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Next Manchester Event: Monday 6th Feb, Applied techniques for conversion rate optimisation:

25/01/2012 in Events

Eventbrite URL: http://nuxmcrfeb2012.eventbrite.com/

Paul Rouke, Head of Usability & Conversion at PRWD will share some stories about the user engagement sessions he has conducted and the key learnings which have developed his view and understanding of the conversion world. You will also learn about some applied techniques that brands use to improve their site conversion rate.

Date & Time: Monday 6th Feb 2012 at 6:30pm

Venue:  Code Computerlove – Ducie House, Ducie Street, Manchester, M1 2JW (The entrance is on Peak Street, look for the cartoon robot sign above the door)

Paul Rouke:

In 1999 Paul started working in the online space, joining as a web designer at Great Universal Stores, at the time the UK’s biggest home shopping business. Over the next 7 years he spent considerable time with end users understanding why they do what they do when shopping online and how site experiences can be improved so that they shop more often and spend more money than what they intended doing. In turn helping the online channel become 40% of overall revenue by the time he left in 2006.

Since 2006 Paul has run his own usability and conversion optimisation consultancy PRWD (PRoductivity Without Difficulty) in Manchester, working with clients including as Speedo, Lakeland, Bank of America, Monsoon Accessorize, Manchester Tourist Board, Stella McCartney, Booking.com, Speedy Hire and All Saints. Paul also works alongside digital agencies such as CTI, Ampersand and Building Blocks.

On any given day of the week Paul can be found either moderating user testing sessions, conducting expert site evaluations, writing user testing reports, speaking at conferences, delivering public and in-house training courses, providing in-house consultancy, having planning or presentation sessions with clients – or for about 2 hours every few months writing guest posts for Econsultancy, such as ‘WTF is usability best practice anyway?’ or ‘9 women x 9 hours = 9 usability insights‘.

You can follow PRWD(@prwd) and Paul(@paulrouke) on twitter.

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Manchester Event: Rapid Prototyping with Axure RP 6th June 2011

24/05/2011 in Events

***Breaking news! This session is now brought to you with the kind sponsorship of  Axure, who have donated a selection of merchandise including an Axure 6 licence for one lucky winner!***
Wireframing & Prototyping with Axure RP
This session is about wireframing and prototyping with Axure RP – the rapid prototyping software which has become a popular tool in the UX field.
The session will be jointly presented by 3 User Experience professionals who use Axure RP in their day to day work and will share projects they have worked on providing insights along with tips and tricks.
A brief intro and overview of Axure RP for those not familiar with the software will be followed by details of  how Axure has been used in an Agile environment to produce high fidelity  prototypes.
There will be an opportunity to discuss any projects or techniques you use, so please feel free to bring along anything for discussion.
Ali Zaman
Ali is a User Experience Designer at Great Fridays, a digital agency in Manchester. With a background in print and then web design, Ali began focussing on User Experience 3 years ago whilst working on large web projects at Vertex, a business outsourcing company. Ali is also the creator of UX stickynotes, a recently launched venture producing stickynotes that make it easier for designers to sketch ideas for web and mobile projects.
Twitter: @web233
Chris Bush
Chris is a user experience consultant at WeAreSigma.com and has been practicing in the field of usability and accessibility for 10 years. Working at Sigma Chris helps vision and develop product ideas into usable and inclusive solutions for clients such as Citizens Advice to Intercontinental hotels group
Twitter: @suthen
Barry Briggs
Barry is a User Experience Architect at Code Computerlove, a digital agency in Manchester. Beginning his career with some of best regarded agencies in Leeds over 10 years ago, Barry moved to William Hill to help shape their hugely successful online betting website. More recently he’s been at Code for 3 years, working on some of their most high profile projects. He also spends far too much time in his quest for the perfect quiff.
Twitter: @quiffboy

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Next Manchester Meeting 4th April 6.45

20/03/2011 in Events

Topic: how can we make the UPA  Less London-Centric?

In a slight departure from our usual format we will be discussing how NUX relates to the Usability Professionals Association.

The UPA has recently appointed a regional liaison officer charged with making the organisation less london-centric.  I’m waiting for some details on specific feedback that he wants to gather, but some points to consider might be:

  • What are our experiences, good and bad with the UPA so far?
  • If the UPA does expand its activity in the North, is there still a role for NUX?
  • If the UPA were willing to fund speakers, regional conferences etc, would you be willing to merge NUX into a regional arm of the UPA?
  • If you are a member, how valuable do you find membership? If you’re not a member or are a lapsed member, what are the reasons?

 

As usual, everyone is welcome but the session is of particular relevance to UX practitioners, whether  UPA member or not.

We will be in our usual venue:

Code Computerlove Ltd
Jutland House
15 Jutland Street
Manchester
M1 2BE

 

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World Usability Day – November 13th 2008

14/09/2008 in News

When we met on thursday, we agreed it would be nice to do something a bit special for world usability day, but it’s not far away so we will need to move quickly.  The plan so far is:

- Try to get an outside speaker.

- Try to get a small sponsorship / donation to fund a speaker / food / drinks – either from a commercial organisation or possibly from a local government / quango source.

If you can help us achieve either of these, please get in touch.

If you have any other ideas for how the event could take shape (bearing in mind the short timescale and our very limited resources), please share. The theme of this year’s day is “Transportation” which is possibly a little bit outside of the box for most of us, but let’s see what we can do with it.

All suggestions gratefully received…

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Meeting: Thursday 11th September

09/09/2008 in Events

It looks like we have (just) enough people to proceed, so following an unplanned summer break NUX is back, back, back.

We will be meeting 6.30  at the Waterhouse pub, just near St. Peter’s Square metrolink (walkable from piccadily station).

http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/pubs/pub-details.php?PubNumber=2103

Judith will be talking about personas and how she uses them in her work.  There’s been a lot of interest from the group on this, so for those that can’t attend, we can put the presentation and any other content here on the blog.

Since the group is currently homeless again,  we can also discuss possible venues (MDDA and so on) and decide whether we prefer meeting a) somewhere with a projector or b) somewhere that serves beer.

See you there.

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Terminology and Jargon

09/07/2008 in News

I’m currently studying an OU course in UI Design and Evaluation. Over on the course message board we’ve been having an interesting discussion about the terminology / jargon that the course materials use – in particular the concepts of task scenario, concrete use case, use scenario and essential use case:

a task scenario is related to a specific case, ie it is ‘concrete’
a concrete use case is not related to a specific case, ie it is abstract
a use scenario is a predicted task scenario for an as-yet unwritten system
an essential use case is less specific and higher level than a concrete use case

The students with a development background find this terminology particularly problematic because terms like use-case already exist with a definite and slightly different meaning in OO programming. It’s less of a big deal for me – I’m not a programmer so in my head, they mean what the textbook says they mean.  Even so, as a writer I can see that the concepts and their definitions are a bit on the messy side. This is an area of the course that everyone seems to be struggling to learn and retain.

I’d be interested to know how much use these terms get from people doing usability in the real world.  If you’re communicating with people from different disciplines, the last thing you need is terminology that means something different in their discipline.  I can also see how, as a field that often has to fight to be taken seriously in industry, the language of programming may have been appropriated to add gravitas.

Your thoughts please…

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Meeting 4th June

13/06/2008 in Events

The June meeting took the group to Leeds, and Tero’s talk on how we define User Experience (slides to follow). In a free-roaming discussion we talked about the interplay between the various building blocks of user experience (usefulness, usability, desirability, findability, value, credibility), the value and pitfalls of metrics and the mysteries of brand loyalty.

A big thanks to Tero for arranging the venue and giving a really great presentation.

Next time we’ll be back in Manchester – agenda to be decided. 

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Ideas for Next Meeting 4th June

08/05/2008 in Events

The next meeting will take place at the Orange offices in Leeds.  A big thanks to Tero for fixing that up.

We haven’t agreed the content yet, but quite a few ideas came out of yesterday’s session.  Looking at my notes we have the following candidates:

  • Problem Solving
  • Personas (Judith?)
  • Something about marketing and its relationship (or lack of) with usability.
  • Automated analytics / metrics (Hugo?)

Problem solving might be a good one because it doesn’t require anyone to write a presentation. 

If you have  a preference, or any further ideas we can pursue, please post.

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Agenda, 7th May

01/05/2008 in Events

So far, the agenda is:

  • Next meeting venue – Leeds?
  • Progress of the new blog and mailing list, end-of-life for the yahoo group.
  • Future presentations.
  • The main feature – Chris Collingridge on Usability in an Agile Development Environment.
  • AOB.
  • Pub.

6.30 start.

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Directions to Laterooms

01/05/2008 in Events

The address is:

Unit 1,
Brewery Yard
Deva Centre
Trinity Way
M3 7BB

Video directions:

Walking
Driving

It’s not the easiest place to find – but if you can get to the Lowry hotel you’re pretty much there.

I will be going on foot from the city centre so can loiter in a convenient spot to meet people if that would help.

View Google Map [Added by Mike Little]

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