringing $23 (cash please) with you. This cost will also include three hours of bowling and shoe rental.
See the Facebook event page for more information and to RSVP.
| January 7, 2009 | to | January 9, 2009 |
CodeMash is a unique event that will educate developers on current practices, methodologies and technology trends in variety of platforms and development languages such as Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP. Held January 7-9, 2009, at the lush Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio, attendees will be able to attend a world-class technical conference amid Ohio’s largest indoor waterpark. Nobody will frown if you show up in shorts, sandals, and your loudest t-shirt.
One presentation will be “A Programmer’s Guide to User Experience” by Josh Walsh.
See codemash.org for more information.
| November 17, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
“Refresh Events” will be hosting Gail Leija, at 7pm on Monday November 17th. The event will be held in the Art Bar at the Gladstone Hotel.
Topic: There has been a lot of discussion over the years about what exactly information architecture is. These “Defining The Damned Thing (DTDT)” conversations have been primarily around the What, rather than the Who. But who are these people? Where do they come from? Why are they often crossing over from other disciplines, abandoning the comforts of an established professional identity, to become the synthesizers, connectors and interpreters - sometimes referred to as glue people - whose reward for doing a good job is often that their contribution seems so inevitable that becomes invisible? And how long can they be satisfied with what is prematurely congealing into the role of “wireframer?” How can they leverage their previous experience, education and interests to offer more value to their projects and teams? And, finally, what is the career path for an information architect? What’s next after IA?
Join us for our third usergroup meetup, have a beer or three, network with some awesome people in the Interactive industry, and listen to some good music! Admission is free.
If you are interested in attending, please RSVP at Facebook.
| November 13, 2008 | ||
| 6:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Arizona professionals interested in hardware/software usability and human factors are invited to attend the second World Usability Day event in Phoenix. Please join this awareness and networking event designed to grow the Arizona usability community. The event is scheduled for Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 6:00 - 8:30 p.m. Seating and refreshments are limited, so you must RSVP to attend this event.
Cafe/Dining Room, 2233 West Dunlap Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85021
Admission is FREE. Food and Drink Provided.
RSVP Required!
Please RSVP with number of attendees, including name,
title, and e-mail address to: theo@theomandel.com
| December 6, 2008 | ||
| 9:30 am | to | 5:00 pm |
Visit to The Henry Ford with your User Experience colleagues. See the special exhibit “Out of this World” and other parts of the museum (and Greenfield Village if the weather is good).
More information and RSVP at the Facebook event.
| November 7, 2008 | ||
| 1:00 pm | to | 6:00 pm |
User research Friday (”Advanced research methods. And drinks.”) will address the topic of “What does user research accomplish?” in the form of a half-day conference on November 7th. The election will be over, and the economy will still be screwed, so what better time to relax, have a drink, and listen to discussions about what research really accomplishes in the technology world? If you do research as part of your job, especially if you work a web job, come hang out!
Talks:
We’ll be serving complimentary beverages and hors d’oeuvres during the sessions, with wine, beer, and juice.
See userresearchfriday.com for more information. Register early, seats are limited.
