Northern User Experience

Entries from December 2008

Dates for Jan/Feb/March Meetings

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: Events
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Possible Subjects For Future 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: Events
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Assistive Technology videos

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