Designers enact and shape the realities as they are in the present, and they create and realize new realities and future possibilities. Designers work on the contingency of the world as it is and explore the world as it could be. It is this designerly way of knowing and acting, which is at the core of the BIRD Design Research Symposium 2008 in Basel, bringing together experienced designers and distinguished researchers from various disciplines.

A collaboration of the Institute for Research in Art and Design, Academy of Art and Design, UAS Northwestern Switzerland, BIRD (Board of International Research in Design) and Birkhäuser.

LIFT is a series of events intended to facilitate and promote discussion about new technologies and their impact on our society. Next event: LIFT08 conference in Geneva, February 6-8, 2008.

Three full days of workshops, talks, social activities and discussions will take a look at the most important technological trends and the people behind them. A session on user experience focuses on anthropology.

LIFT gathers four main communities:

• Entrepreneurs, investors, and private sector professionals who come to develop their network, find new ideas and partners to take their projects to the next level
• New media professionals and designers who attend to keep an eye on the latest developments in business and society
• International workers from NGOs and the UN system who look for the latest trends in new technologies, and meet the people behind them
• Academics who enjoy the open and collaborative atmosphere to broaden their areas of research

The Second Italian IA Summit, “Information Architecture and Innovation”, focusing on how IA can drive interoperability and innovation in PAs, the Academia and the private sector, will be held in Trento, Italy, on November 16-17th. Everyone interested in Information Architecture and related disciplines is invited to attend.

The term “Internet of Things” has come to describe a number of technologies and research disciplines that enable the Internet to reach out into the real world of physical objects. Technologies like RFID, short-range wireless communications, real-time localization and sensor networks are now becoming increasingly common, bringing the Internet of Things into commercial use. They foreshadow an exciting future that closely interlinks the physical world and cyberspace - a development that is not only relevant to researchers, but to corporations and individuals alike.

The conference will be the first that brings leading researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry together to facilitate sharing of applications, research results, and knowledge. The three-day event will feature keynotes from industrial and academic visionaries, technical presentations of cutting-edge research, reports on the user-experience from seasoned practitioners, panel discussions on hot topics, poster sessions summarizing late-breaking results, and hands-on demos of current technology.

Read more at Internet of Things 2008.

“A Survey on Software Engineering and UI Design in Switzerland” by Ljiljana Vukelja, University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil.

The results of a descriptive online survey conducted among Swiss software developers regarding their engineering practices with a special focus on the design and development of user interfaces will be presented. This enables an insight into the everyday life of a software engineer and can lead usability practitioners, project managers and clients to a better level of cooperation in designing user interfaces through understanding how software engineers work.

See usabilitynet.ch for more information.

Herzlich Willkommen zur zweiten deutschen Konferenz für Informationsarchitektur, die am 9. und 10. November 2007 unter dem Titel „Information Raum geben“ bei der Hochschule der Medien, Stuttgart (HdM) zu Gast ist. Die diesjährige Konferenz bildet gleichzeitig das Programm des 6. Symposiums für Informationsdesign und wird gemeinsam vom Studiengang Informationsdesign an der HdM und dem Institut für Informationsarchitektur veranstaltet.

Die HdM freut sich auf die Impulse und Synergien, die durch den diesjährigen Fokus auf das Thema Informationsarchitektur mit Spannung erwartet werden und bietet der deutschen IA-Konferenz eine ausgezeichnete Infrastruktur.

See Usability Netzwerk Schweiz (in German).