New York City, NY, USA

‘Sketching’ Mobile User Interfaces - NYC UPA (New York, NY, US)

Learn how global trends in mobile computing will change the practice of user experience development from Michael Jefferson and Clay Wiedemann at frog design.
One of the greatest challenges in designing for mobile devices is gaining perspective early. What you see in a wireframe or a comp on the desktop and what you see when you hold the same design in your hand can often be an entirely different experience.

How can we move into this handheld environment earlier? What methods can we use to simulate the interactions and gain insight on usability? In this talk, frog design will share some techniques used to approach a recent multi-modal handset UI.

We will show examples of how simple dialogue, paper prototyping, video simulation and ‘wizard of oz’ environments were employed to gather concrete findings while allowing for maximum flexibility.

Location:
frog design
325 Hudson Street,
7th Floor (Entrance on Vandam)
New York, NY 10013
Cost:
NYC-UPA members: $10
Non-members: $20
Bon-members with 1 year membership: $25
Full-time students: $5 (students please provide valid ID)
RSVP: http://nycupa20080325.eventbrite.com
Please note ticket office will be closed by 4 p.m. Monday, March 24, 2008

More information about the Usability Professionals Association (NYC Chapter)

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA
Tags: mobile | sketching
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UsabilityNJ’s First Design Slam

Please join us for UsabilityNJ’s first Design Slam. Contestants will participate in a fast-paced race to create the best design solution to a real-world problem. There’s an award with your name on it!

What’s a “design slam”?
Team up with other participants to solve a design problem as part of a full-fledged hypothetical project, including appropriate client-side deliverables. You will have an opportunity to interview key players on the client’s team. The session will conclude with proposal presentations from each of the groups to the “clients” and the assembled audience. The “clients” team will choose a winner, and the winning team will receive a plethora of praise from your peers and an award.

What’s in it for me?
This is a chance for interested IAs, designers, usability practitioners, developers and marketing professionals to get their hands dirty, working side-by-side with colleagues as they tackle tough business problems in a fun and sometimes crazy environment. Knowledge transfer, technique sharing, and a social atmosphere makes this session different from a “lecture-and- Powerpoint” presentation.

If you do not want to participate because you won’t be able to get to the meeting on time or a have severe case of social phobia, fear not! We would like to have an audience during this session to play the role of users, and help choose the winning team.

Whose big idea is this?
This idea is shamelessly stolen (with permission) from the IA Summit’s IA Slam.

When and where?
Exact location not yet announced.

If you would like to participate, please RSVP to giaimojosephine at yahoo.com. There are plenty of participation spaces and spectators are welcome!

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA
Tags: usabilitynj
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Talking to a Machine - IxDA (New York, NY, USA)

“Talking to a Machine” by Phillip Hunter, VP of application design and development at SpeechCycle.

Hate. Perhaps the strongest and darkest of our emotions. It pours out as most people describe how they feel about interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Why do people expect such a bad experience from these systems? And what are we doing about it?

Phillip Hunter, VP of application design and development at SpeechCycle, has over 14 years experience designing and building IVR systems, which use touch-tone keys and speech recognition for input. This talk will describe the environment that voice interaction designers work in, the tools that they use, and how designers address the inherent challenges of the medium. We will review the history of these applications and offer some thoughts for the future. Along the way, you can expect entertaining stories and recorded examples showing similarities with and differences from visually-enabled contexts. By the end of the talk, you’ll understand the advantages of IVR systems and how they are designed. Perhaps you’ll even feel some sympathy the next time you hear “Thank you for calling…”, or a recorded “Hello”.

WHERE: In lower Manhattan; full details provided on RSVP

RESERVATIONS: For more information, or to reserve your seat at the presentation, email nyc-rsvp (at) ixda (dot) org. In the subject line, please include “March 26 event”.

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA
Tags: IVR
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FUSE 2008 (New York City, NY, USA)

Every year, hundreds of design legends and corporate superstars converge at FUSE to experience a sense of community in the brand and design capital of the world - New York City. They choose FUSE for many reasons: to get inspired, to think, to laugh, to dissent, and to connect. The FUSE experience engages the senses and empowers people to tell authentic, emotional brand stories through strategic design.

One symposium track is focused on user experience: “Emotional branding and the quest for experiences”.

Posted in Calendar | Conference | New York City, NY, USA
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Ad Age Digital Marketing Conference (New York, NY, USA)

As the digital revolution continues to rage on, the range of options available to marketers is expanding so quickly that what’s hot today is often yesterday’s news. Ad Age’s Digital Marketing Conference brings this technology down-to-earth with compelling dialogues and case studies from prestigious speakers and panelists who are the thought-leaders in the field of digital marketing.

Sessions related to user experience include:

• Brands as Content Creators
• Screens, Screens Everywhere
• Retail in Detail: Where the digital world meets the physical world

Posted in Calendar | Conference | New York City, NY, USA
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The Interaction in Interactive TV - IxDA (New York, NY, USA)

“The Interaction in Interactive TV” by David Lipkin, Founder, Executive Vice-President of Method

Interactive Television, whether on set-top boxes or on Internet-enabled televisions, poses interesting challenges in Interaction Design. The most obvious is enabling interactions without a keyboard. But it’s also a challenge to develop metaphors for navigation, elegantly round up content, and provide ways for editors and users alike to annotate the content. We will discuss these challenges, as well as the shift in product development toward the interface as a product and the pitfalls of following blanket design guidelines.

This will be a discussion-based talk with a healthy mix of case studies.

When: Thursday, 02/21/08, 6:30pm
Where: In Soho, full details provided on RSVP (e-mail nyc-rsvp at ixda.org)
Cost: FREE

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA
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Wayfinding: a real world signage system & its implications for online design - NYC UPA (NYC, NY, USA)

Think it’s important to know how to get around a website? How about a hospital? Find out how Sylvia Harris, a leading Information Design Strategist, was able to create a new vision for visitor information delivery at the New York area’s largest hospital. Sylvia will share her information design system and wayfinding masterplan to improve patient experience at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

For more information on Sylvia’s work, please visit her website at sylviaharris.com.
Date and Time
Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008
Registration: 6:00pm (refreshments served)
Presentation: 6:30pm to 8:00p
Networking: 8:00pm to 8:30pm
Dinner at a nearby restaurant: 8:30pm to whenever (participants pay for their own dinner)

Location:
JPMorgan Chase,
277 Park Avenue (between 47th & 48th),
Room 1701 (17th floor)

Cost:
NYC-UPA members: $10, Non-members, Non-members + membership: $25, Full-time students: $5 (students please provide valid ID)
RSVP: Please purchase a guaranteed ticket at the event registration site:
http://nycupa20080226.eventbrite.com

Please arrive by 6 to allow time to get through security. Photo ID required by security to enter building. ID must match the name on the registration list.

• NO EMAIL RSVPs ACCEPTED FOR THIS EVENT.
• Tickets are refundable until noon, Wednesday, February 27, 2008 (2nd day after the event) by sending a request to RSVP@nycupa.org .
• Tickets are transferable on or before noon Monday, February 25, 2008 (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, 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.

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | UPA
Tags: nyc upa | wayfinding
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The Science and Art of Effective Web and Application Design (New York, NY)

Successful user interface design is both a science and an art. Learn to optimize both user performance and visual appeal. This course draws on thousands of research studies on user behavior – and on modern principles of visual design. You will learn how to design for your target users, create navigation structures that make sense, and avoid common design pitfalls. Experience design challenges with real world examples. Experts in the field of interface ergonomics offer a comprehensive approach to creating highly effective Web sites, Intranets, and Web and Windows™ applications.

Costs: $1495 per person; $1345 each if three or more attend from the same company

More information: http://www.humanfactors.com/training/design.asp

To register: https://www.humanfactors.com/training/registration/registration.asp?id=259

Location information: http://www.mclabs.com/facilities/new_york.aspx

Posted in Calendar | New York City, NY, USA | Training
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Adapting Our Technical Communication Skills to Changing Environments - STC NJ and NYC Metro (NYC, NY, USA)

Learn how to go beyond meeting the objectives for your role. Be successful in a team, and make your team successful. Learn how to build your list of assets.

Barrie Byron, Membership Chair of the Philadelphia Metro STC Chapter will speak about the need to know where you want to go and will teach you how to think of yourself as a brand. Barrie will provide practical advice on learning and building your technical communication infrastructure in a new environment. She will use recent job experience to share how she uses online collaboration tools in global environments, such as extensive collaboration portals. Barrie will also share how to implement no-budget solutions, such as WIKIs and TWIKIs. When we use our technical communication skills in all areas of our lives, we prosper, we adapt, and we add value to our roles.

Carol, President of the New Jersey Chapter will teach us to think like the CEO or other top leaders think. Learn how to describe and quantify what you bring to the company: “Is what you produce worth the $$ I spend on them?” Learn to measure and describe the return on investment (ROI) for a competent and experienced technical communicator. Learn how departments decide to add or keep technical communication team members. Carol will discuss scoping projects, using careful timekeeping, and estimating resource needs to prove your worth and stay employed.
Barrie and Carol will both speak about working with global teams, working remotely, and bridging communication gaps with traditional and online collaboration tools.

Location
The Clubhouse at Beacon Hill at Vanderhaven Farms
4300 Winder Drive
Bridgewater, NJ 08807

Cost
Member $10
Nonmember $15
Meeting only $5 (non members)

For more information and to register

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA
Tags: stc nj | stc nyc metro | technical communication
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What’s so great about 22, 23 and 24?

Something’s attractive about those dates, with five different events in the NYC metro area from January 22 - 24.

On the 22nd

NYC CHI focuses on mobile entertainment with Portable Fun and the challenges of fitting all that interaction onto different platforms

On the 23rd

NYC UPA presents a case study on the development of a global site for technology leaders. R/GA and Sachs Insights are sharing their lessons learned on the Nokia Nseries Website Development

Across the river, UsabilityNJ and HumanCentric’s Gavin Lew take a look at the iPhone and “Deconstructing Elements of the iPhone’s Interface Through Usability”

On the 24th

STC NYCMetro brings Bill Gribbons down from Bentley College to share his insights on “The Total User Experience: The Road Ahead” with a view of how the emergence of the experience economy has created opportunities in many industries.

IxDA weighs in with a panel on Sustainable Interactions, and a chance to look at how interaction designers can practice in a more sustainable and socially conscious way.

Phones, futures, fun and jobs. Who could ask for more?

Posted in New York City, NY, USA
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