Susan Doran

MaineUX - Fall 2008 update & summer recap

hello, from the Great State of Maine™ ~

Okay…the ™ may be tongue in cheek, but Maine is a fantastic state, with a whole lot of UX going on! For example…

INTEREST SURVEY

MaineUX administered an interest survey to MaineUX discussion group subscribers–hauling in a 50% response rate!  Respondents indicated interest in the following event types:

• evening presentations, demos, talks featuring speakers from Maine and beyond (88%)
• show-n-tell (72%)
• skillshares (64%)
• design crits (48%)
• Pecha Kucha-like events (44%)
• barcamps/unconferences (40%)
• lunchtime brownbags (24%)

No surprise,  but the majority of  MaineUX respondents are “likely” or “very likely” to attend events in Maine closest to where they live and/or work (i.e., within a 1-hour drive). The top 3 locations cited as “most likely” or “likely” to draw attendees include:

1. Greater Portland area (96%)
2. area between Kittery to Scarborough (64%)
3. area between Freeport to Bath (64%)

A critical mass of UX professionals is located in or around Portland.  Yet it’s agreed that Maine is a great state, not only in terms of talent and creativity, but in terms of sheer size.   As such, 2008 MaineUX summer events were divided between the Southern Maine and Midcoast regions.  Future events may be further downeast to Bangor,  as well as in the Capital region around Augusta.

MAINEUX SUMMER  EVENTS

MaineUX threw 2 statewide events in June–one in Portland, and one in Camden.  In August TechMaine staged a UX event.

The June 4th MaineUX happy hour in Camden was–to steal a phrase from Boston AIGA–an awesome “agenda-less, free-form gathering of area creative folk.”

Amidst the rush of the waterfalls of Knox Mill, over which the schwanky Brevetto Kitchen & Wine Bar is perched, 25+ people turned up for drinks, snacks, and stimulating conversation on design, user experience, sticky conundrums, interesting projects, doing business in Maine, the thriving creative economy, aspirations for MaineUX…not to mention topics capturing the essence of summertime in Maine: lobster bakes, sailing, kayaking, climbing Mt Katahdin, Popham Beach, surfing, island treks, bands playing on the pier,  farmer’s markets, drive-in movies. The group decided to meet at least 2x a year, most likely partnering with local groups like the Midcoast Magnet, University of Maine School of New Media, Maine Entrepreneurs, AIGA Maine, and the most exciting agencies and design/dev firms in the region.

The Portland MaineUX event on June 11 was a kick-out-the-jams evening with interactive installation artist Amy Stacy Curtis, whose mantra is: “Without your participation, my work is incomplete,” believing her art can come into being fully only when the audience–whom she prefers to engage with as “participants”–interacts with the pieces themselves.

Overlooking Portland Harbor, as evening ferries and yachts glided into pier, a cream-of-the-crop MaineUX crew gathered for this extremely interesting event. Using interactive art as a metaphor for design in general–and user-focused interaction design in particular–Curtis’ talk and slideshow provided a retrospective of her collaborative artworks and evolving philosophy.  Together we explored the meaning and experiences around her recent lauded “emerging artist” exhibition at Colby College–a series of colored circles (sorted and arranged according to a series of algorithms) which museum participants rearranged and re-sorted in other patterns. With masters’ both in art and psychology Amy sites preoccupations with “the balance of order, chaos, and repetition” and learning when to cede control with [perhaps ocassionally reluctant] grace.

Additionally August found Maine UXNET Ambassador Susan Doran (yours truly) presenting to a packed house at TechMaine’s monthly Web Developer’s Users Group meetiing on Information Architecture 101: The Facets of IA™ (this ™ isn’t a joke, tho the author feels a tiny bit silly using it).

FALL 2008
So, how to follow up this stellar summer? with a cavalcade of amazing Fall events!

Here’s a sneak peak at what’s in store for MaineUXers and fans of MaineUX–details forthcoming!

________________________________________________________

MON • SEP 15
Social Media 101: Do I Really Need a Facebook Page?
6:00-8:00pm
TechMaine Web Developers Users Group
Westbrook ME
________________________________________________________

WED • SEP 24
Adriane Herman: Checking It Twice: Tracing the Trajectory from Intention to Action
6:00-8:00pm
MaineUX Presents!
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

TUE • SEP 30
Design Challenge
6:00-8:00pm
TechMaine Usability & User Experience Users Group
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

TUE • OCT 7
Setting Up Image Portfolios and Photo Galleries in Drupal - with Todd Woofenden
6:00-8:00pm
TechMaine Drupal Users Group
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

SAT • OCT 18
MaineUX Roadtrip - Amy Stacey Curtis in(ter)Action
3:00-5:00pm
MaineUX Presents!
Sanford ME
________________________________________________________

WED • OCT 21
Mark Schraad: An Evening of Design Thinking
6:00-8:00pm
MaineUX Presents!
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

WED • NOV 11

Aileen Cahill: 10 Marketing Myths UXperts Need to Know
6:00-8:00pm
MaineUX Presents!
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

WED • DEC 10
15th Annual Maine Technology Conference
8:00am-5:00pm
TechMaine
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

WED • DEC 10
2nd Annual MaineUX Fall Dinner
6:00am-8:00pm
Walter’s Cafe
Portland ME
________________________________________________________

Posted in Maine, USA
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TechMaine UUUG Meeting - UX Clinic (Westbrook, ME, USA)

The March meeting of TechMaine’s Usability / User Experience Users Group (UUUG) will be a “UX clinic” in which attendees can bring in a user interface to be evaluated, and learn from the evaluations of others’ interfaces. Feel free to attend, even if you don’t plan to have your user interface evaluated.

Door Prize: Registered attendees will be entered in a drawing for the new O’Reilly book, Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications, by Toby Segaran, First Edition, August 2007. You must register and attend to be in the drawing.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience Users Group. No charge, plenty of free parking. Location: TechMaine Technology Center, Westbrook. Visit The UUUG Web Site for more information.

UUUG is sponsored by IDEXX Laboratories, a worldwide leader in innovative products and services for veterinary, food and water applications.

Please register online to attend and to be entered in the door prize drawing. Please include your email address when registering, so that we can notify you if there is any change in the schedule.

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA
Tags: techmaine uuug
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Greetings from Maine!

There’s a growing UX community in Maine–that’s bringing together people interested in conversations with peers, convening around fun and skills-quickening professional events, and basically knowing who’s who and what’s going on in the great state of Maine. In service to that goal, an informal group called MaineUX is getting off the ground.

MaineUX is a community reflecting the “big-tent” of UX, usability, information architecture, design of many stripes — visual, interaction, UI, web, games, software, intranets, graphic, industrial — stretching across the frontiers of social networking, new media, collaborative tech, web 2.0, user-centric IT, search, findability, taxonomy/ontology, information design, creative content strategizy, SEO/SEM, online marketing and advertising, agile and nimble programming, library & information science, elearning, and more.

MaineUX welcomes everyone designing dynamic, memorable, and meaningful user experiences in Maine!

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KEY MAINEUX RESOURCES

maineux.org is a calendar of events in Maine and NH. Since we’re just beginning to think of ourselves in this way, there aren’t that many UX-specific events in Maine. The UX events we do have are awesome. The others are too: a hodge-podge of events we think may be of interest to the MaineUX community. We appreciate people throughout the state sending along events that should be on the calendar. In the future maineux.org may be one-stop shopping for events, job postings, announcements, discussions.

But in the meantime, we rely on its companion MaineUX Google Group as a forum for people to pose questions, compare notes, broach design conundrums, add 2cents to discussions, share cool articles and blog posts. Promote events, post, and hear about, job openings. Meet new people who actually get what we do for a living!

Every fall TechMaine (formerly the Maine Software Developers Association) holds an annual statewide IT conference. For the past several years, a track has been dedicated to Usability & User Experience—often featuring UX experts from Maine as speakers. In 2006 and 2007, as a volunteer to TechMaine, I organized the UX Track, and was wicked excited to bring in amazing speakers like Steve Krug and Carolyn Snyder, Tim Spalding of LibraryThing and John McGrath of wordie (both Maine start-ups), Gessica Silverstein from Molecular, Kyle Pero Soucy, esteemed luminary from NH, Beth Loring from Bentley Design & Usability Center, Sarah Bloomer, Cay Lodine, Ann Marie McCarthy, and more! (To promote the event, MaineUX created a separate mini-site for the UX Track)

Finally, the last Tuesday of every month is TechMaine’s UUUG meeting (User Experience & Usability Users Group). Held at TechMaine’s headquarters in Westbrook, it’s been a terrific focal point of UX activity in Maine! The meetings feature top-notch local UX practitioners and peers presenting on a topic of interest and relevance to the group, including:

• UX Clinic, inspired by World Usability Day’s staple usability expert review session for nonprofits
• Exciting presentations summarizing highlights from Cooper, Nielsen, and UIE conferences
• 10-minute topics - a semi-regular event - lightning fast and stimulating!
• UX in Agile vs User-Centered Design Environments
• Synergy: Usability and Accessibility
• Essential Fundamentals of Usability Testing
• Developing and Using Personas - highly interactive and session

You don’t need to be a TechMaine member to attend — and the meetings draw anywhere from an intimate 10 to 30+. Note: Registering ahead of time will get you entered into a drawing for an awesome O’Reilly book–given away at the end of every single meeting!

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Who knew that getting involved with MaineUX could mean building your professional library, building your contacts list, and building community in Maine! Join the discussion list, consult and populate the events calendar, come to UUUG meetings, check out MaineUX events, soon to appear in your part of the state — and stay in touch!

Posted in Maine, USA
Tags: LocaleWelcome | Maine, USA | maineux | techmaine uuug
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