February 26, 2009 by petebagnall · 4 Comments
Talking to Rachel after tonight’s meeting (more about that later) I had a thought for next month. Rather than talking about it - why don’t we do it. How about we design something as a group. We have more than enough people to make a spectacularly over-staffed design team (or two more sensibly staffed teams). It would really interesting to see what we could come up with. Either it will be fantastic or it’ll start a huge fight and we’ll all spend the rest of the evening is Casualty.
This is a half-baked idea so I’m not exactly sure what we’d design just yet. A few of us tonight expressed irritation at banking websites, so some aspect of that might be one idea, but I’m sure we can come up with something more exciting than that. Or some common widget or tool which you always find frustrating that you’ve always wanted to fix.
Ideally it should be something none of us have designed before.
So if people are generally up for this start thinking of things we can revolutionise!
Categories: News
February 9, 2009 by Mike Little · No Comments
There is an interesting eye tracking story over on the Google Blog, covering their results from some usability studies they carried out.
Specifically: eye tracking to test the use of thumbnails in search results. Though the blog report is fairly brief, they did come to specific conclusion.
Our studies showed that the thumbnails did not strongly affect the order of scanning the results and seemed to make it easier for the participants to find the result they wanted.
There is a real time eye tracking video and some heat map images in the article too.
Go read the original and let us know what you think in the comments.
– Story from Official Google Blog.
Categories: Accessibility · Information Architecture · News · Usability
Tagged: eye-tracking, Usability
January 27, 2009 by Mike Little · No Comments
Here are the slides (in PDF) from Rob’s talk on interaction between usability professionals and software developers given on 20th January 2009.
interaction between usability professionals and software developers
Sorry for the delay (Rob did send them promptly)
Categories: Resources · Usability
Tagged: communication, slides, software developers
January 15, 2009 by Paul Rouke · 2 Comments
I’m posting on behalf of Rob Knight, our lead technical architect at PRWD.
Rob will be giving a talk at Tuesday 20th Jan’s meeting, on the subject of the interaction between usability professionals and software developers in delivering projects.
The talk will cover the common pitfalls that both sides can make in failing to understand the perspective of the other and how this can be addressed. It will also cover the interaction between common User-Centered Design processes and modern software development processes such as the various types of Agile development.
Rob is hoping to keep it fairly short (15 minutes or so) and cover a few practical points that should be useful to everyone. Hopefully it will be a topic which can stimulate some interesting debate too!
See some of you next Tuesday!
Categories: Design · Meetings · Usability
Tagged: agile, UCD
January 15, 2009 by Paul Rouke · No Comments
Some people may be interested to know of a free usability event being run by Manchester Digital on the 28th January 2009. I will be speaking at the event along with Judith Garmen and Pete Bagnall.
It’s focused on helping business owners understand the importance of usability for both their internal and external facing websites and systems, with the aim of improving companies bottom line through the likes of improving staff efficiency and the conversion rates from marketing budgets.
A few details below:
- Title: Usability: What’s The Use?
- Date: 28th January 2009
- Time: 6.00pm - 9.00pm
- Venue: CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), 113-115 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6DW
- Cost: FREE!
- Official Event Page: http://usabilitywhatstheuse.eventbrite.com/
Further details and a brief overview are below:
For the digital sector, usability and user experience are more than new fads.
These topics, and their perceived value to businesses, have been talked and written about many times, but lets get it straight: just exactly what is the use of usability to a company looking at improving their performance, ROI and staff efficiency?
In this FREE event Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD, and 2 guest speakers Judith Garman of AbilityNet and Pete Bagnall of SurfaceEffect, will be providing a range of real-life examples and industry insights which will help reveal some of the tangible benefits businesses can gain by embracing usability and user experience.
Through the course of the evening you will see why usability can play a significant role in the likes of e-commerce websites, B2B websites, lead generation sites, intranets, internal software systems and the development of bespoke web and software applications.
The event will be followed by drinks, some food and networking.
Categories: News · Usability
Tagged: event, prwd, ROI
January 6, 2009 by Paul Rouke · 4 Comments
**UPDATED**
Unfortuntely for February we will need to meet in a local pub or another free meeting place, as MDDA can’t facilitate all the groups who want to use their meeting rooms on the 17th Feb 2009.
We can choose a suitable venue at January’s meeting on the 20th..
———————————————————————-
Following feedback on suitable dates, and the fact that Wednesday’s would be difficult for some of the regulars, the next 3 monthly meetings will be on Tuesday’s on the dates below:
- 20/01/2009
- 17/02/2009
- 17/03/2009
Jon could you add these to Upcoming as offered when you get chance? Cheers
Update: These are now added to Upcoming. See the Upcoming Group. — Mike Little
Categories: Meetings
Tagged: mdda, meeting
December 23, 2008 by Paul Rouke · 5 Comments
I’ve had confirmation from MDDA regarding the use of their facilities in the early part of 2009. To fit with their schedule of staff and other user groups using the offices, they have suggested the 3rd Wednesday of each month.
So the next 3 months dates would be:
- Wednesday 21st January
- Wednesday 18th February
- Wednesday 18thMarch
Can anyone who normally comes along shout up if this causes a problem - I know the last 3 months have been on a Tuesday, but based on us continuing to use the facilities FOC we’ll need to be flexible on the day of the week that we meet.
I plan on confirming to the MDDA wc 5th Jan so I’ll wait till then for any comments.
Merry Christmas one and all!
Categories: Meetings
Tagged: event, mdda, Meetings
December 20, 2008 by Paul Rouke · 3 Comments
I though it would be useful to make available the list of subjects which we came up with at October’s meeting, where lots of ideas where brought forward.
Perhaps this list will be useful in getting people to consider doing a mini presentation as part of one of the 2009 monthly meetings.
- Complex business / manufacturing systems
- Rapid prototyping
- Pragmatic / shoestring usability
- Design evangelism / internal communication
- ROI and selling the benefits of usability
- Testing and observation techniques
- Engagement and organisational culture
- Open source / agile development
- Heuristics - do we need a rethink?
- Ethnography
- Non-standard design (mobile / accessible etc)
- Accessibility / WCAG 2
- Information architecture
- Words and language
- Interaction design
- Usability in news media
- Internal business systems
- Perceived vs. “actual” usability
- Attractiveness and visual design
- Employee engagement & involvement (internal comms)
- Personas
- Internationalisation
- Talking the language of business
In particular, subjects around ROI and commercial benefits of usability, complex business/manufacturing systems (MRP, ERP), usability for internal business systems, employee engagement, talking the language of business and open source, agile development methods are the type of things that are very close to our hearts at PRWD. We could therefore provide some presentations on these types of topics in due course.
Its a comprehensive list, but shout up if there are more suggestions for topics!
Categories: Meetings
Tagged: business case, event, manufacturing, ROI, topics
December 18, 2008 by judithg · No Comments
All,
Good to see some new people at the last meeting.
Following our discussion here is a link to some AbilityNet videos of assistive technology users
http://uk.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3CD45E862B50C925
Some of these are also available on Easy Youtube which was developed by Chris Heilmann
http://scriptingenabed.pbwiki.com/AbilityNet-Videos
Judith
Categories: News
October 29, 2008 by petebagnall · 1 Comment
For our next meeting I’ll be talking about a pet topic of mine. I’ll be looking at the car user’s experience and seeing why it’s so difficult to get people to switch to public transport. Then I’ll be looking at how we might design a public transport system in such a way as to make the experience as good as (or better) than using the car.
I’ll also look at other modes of transport, and see where they fit in a transport policy based heavily on user needs.
Some of the solutions I’ll mention already exist in early form, some are much more futuristic, but most are achievable with current technologies. This isn’t sci-fi, but full implementation would be expensive. So I’ll talk a little bit about how we might afford these systems, and the other social benefits which might arise from moving beyond the car.
Right - now I’m going to drive over to York! See you all next time.
Categories: News
