IxDA

Sketching and storytelling (IxDA) - (NYC, NY, US

The IxDA NYC April event is an Interaction08 redux. We’ll provide quick summaries to kick off a discussion on sketching and storytelling as pivotal tools for design.In his keynote, Bill Buxton convinced us that he views sketching as more than a design technique. At times, it can be a lifestyle choice. Sketches are used to explore a design problem: to generate alternatives, to elaborate upon them, and to winnow them. With this introduction, we’ll give some examples of projects in which sketching has come in handy and invite you to do so too.

We’ll also visit storytelling. The conversational nature of a well-constructed story makes for engaging designs. We’ll review and build on ideas reflected in talks by Sarah Allen, Chris Conley, and Gretchen Anderson. You can join in by telling a story that drove a successful project, or by recounting what happened when you tackled a project with a storytelling approach.

Whether you were at the Interaction08 (http://interaction08.ixda.org) or not, we want to hear your stories about how sketching and storytelling have made a difference in your design work. In advance of the redux, we have created a wiki where we encourage you to offer sketches, stories and more that we can share during this lively discussion. For a wiki invitation, just request wiki access when you reply.

Location to be announced on RSVP. Respond to nyc-rsvp at ixda dot org.

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA
Tags: sketching | storytelling
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IxDA DC Kick-off Social ~ RSVP!

IxDA D.C. is throwing a Face-2-Face Social so we can meet in person for drinks, socializing, and planning upcoming events based on user (you–the community) research. As such, we will be gathering both qualitative and quantitative data on the interests of the local IxDA & IA communities. We might even craft some personas (using pictures from later in the evening) to bring our archetypes to life.

So — come one, come all to this April IxDA D.C. social event. Bring your business card, or fill out a blank one there, and we will have a door prize raffle of something cool. You can RSVP to wkevans4@gmail.com

>> When: Monday, April 28th, 5:30 - 7:30pm (but feel free to stay late!)

>> Where: Cafe Citron, Dupont Circle, 1343 Connecticut Ave., Washington D.C.

>> Map: http://tinyurl.com/4guhzb

This a great opportunity to connect and network with local IxDA and IA folks - many of whom just returned from the IA Summit and are burning to share all the brilliant ideas and methods they learned.

The IxDA D.C. coordinators will be there and want you to contribute ideas as we plan upcoming events!

Please RSVP to Will Evans: wkevans4@gmail.com since we will be reserving the space.

/ IxDA D.C. Coordinators

Posted in Calendar | Events | IxDA | Washington, DC, USA
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IXDA Pittsburgh : Current Interaction Design and IA topics (Pittsburgh, PA)

Date: April 24 2008

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

About This Event

Date: Thursday, April 24 2008

Time: 6:30 PM Refreshments & Networking

7:00 PM Presentations

8:00 PM Optional trip to the Walnut Grill in Shadyside for drinks

Place: Daedalus Excel’s Offices, 4914 Baum Blvd, 15213

Map: http://www.daed.com/contact_maps.tt2

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 mmarut15 at gmail.com

Local IXDA members will be giving brief presentations on a timely IXD topic for the purpose of engaging the group in a discussion.

Sofia Mirza, MDes ‘07, Communication & Information Design, will present her Visualization Toolkit: Tools for Visualizing Qualitative Information for Understanding

Peter Bird, MDes ‘08, Communication & Information Design, will present his ongoing thesis work on Designing for Travel: An Analysis of Public Transportation System Information Aids

Don Charlton from Wall-to-Wall Studios will present his Lessons for Interface Designers
:A series of quick, easily-digestable ideas

William Bernstein from Daedalus Excel will present a case study on the Development of an Interface for Home Dialysis

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | Local meeting | Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Tags: ia | information architecture | interaction design | ixd
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Methodology Madness (North Hollywood, CA)

IxDA LA Salon and HUGE present Methodology Madness. A good methodology can help you organize your thoughts and, ideally, help you design better products. However, with so many methodology flavors out there, it can be a bit confusing. Goal-directed design? Contextual design? Scenario-based design? It’s madness! What are the real differences between them anyway? More importantly, how effectively can you use them where you work? After all, your work environment largely shapes your process.

This IxDA LA Salon features a panel discussion with experienced designers who practice various methodologies and the folks who hire them. They’ll talk about how working in-house or for an agency can shape your process and illuminate clues to selecting the method that’s best for your project and environment.

*Food & Drinks provided by our gracious hosts at HUGE. *50 person limit - RSVP today:

Click here to RSVP while space lasts.

This event will take place on Wednesday, April 23 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM at

HUGE LA
11135 Weddington St., Suite 131
North Hollywood, CA 91601

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | Los Angeles, CA, USA
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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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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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Designing with the Mobile Experience in Mind (Chicago, IL, USA)

IxDA’s first event of the new year!

Even if you don’t design currently for mobile devices, it won’t be long before you’re asked to. Join in! The success of our events relies on all of us sharing what we know and asking about what we don’t know. (Note: We have 80 people on our Chicago event reminder list! A vibrant community, indeed! If you are interested in planning, hosting, or leading an event, please let us know.

When: Wednesday, January 9th
Time: 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: Critical Mass, 225 N. Michigan Ave. (Lake & Michigan), Suite 2050 (20th floor). Enter the building via the Lake Street entrance (east of the CVS).

Full Details at Ixda.org

Posted in Calendar | Chicago, IL, USA | IxDA
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Sustainable Interactions - IxDA Panel (New York City, NY, USA)

When: Thursday, January 24, 2008. 6:30 PM.
Where: Midtown Manhattan.
Details provided on RSVP, please e-mail: nyc-rsvp (at) ixda (dot) org

Join IxDA NYC and our panelists to discuss how interaction designers can practice our work in a more sustainable and socially conscious way. Come and find out what our industry visionaries and experts are doing in this area and what you can do to change the world for a better tomorrow. We will get a chance to look at some projects people are doing in service, product design and eco-visualization. We will provide an evening of conversations with the panelists and give you intriguing examples from the field to challenge the notion of how interaction design can make great social impact.

Moderator: Robert Fabricant, Frog Design

Panelists:
Allan Chochinov, Core77.com
Jennifer Van de Meer, O2NYC
Sean White, Columbia University
Tom Igoe, NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program

Posted in Calendar | IxDA | New York City, NY, USA
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Interaction 08 (Savannah, GA, USA)

(Updated) Interaction 08 will be February 8-10, 2008 in historic and festive Savannah, Georgia. It will feature two days of inspirational and tactical sessions geared at anyone who practices Interaction Design.

The pre-conference workshops:

• From Data to Difference workshop
• Effect Maps for Interaction Designers
• Agile and Interaction Design
• Paper Prototyping

Keynotes from the program:

• Alan Cooper
• Sigi Moeslinger
• Bill Buxton
• Malcolm McCullough

Attendees can also Connect with others before the conference.

Registrations and hotel rooms are filling up fast, so if you are considering going, you should act now.

Posted in Annual association conference | Atlanta, GA, USA | Calendar | IxDA | Savannah, GA, USA
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DUX 2005, a product of professional association collaboration

A great example of the benefits of professional association collaboration is the Designing for User eXperience conference, the second of which (DUX 2005) will be taking place 3-5 November at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA USA. AIGA, ACM SIGGRAPH, and ACM SIGCHI have joined forces again to develop what many consider to be the premier conference for user experience practitioners.

Supporting AIGA, SIGGRAPH, SIGCHI, and DUX 2005 are several cooperating societies: IxDG, IIID, UPA, STC, AIS SIGHCI, HFES, IDSA, and IAI. Plus, BayDUX, the local presence of UXnet in the San Francisco Bay Area, is sponsoring the conference’s opening plenary reception, in part in honor of World Usability Day which was scheduled to coincide with the opening day of the conference.

Congratulations to all involved in helping make this event reflect a cross-section of the user experience professional community.

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | ACM SIGGRAPH | AIGA | AIS SIGHCI | Conferences | HFES | IDSA | IIID | IxDA | News | STC | UPA
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