Userfocus

Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process (London, UK)

For managers or advocates charged with championing user-centred design processes, “Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process” is a 1-day workshop that shows delegates how to think strategically about user centred design. Unlike ‘tools and techniques’ training, this workshop shows that the ‘user experience’ is more than an isolated set of techniques and best practices.

Overview

While user experience managers have diverse backgrounds, many lack formal training in management or strategic planning. This workshop fills the void by exploring an important topic: how to better align usability goals within the context of an organisation’s business strategy.

Referencing work by business gurus like Drucker, Christensen, and Grove, the workshop shows how management science and business strategy is relevant to user experience practitioners. The workshop covers the operational, organisational, and strategic aspects that user experience groups can and should impact within product development companies. Each topic area is discussed in depth, including case studies as examples, and followed by a group exercise where participants have an opportunity to apply the concepts to a problem faced by their own company.

Delegates work on creating a presentation aimed at the senior management of their company. Delegates vote to identify the best of these presentations, which is then delivered to all attendees.

This seminar is aimed at

This course is for you if you are a manager or advocate charged with championing user-centred design processes. The workshop will also be of interest to product or engineering managers who have a solid understanding of best practices and want to promote user-centred design in their organisation. Attendees should have experience with, or knowledge of, usability testing, gathering UI requirements, and UI design related activities. Some experience with managing or leading teams responsible for user experience activities would be beneficial but is not required. Workshop examples will primarily draw from software development contexts, but the material covered is broadly applicable to user experience initiatives in any product development oriented business.

You will learn how to

• Understand the difference between operational, tactical, and strategic activities.
• Identify hidden benefits associated with user experience efforts within your own company and how to communicate those benefits more effectively.
• Understand how three key factors in organisations (resources, processes, and values) impact product designs.
• Gain hands on experience with techniques to help prioritise work and identify ways of more effectively engaging other organisations in your company for maximum impact and visibility.
• Learn about strategic inflection points and how user experience is in a unique position to help organisations survive these situations.
• Practice articulating the rationale for user experience as a must-have competence for every product development initiative using business terminology.

More information and booking form: Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
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Advanced Prototyping with Axure (London, UK)

For experienced users of Axure RP Pro who want to develop advanced prototypes, “Advanced Prototyping with Axure” is a 1-day seminar that shows delegates how to prototype rich internet applications (RIAs) and use the advanced features of Axure RP Pro.

You will learn how to

• Produce sophisticated prototypes, including those suitable for Rich Internet Applications (RIA).
• Customise prototypes specifications.
• Set up reusable assets libraries.
• Use Axure RP pro in conjunction with other related software.
• Use Axure RP pro on collaborative projects.

More information and booking form: Advanced Prototyping with Axure.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
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Axure Essentials (London, UK)

For new users of Axure RP Pro who want to create interactive prototypes, “Axure Essentials” is a 1-day seminar that shows delegates how to build wireframes and generate HTML prototypes. This training is designed for those who have little or no knowledge of Axure RP Pro who want to take their first steps in creating prototypes (wireframes).

You will learn how to

• Critically appraise common approaches to prototyping within a User Centred Design (UCD) context.
• Critically appraise common prototyping tools and associated techniques.
• Produce straightforward Axure RP Pro prototypes (wireframes).
• Produce interactive HTML prototypes suitable for usability testing.
• Generate concise prototype specifications in Microsoft Word.

More information and booking form: Axure Essentials.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
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How to carry out a usability expert review (London, UK)

For people in design teams who need to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products, “How to carry out a usability expert review” is a 1-day seminar that teaches delegates cost-effective methods to evaluate designs. Unlike courses in usability testing, this seminar teaches delegates how to find and fix usability problems without involving end users.

You will learn how to

• Appreciate the difference between a usability inspection and someone’s personal opinion.
• Learn and practice some quick techniques for carrying out usability reviews of prototypes and finished products.
• Find and fix usability bloopers before they become hard coded.
• Apply Jakob Nielsen’s “heuristic evaluation” technique to software, products and web sites.
• Uncover the elements of your design that lead new users to make errors, using the task-based “cognitive walkthrough” method.
• Learn to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products.

More information and booking form: How to carry out a usability expert review.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
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A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (London, UK)

For people in design teams who want to gain confidence in usability testing, “A practical guide to usability testing” is a 1-day workshop that shows delegates how to obtain customer feedback on prototypes and finished products. Unlike lecture-based courses, delegates get practical, hands-on experience moderating and logging usability tests.

By attending this usability testing course you will learn how to

• Write a screener to recruit the right test participants.
• Write a usability test plan to get buy-in from management and the development team.
• Develop test tasks that are relevant to your customers and your business.
• Choose the right usability test method for your product and its lifecycle phase.
• Design usability tests that meet international standards in usability.
• Adapt our standard forms and templates for your own tests.
• Moderate usability tests.
• Collect and analyse behavioural data.
• Persuade managers and developers to take action based on your test results.

More information and booking form: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
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GUI Usability Training (London, UK)

For developers designing desktop software who want to make their interfaces simple to use, “GUI Usability” is a 2-day immersion seminar that gives delegates hands-on experience with several usability tools and techniques. Unlike shorter introductory courses, this in-depth seminar covers the complete design and development lifecycle.

There are dozens of books dedicated to usability, but few of these provide the ‘big picture’. The aim of this course is to help delegates design better products and software by showing how the various usability tools and techniques fit into real-world design and development processes.

Over the two-day course, delegates engage in a practical design activity that helps them discover the usability secrets behind product and software development. The activity (“Mailmerge+”) is to design a new GUI for Microsoft Word’s “Mail Merge” feature. The activity covers the full design lifecycle, including business requirements, customer needs, product and software design, prototyping and usability testing.

You will learn how to:

• Describe a user centred design framework that supports end-to-end usability involvement.
• Share information about customers and their tasks in an engaging and usable way.
• Develop cheap, throwaway prototypes to get quick and frequent feedback from your users.
• Specify usability metrics to make sure your product is neither under- nor over-engineered.
• Apply discount usability techniques, such as Nielsen’s heuristic evaluation.
• Learn about different methods for usability testing and when to apply them.

More information: GUI Usability Training from Userfocus.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
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How to design and implement web surveys (London, UK)

For user experience researchers who create web-based questionnaires, “How to design and implement web surveys” is a 1-day seminar that shows delegates how to create and analyse valid and reliable web surveys. Unlike standard courses on questionnaire design, this seminar shows delegates how to avoid the specific bloopers, biasses and pitfalls that bedevil most web surveys. You will learn how to

• Identify common pitfalls in the design of surveys and questionnaires.
• Decide on the best format for your question (such as essay, rating scale, multiple choice and ranking questions).
• Control the 4 kinds of bias that affect all web surveys.
• Write questions and design rating scales that give valid answers.
• Implement a web survey on a site like SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang.
• Use descriptive statistics to help you take action on the results of your survey.

More information: How to design and implement web surveys from Userfocus

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
Tags: questionnaire | survey | training
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How to carry out a usability expert review (London, UK)

For people in design teams who need to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products, “How to carry out a usability expert review” is a 1-day seminar that teaches delegates cost-effective methods to evaluate designs. Unlike courses in usability testing, this seminar teaches delegates how to find and fix usability problems without involving end users. You will learn how to

• Appreciate the difference between a usability inspection and someone’s personal opinion.
• Learn and practice some quick techniques for carrying out usability reviews of prototypes and finished products.
• Find and fix usability bloopers before they become hard coded.
• Apply Jakob Nielsen’s “heuristic evaluation” technique to software, products and web sites.
• Uncover the elements of your design that lead new users to make errors, using the task-based “cognitive walkthrough” method.
• Learn to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products.

More information: How to carry out a usability expert review from Userfocus.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
Tags: expert review | heuristic | training
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Web usability training (London, UK)

For web designers who want hands-on experience with usability tools and techniques, “Web Usability” is a 2-day immersion seminar that shows delegates how to boost sales and conversion rates, increase usage and improve customer satisfaction. Unlike shorter introductory courses, this in-depth workshop is based on ISO 13407 and covers the entire design and development lifecycle.By attending this course, you will learn how to

• Describe a proven, user centred design framework that supports end-to-end usability involvement in web projects (based on ISO 13407).
• Use personas to share information about customers and their tasks in an engaging and usable way.
• Develop cheap, throwaway prototypes to get quick and frequent feedback from your users.
• Specify usability metrics to make sure your web site is neither under- nor over-engineered.
• Apply usability techniques like card sorting, contextual inquiry and heuristic evaluation.
• Learn about different methods for usability testing web sites and when to apply them.
• Network with other professionals carrying out usability activities in different companies.

More information: Web Usability training from Userfocus.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
Tags: training | Usability | Web
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How to carry out a usability expert review

For people in design teams who need to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products, “How to carry out a usability expert review” is a 1-day seminar that teaches delegates cost-effective methods to evaluate designs. Unlike courses in usability testing, this seminar teaches delegates how to find and fix usability problems without involving end users.

September 2nd 2008, London. £425/delegate + VAT.

You will learn how to

• Appreciate the difference between a usability inspection and someone’s personal opinion.
• Learn and practice some quick techniques for carrying out usability reviews of prototypes and finished products.
• Find and fix usability bloopers before they become hard coded.
• Apply Jakob Nielsen’s “heuristic evaluation” technique to software, products and web sites.
• Uncover the elements of your design that lead new users to make errors, using the task-based ‘cognitive walkthrough’ method.
• Learn to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products.

More information and booking form.

Posted in Calendar | London, UK | Training | Userfocus
Tags: cognitive walkthrough | expert review | training | usability inspection
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