Maine, USA

NH UPA May Meeting: Sneak Peak at Morae 3 and UserVue Demo

Topic: Morae 3 and UserVue Demo!

Speaker: Shane Lovellette, Morae and UserVue Product Manager - Techsmith

When you think of TechSmith Morae, you probably think of testing things on a computer screen—like a software application or Web site. But what about testing the iPhone user’s experience? Could Morae speed up and simplify a whole range of testing methods, from paper prototyping to in-depth interviews to focus groups? Could it enable unmoderated testing? The Morae development team is hard at work to support all these methods and approaches! In this session, we’ll pull back the curtain to give you a peek at what’s coming…and demonstrate specific use scenarios. We hope you can join us!

Shane Lovellette, the creator of Morae and UserVue, will be here from TechSmith to give us a demo and explain the benefits of using the new version of Morae and UserVue for conducting, recording, observing, analyzing, and presenting the results of in-person and remote user research tests.

When:
Wednesday, May 21st
Refreshments & Networking: 6-7:00 PM – Food & beverages will be provided.
Meeting: 7:00 PM – 8ish

Where:
Chordiant Software, Inc.
8 Commerce Drive
Bedford, NH 03110

Google map: http://tinyurl.com/43le9t

Summary:
The demo will cover how to: collect local and remote test session data, observe test sessions in local and remote environments, and analyze test sessions with the advanced analytical capabilities of the new v. 3.0 of Morae Manager (not out yet!) and UserVue. We will learn about automated and aggregated usability metric analysis, graphing and reporting, as well as creating video highlight presentations.

For those of you who already use Morae and UserVue, Shane will answer any questions you have about the products and give us all a demo of the new version of Morae 3.

About Shane Lovellette:
Shane Lovellette is the product manager for Morae and UserVue. Shane came to TechSmith with over eight years of management and production experience in video and television.

In 2004, Shane helped TechSmith introduce Morae, the first all-digital solution that records and synchronizes user and system data for the analysis of human-computer interaction. In that time, Morae has become the gold standard for usability testing and user experience research.

Shane holds a bachelor’s degree in television, radio, and film production from Syracuse University and an MBA from Michigan State University. Shane resides in DeWitt, Michigan, with his wife and two children.

RSVP:
Please send RSVPs to info@nhupa.org so we have an idea of the head count for the venue and refreshments.

***NH UPA meetings are always open to anyone who is interested in attending. Membership to the UPA is NOT required.***

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | Locales | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA | Organizations | UPA | Uncategorized
Tags: morae | remote | remote testing | research | techsmith | user research usability | user test | user testing | uservue
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NH UPA April Meeting

Please join us for our April meeting to take part in an interesting article discussion…

When:
Thursday, April 17th
Refreshments & Networking: 6-7:00 PM
Meeting: 7:00 PM – 8ish

Where:
Fat Belly’s Grill & Bar (http://www.fatbellysgrillandbar.com)
2 Bow Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801

Street Map: http://tinyurl.com/448pk3
Parking Map: http://tinyurl.com/ytsuz8 (street parking is also available)

RSVP:
An RSVP is not required, but it helps us to have an idea of the head count for the venue. Please send RSVPs to info@nhupa.org.

Topic:
~ Article Discussion ~

For this meeting, we’d ask that you read the selected articles ahead of time (don’t worry, they’re short articles, not books), jot down at least one discussion point about each article, then come prepared to discuss. Your discussion point can be a question, an example from your experience, or simply your perspective. We only ask that you keep your points constructive and not overly critical of the article or the authors. We will have two moderators that will help facilitate the discussion.

Thank you for your votes on the articles to read. The three “winners” are:

“Cultures of Prototyping”, Michael Schrage
http://hci.stanford.edu/bds/10-Schrage.pdf

“Getting the Right Design and the Design Right: Testing Many Is Better Than One”, Maryam Tohidi, William Buxton, Ronald Baecker, Abigail Sellen.
http://www.billbuxton.com/rightDesign.pdf

“Feature Richness and User Engagement”, Jakob Nielsen
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/features.html

NH UPA meetings are always open to anyone who is interested in attending. Membership to the UPA is NOT required.

Hope to see you there!

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA | UPA
Tags: hci | interaction design | interface design | nh upa | upa | Usability | user experience | UX
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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!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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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NH UPA March Meeting: Sarah Bloomer (Dover, NH, USA)

Please join us for the NH UPA March Meeting…

Topic: Expanding User-Centered Design in the 21st Century or Why Design Thinking is the Next Big Thing.

Speaker: Sarah Bloomer, Sarah Bloomer & Co

When:
Wednesday, March 26th
Refreshments & Networking: 6-7:00 PM – Food & beverages will be provided.
Meeting: 7:00 PM – 8ish

Where:
Liberty Mutual
150 Liberty Way
Dover, NH 03820

Parking Directions: Park in the front lot. License and plate number needs to be presented at security desk. RSVP required (see below).

Abstract:
What is design thinking? Why is it important? What does design thinking mean to the field of user centered design?

Take a closer look: it seems design thinking heavily leverages user-centered design…

Stanford University recently set up a new Institute of Design (the d.school), founded by, amongst others, David Kelley and Terry Winograd, big names in interaction design. Its website boldly states “we believe design thinking is a catalyst for innovation and bringing new things into the world”.

Business Week Online includes a section on Innovation, where design is a major theme. And in his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink says that the new MBA is the MFA. He claims we are moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. And people with design thinking will lead the way.

This talk is an overview of how design thinking is finding its place in companies worldwide, and how user-centered design is being applied across many fields, from organizational design to product design.

About Sarah Bloomer:
Sarah Bloomer has designed user interfaces for 20 years. In 1991 she co-founded the interaction design company The Hiser Group. With Hiser, she helped establish the field of user-centered design in Australia. Upon returning to the USA in 2002, Sarah was a senior interaction designer for The MathWorks before starting Sarah Bloomer & Co, a consulting practice focusing on collaborative design facilitation.

Sarah has delivered papers, tutorials and workshops at user interface design conferences in Australia and the USA. Her tutorial, Successful Strategies for Selling Usability into Organizations, became a CHI classic. Sarah also led the conceptualization and development of The Hiser Element™ toolkit, a user-centered design methodology created to help companies rapidly set up usability teams.

Sarah holds an MS from New York University in interactive software design, a BA from Smith College, and served as masters supervisor at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

RSVP:
You must RSVP to attend, as security is tight at Liberty Mutual. Please send RSVPs to info@nhupa.org.

NH UPA meetings are always open to anyone who is interested in attending. Membership to the UPA is NOT required.

+ + +

Stay informed about NH UPA meetings and events by joining the NH UPA Yahoo! group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nh-upa/.

+ + +

Hope to see you there!

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA | UPA
Tags: design | design thinking | upa | Usability | UX
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NH UPA February Meeting

Our February 19th NH UPA meeting will be a highly engaging and informative night with 4 different 10-minute talks by 4 different speakers. The “10-minute talk” format is popular because of the pace of the meeting and the variety of topics discussed related to usability and user experience design.

Please RSVP to info@nhupa.org if you plan to attend.

Topics:
Cognitive Biases and the Fundamental Attribution Error in User-
Centered Design by Chauncey Wilson, Autodesk

Words Set the Stage: Modeling Good Behavior for User-generated
Content by Margot Bloomstein, PixelMEDIA

Pros and Cons of Presenting Multiple Options of a Design to the
Project Team by Shannon McHarg, H&R Block

Remote Usability Testing: Best Practices and Lessons Learned by
Rebecca Richkus, Autodesk

Where:
PixelMEDIA
222 International Drive
Suite 175
Portsmouth, NH 03801

Time:
6:00-7:00 PM - Networking (refreshments provided by PixelMEDIA)
7:00-8:00 PM - 10-Minute Talks

About 10-Minute Talks:
Presenter talks are strictly limited to 10 minutes and 6 slides max. Following each presenter, there will be 5 minutes for Q&A. This makes preparation and presentation easy and keeps things moving for the audience.

For usability and user experience practitioners, you will find plenty of tips and tricks you can use in your job. For those who are new to usability, the variety of topics will give you a good idea of what the profession is all about.

We look forward to seeing you there! Please RSVP so we can plan appropriately.

RSVP or questions: info@upa.org

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | Locales | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA | Social
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Highlights from Cooper and Nielsen (Westbrook, ME, USA)

Hear recaps from 2 major user experience events:

• Cooper’s 4-day Interaction Design Practicum covers their entire goal-directed design process from research through development support, with a focus on persona creation and use. Learn the top ten take-aways from this course.
• User Experience 2007 was a recent Nielsen Norman Group conference. Learn Jakob Nielsen’s view of the current State of Usability –- where we have come and where we need to go, as well as some other highlights from the conference.

A presentation of UUUG: The TechMaine Usability / User Experience Users Group.

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | Maine, USA
Tags: techmaine uuug
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What Makes a Design Seem Intuitive? (Durham, NH, USA)

Please join us for the Inaugural NH UPA Meeting with speaker, Jared Spool! For our first official UPA chapter meeting we will kick off the New Year with special guest Jared Spool, an internationally renowned authority on usability, to discuss what makes a design seem intuitive.

When: Thursday, January 24
Refreshments & Networking: 6-7:00 PM – Food & beverages will be provided.
Meeting: 7:00 PM – 8ish

Where:
University of New Hampshire (UNH)
Kingsbury Hall, Room N101
33 College Road
Durham, NH

Campus Map: http://www.unh.edu/map/UNHCampusMapcrop.pdf

Directions: http://www.unh.edu/transportation/visitor/directions.htm

Parking Directions: Park in Lot B – See Parking Details below.

Topic: What Makes a Design Seem Intuitive?

Everyone wants an “intuitive” interface: the users, the designers, and the content publishers. But building them is hard. User Interface Engineering’s recent research has given insight into why it’s hard and how to get past major obstacles.

To build an “intuitive” interface, a designer has to do two things: (1) Take complete advantage of what the user already knows, so what they see is completely familiar to them and (2) make the act of learning anything new completely imperceptible to the user. It turns out, if the interface requires the user to realize they are learning something, the “intuitive” label disappears instantly.

In this talk, Jared will show:

• How users need both tool knowledge and domain knowledge to complete their tasks
• How simple problems with designs can cause big problems for users
• What successful teams are doing to create experiences that delight

Jared will show examples from Microsoft Word, MSN, Google Talk, Flickr, Avis, and many more.

RSVP: Seats are limited. You must RSVP to attend, so don’t delay in reserving your spot! Send RSVPs to info@nhupa.org. You will receive an email confirmation once your name has been added to the list of attendees.

NH UPA meetings are open to anyone who is interested in attending. Membership to the UPA is NOT required.

ABOUT OUR SPONSOR: The UNH Department of Computer Science is well-known for sending skilled, adaptable students into the workforce. Part of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, our undergraduate and graduate curricula encourage students to apply computer science in a broad set of areas, including bioinformatics. Many of our undergraduate and graduate students end up landing internships and jobs at local businesses; while others venture to places like e-Bay in California and Microsoft in Washington State. Our faculty members have wide-ranging interests and research projects, with concentrations in artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, computer graphics and scientific visualization, database and knowledge base systems, operating systems and computer networks, parallel computing and compiler design, and theoretical computer science.

Stay informed about NH UPA meetings and events by joining the NH UPA Yahoo! group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nh-upa/

Parking Details: Attendees will be parking in B Lot, which is normally closed to the public until 6 p.m., but they’re going to stop ticketing at 5:30 for the purposes of this event.

To get to B Lot follow 155A, or Main Street, up a hill past the Whittemore Center. Stay straight at the stop light. Shortly after you pass Thompson Hall (building with the clock tower) on the right, Main Street will turn into a one-way street. Once it does, take your first right onto Mill Road. You’ll pass a small shopping plaza on the left and almost immediately after, there will be a parking lot on the right. This is C Lot, but go beyond that lot and take your second right onto McDaniel Drive. Shortly thereafter, B lot will be on your right. Park on the opposite end of the parking lot, closest to College Road. Walk towards College Road and take a left. You’ll pass McConnell Hall on the left, then Parsons Hall, then you’ll come to Kingsbury.

Parking Map: http://unh.edu/transportation/visitor/map.pdf

Hope to see you there!

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA | UPA
Tags: nh upa
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NH UPA Chapter Approved!

I’m very excited to report that the UPA Board just approved the NH UX group to become it’s newest UPA Chapter!

NH UPA is a group for user experience professionals in the Seacoast and Southern NH regions.

The group’s goal is to foster the growth of the local user experience community, provide networking and professional development opportunities for usability professionals, and provide an environment for members to exchange information on tips, tools, methodologies, and technologies related to usability.

To join the group, please visit: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/nh-upa/join.

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Maine, USA | Manchester, NH, USA | UPA
Tags: nh upa | nh ux | portsmouth | Usability | user experience
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UI 12 Report (Westbrook, ME, USA)

The MESDA Usability and User Experience Users Group is sponsoring a “Report on the User Interface 12 Conference” by Mabel Ney and Eric Basford. User Interface 12 (held earlier this month) was a conference “…for designers, information architects, and usability professionals who need to tackle their biggest design challenges.” See the MESDA calendar for more information.

Posted in Calendar | Maine, USA
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