New York City, NY, USA

IxDA NYC’s David Malouf and guests discuss “The State of IxD Today” (New York, NY)

IxDA co-founder David Malouf and special guest colleagues will engage the NYC community in a discussion of the state of interaction design today. Topics covered will include General IxD Practice, Sketching and Prototyping, Education, Richness and Openness, and Defining The Damn Thing. David’s guests include Ted Booth, Interaction Design Director at Smart Design, and Jennifer Bove, Vice President of Interaction Design at HUGE, Inc.

Our host for the evening will be Bloomberg, the information services giant providing the global business community with data, analytics, and news.

Full details and registration information coming shortly!

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | New York City, NY, USA
Tags: IxDA
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Design Research for Product and Service Innovation (New York, NY)

On November 13-14 in New York City, Darrel Rhea, CEO of Cheskin, will present
the DMI seminar “Design Research for Product and Service Innovation.” Darrel
is one of today’s most highly sought-after experts on innovation and
research, and author of “Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver
Meaningful Experiences.” He was prominently featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s
best-seller, “Blink.”

You’ll gain proven models to drive customer-led innovation; learn about the
full range of research methods being used today; how research can clarify
innovation strategy and be relevant to senior management; and the pitfalls of
conducting design research and principles for using it effectively.

This seminar has inspired many others:
“Refreshing insight in research techniques. A compact yet rich 2-day formula,
moderated by an inspiring speaker.”
–Hans Kan, Managing Director, KAN Design

For more information, or to register, visit:
http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/education/seminars/udr.htm

November 13-14, 2008, New York City, USA

The seminar will be from 9:00 until 5:00 on Thursday, and from 9:00 until 3:00 on Friday. This seminar will be held at Lighthouse International, 111 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022-1202, Tel: (212) 821-9220.

Register Now

Posted in Calendar | New York City, NY, USA
Tags: DMI
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New Jersey World Usability Day–Transportation (New York, NY)

Celebrate 4TH Annual World Usability Day, November 13th, Rutgers CoRE
Building, Piscataway, NJ

“PANELISTS ADDRESS THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION AT USABILITY DAY IN
PISCATAWAY, NJ”

The panel brings Professor Thomas H. Wakeman (Center for Maritime
Systems, Stevens Institute of Technology), Professor Hani Nassif
(Rutgers The State University, School of Engineering), Bill Neary
(Executive Director, Keep Middlesex Moving), and Jeffrey Kashinsky
(New York City Transit Authority), together with moderator Steve
Ellis, Ph.D. (The KOHL Group, Inc.).

THEME:  Transportation

WHEN:  Thursday, November 13th, 2008, 4:00 PM - 9:30 PM

WHERE:  CoRE Building, 96 Freylinghuysen Road, Busch Campus, Rutgers
The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey
(http://www.caip.rutgers.edu/?q=node/23)

COST:  Free.  World Usability Day is free and open to everyone.  Food
and refreshments served.

The program includes:

–Demonstrations of new designs for transportation, including
vehicles, highways, and signs
–Keynote speakers from transportation schools and corporations
–Expert panel with presenters from usability, transportation, and
business enterprises
–Photo contest of most “unusable” signage, open to all, evaluated by
usability “luminaries”

Demonstrations from several academic and corporate laboratories,
including Rutgers University, Princeton University, and New Jersey
Transit, are featured.  For more program details, visit
wud.usabilitynj.org  and  www.worldusabilityday.org.

What is the future of transportation?  Where are we going and how will
we get there?  Join the Fourth Annual World Usability Day to hear
ideas from a panel of leading experts in the fields of usability,
research, industrial design and the transportation industry.  Each
panelist has years of experience developing, designing or providing
products and services for clients in the transportation industry.

“This panel brings practical knowledge of innovations to our audience
of professionals in human factors, engineering, computer science, and
transportation as well as students, entrepreneurs, and the business
community,” says UsabilityNJ Event Chair and New Jersey resident John
Chin. “Today, teams of computer scientists, engineers, usability
specialists, and transportation innovators are working together. They
face similar challenges. They must design for diverse customers,
drivers, travellers, and transportation providers.”

“Our panelists know that innovations in transportation are an
important part of the economy in New Jersey.  They have worked on
innovations that improve daily transportation, and enhance our public
safety,” said Ronnie Battista, President of UsabilityNJ and New Jersey
resident.  “Furthermore, they know the importance of accessible
transportation products for all of us, whatever our abilities to see,
hear, or move.”  This World Usability Day event is presented by
UsabilityNJ, the New Jersey chapter of the Usability Professionals’
Association.

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA | World Usability Day 2008
Tags: WUD
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Usability & Interaction Inside NYC Taxis: Design Lessons Learned (New York, NY)

Please join the NYC Usability Professionals’ Association for this special World Usability Day (www.worldusabilityday.org) presentation:Usability & Interaction Inside NYC Taxis: Design Lessons Learned
What can taxis teach user experience professionals? Design strategist Rachel Abrams spent two years looking at New York through yellow lenses, researching the city’s cab industry. She’ll share the broader design lessons she learned, revealing how those who usually design for the digital world can approach designing for objects and experiences in the real world, how the power of storytelling can elucidate the value of and patterns in data, and where the opportunities lie for service designers working in public space.

Speaker:      Rachel AbramsDate:           Thursday, November 13, 2008

Time:              6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
                   Please arrive by 6pm to allow time to get through security.
Photo ID required by security to enter building.
It must match the name on the registration list.
          Schedule
          6:00 – 6:30 pm Registration, networking and refreshments
          6:30 – 6:45 pm Announcements
6:45 – 7:45 pm Presentation + 15 minutes for Q&A
8-ish - ?? pm  Optional dinner at a nearby restaurant*
            *Please note that dinner is an optional, post-event social activity and is not included
in the event fee. Each person is responsible for his/her own drink and dining expenses.

Location:      277 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
(between 47th & 48th on EAST side of street)
                        Map:   click here for map to the locationCost:           NYC-UPA members & Non-members: $15
Non-members with 1 year membership: $30
Full-time students: $5 (please provide valid student ID)

                   Note: For this event we are not able to offer discounted member pricing.

RSVP:           NO EMAIL RSVPs ACCEPTED FOR THIS EVENT
                    Please purchase a guaranteed ticket at the event registration site:
http://nycupawud08.eventbrite.comRegistration closes at 4 pm Wednesday, November 12, 2008 (1 day before the event).Refunds are available until noon, Monday, November 17, 2008 (2 business days after the event) by sending a request to RSVP@nycupa.org.

Ticket transfers can be made on or before 4 pm Wednesday, November 12, 2008 (1 day before the event) by sending a request to RSVP@nycupa.org . You must notify us, and get a confirmation, of this transfer or it will not be valid.

Members of our parent organization, the UPA (the Usability Professionals’ Association), must join the NYC chapter to qualify for member rates.  We encourage everyone to join our parent organization, though you do not need to do so to become a member of our chapter. You can learn more about our NYC organization or learn about our parent organization.

Seats are limited and reservations are first come, first served. We advise you to register early as previous events have sold out and we had to turn people away.

About the speaker:
Rachel Abrams is Creative Director of Turnstone Consulting, a collaborative design practice in New York City . She designs technology-mediated experiences for commercial spaces and public places. As a 2006-7 Fellow of The Design Trust for Public Space, she co-edited Taxi07: Roads Forward, a report on the future of New York ’s yellow cabs. Previously, at Imagination (USA) and IBM, she was a content and user experience strategist. Her design writing has featured on Adobe.com, in the Design Council, The Economist, Good, Eye magazines, and in other international publications over the last ten years. She has a Master’s degree in Computer Related Design from the Royal College of Art, UK, a BA (Hons) in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University , and has taught at New York University ’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA | World Usability Day 2008
Tags: WUD
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IxDA NYC- Will Evans - “Built For Conversation: The Interaction Design of Social Media Networks” (New York, NY)

IxDA NYC requests the pleasure of your company at our November event, “Built For Conversation: The Interaction Design of Social Media Networks” by visiting speaker Will Evans. Our host for the evening will be the generous people of HUGE.

RSVP: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1283042/?ps=5

Attendance is limited to 125 people. 

Only those on the RSVP list will be admitted (please bring photo ID).

TALK DETAILS

_{“Built For Conversation: The Interaction Design of Social Media Networks”}

_{Social Media Networks, because they are built on the collective participation of individuals, can only be effectively guided by means of a researched and learned examination of social psychology. It is the interaction designer’s job to understand how social media ecosystems are likely to evolve, given the interaction of the application constraints with users — each of which with their own goals, prejudices, social ties, needs for sociality and irrational decision-making.}

_{Design choices affecting application design, functions, and features can only steer individual and aggregate participation within the social network. This talk will begin with the basics of social psychology as it pertains to social media and networking sites and give a brief overview of identity creation in the context of social networking theory.}

_{We will discuss design patterns in social media site architecture and their impact on human behavior, and why interaction designers engaged in building social networking ecosystems must leverage sociology, social network analysis, and behavioral economics to ensure their social media site is Built for Conversation. Time permitting I will discuss two case studies - why social media/networking functionality failed on Kayak.com, and why it succeeded on Gather.com — lessons learned the hard way.}

DATE and TIME

Thursday, November 20th

6:30 - 7:00 networking and refreshments

7:00 - 8:00 presentation

8:00 - 8:30 Q&A and discussion

Important: Please plan to arrive no later than 6:50 p.m. to clear security and be seated.

LOCATION

HUGE

45 Main Street, 2nd floor

Brooklyn, NY 11201

http://www.hugeinc.com

Google map: http://tinyurl.com/5rwy57

Subway directions: F to York Street or A/C to High Street

http://hugeinc.com/contactus/contact_subway.html

RSVP: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1283042/?ps=5

Attendance is limited to 125 people. 

Only those on the RSVP list will be admitted (please bring photo ID).

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER

_{Will Evans is founder and Principal User Experience Architect for Semantic Foundry with 14 years industry experience in information architecture user experience design. His experience includes directing interaction design and information architecture for AIR Worldwide, UX architect for web 2.0 social networking site Gather.com, and UX architect responsible for information architecture and interaction design for Kayak.com. He has worked at enterprise technology companies Lotus/IBM (where he was the senior information architect), and  Curl, a DARPA-funded MIT project at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science. Most recently, Will has lead redesign projects incorporating social media, crowdsourcing and social networking for startups and Fortune 100 companies.}

_{Will holds masters degrees in business administration, human-computer interaction and cognitive psychology. His interests and studies have focused on design, information architecture, human factors and information visualization. He earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics and philosophy.}

ABOUT OUR HOST

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | New York City, NY, USA
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Will Website Usability Decide the 2008 Presidential Election - NYC UPA (New York, NY USA)

In an age of media overload how do undecided voters make up their minds in the upcoming election? Do Web savvy Americans turn to the Web for answers and if so, how much influence do the candidate’s Websites have? Could the usability of the Obama & McCain sites have a significant impact on the way people perceive each candidate? Can having a user friendly Website really sway people’s votes?

First Insights wanted get the answers to these questions and more. Our team traveled the country and conducted one-on-one usability interviews with dozens of undecided voters. Lon Taylor, Principal Usability Consultant at First Insights, will explain our methodology, share how we created our moderators guide and present a host of detailed findings & video clips.

Location:
JPMorgan Chase - Park Avenue
277 Park Avenue, 7th floor, New York, NY 10017
(Between 47th & 48th on EAST side of Street)

Optional dinner after the event on a pay-for-yourself basis

Online registration

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA
Tags: elections persuasion
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Web 2.0 Expo (New York, NY, USA)

Web 2.0 Expo is for the builders of the next generation web: designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and venture capitalists, people who have experiences to share and a passion for learning - the hot new thing, lessons from failures, innovations and inspirations, and the practical applications of all of the above.

What are the ways we can create more value for our businesses? How can we provide a more meaningful experience for users and customers? How can we have a positive impact on the world we live in? What tools and applications are right for a given project? How do we gather and focus data points to deliver relevant information? How can we increase conversation and collaboration?

The inaugural Web 2.0 Expo New York takes the pulse of the Web ecosystem and looks to its future, training a spotlight across the Web 2.0 universe to illuminate how the Internet Revolution is being created and delivered. What will you do with the power of Web 2.0?

There is a Design and UX track.

Posted in Calendar | Conference | New York City, NY, USA
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Why Good Content Must Suck–Designing for the Scent of Information - Jared Spool - NYMetro STC (New York City, NY, USA)

If you have thousands of pages of really cool stuff on your web site, how do users find what they are looking for? Turns out that the content itself has to pull the user to it. The stronger the pull, the more likely the user will find it.

In this presentation, Jared Spool discusses how to organize your site to pull users to the right place. He’ll talk about User Interface Engineering’s recent research on how people find information on large web sites. Jared shows you plenty of examples of sites that work well and those that don’t.

He’ll also discuss

• how the quality of links affects whether users click on them
• how longer pages actually help users get where they are going faster
• the 3 types of graphics: navigation, content, and decorative and the importance of each
• how users follow a scent and four ways your design could be blocking their smell

Costs (click one to pay by credit card):
Dinner/Networking Member Fee: $15.00
Dinner/Networking NonMember Fee: $45.00
Meeting only Member Fee: $5.00
Meeting only NonMember Fee: $10.00

We ask that you please RSVP by September 7th so we can have the proper number of seats available.

Arno’s Restaurant
141 W. 38th St.
NYC at Broadway
212-944-7420

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | STC
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Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs - UPA (NYC, NY USA)

As children, we’re told the world is a magical place. Babies are delivered by storks. The tooth fairy harvests retired teeth in exchange for currency. Bunnies deliver candies in brightly covered baskets on a spring holiday. The world’s adults use magic to explain away the complexity of life.

In our work, confusing complexity is the natural result of an unchecked design and development process. Teams work hard, responding to customer requests through incremental improvement and feature enhancements, yet they often end up with a dismaying array of features that make users unhappy.

In this entertaining presentation, Jared will share some of his recent research into the craft of professional magic. He’ll demonstrate the parallels between the world of magical illusions and the world of digital design, comparing the similarities between professional illusions and some of today’s top design techniques.

In this presentation, you’ll learn how:

• Illusions performed by professional magicians follow the same design principles as your computer’s file system
• Designers can create specific mental models to eliminate perceived complexity
• Simple design tricks can make designs seem to be faster than they really are
• Whimsicality, attention, and functionality are essential elements to creating delightful experiences

You’ll see examples of illusions built into a variety of designs, including those from Microsoft, Flickr, Netflix, YouTube, and Google. Jared will also, possibly at his own peril, reveal the secrets from several magical illusions to show you just how the tricks were created and the effects are realized, giving you the ammunition necessary to build illusions into your own designs.

Speaker:  Jared Spool,  Founding Principal, UIE - User Interface Engineering

Date:         Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Cost:         To be announced
Time:        Approx. 6:00 – 8:30 pm
Location:  To be announced

Registration:  Members will receive advanced notification for registration.
NO EMAIL RSVPs ACCEPTED FOR THIS EVENT

About the Speaker
If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term “usability” was ever associated with computers.

Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA
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Tap is the New Click - Dan Saffer at IxDA (NYC, NY, USA)

Even though the technology has been around for decades, only now are we starting to see mass production and adoption of touchscreen and gestural devices for the public. Jeff Han’s influential 2006 TED demonstration of his multitouch system, followed by the launches of Nintendo’s Wii, Apple’s iPhone, and Microsoft Surface, have announced a new era of interaction design, one where gestures in space and touches on a screen will be as prominent as pointing and clicking.

But how do you create products for this new paradigm? While most of us know how to design desktop and web applications, what do you need to know to design for interactive gestures?

This introduction to designing gestural interfaces will cover the basics: usability and ergonomics; a brief history of the technology; some elemental patterns of use; prototyping and documenting; and how to communicate that a gestural interface is present to users.

DATE and TIME
Wednesday, September 17
6:15 - 7:00 networking and refreshments
7:00 - 8:00 presentation
8:00 - 8:30 Q&A and discussion
Important: Please plan to arrive no later than 6:45 p.m. to clear security and be seated

LOCATION
R/GA New York
350 West 39th Street
New York, NY 10018
http://rga.com

RSVP here: http://tinyurl.com/67ukh6
(Only those on the RSVP list will be admitted; please bring photo ID)
If you experience any problems with the URL, send email to: nyc.ixda (at) gmail (dot) com

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Dan Saffer is an experience design director for Adaptive Path. An international speaker and author, his writing on design has appeared in BusinessWeek and many online publications. His acclaimed book Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices has been called “a bookshelf must-have for anyone thinking of creating new designs” and has been translated into several languages. His new book on interactive gestures will be published by O’Reilly in October 2008.

Dan is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). He received his Master of Design in Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA
Tags: multitouch gestures
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