You are browsing the archive for News.

Report of September event

08/09/2010 in News

Thanks to everyone who turned up last Monday. I really enjoyed the event, as I’m very interested in Agile, and I liked the hands on exercise. Links to blog posts on the event will be added to this post in due course.

NUX Event Report July 2010

06/07/2010 in News

Last night, there was a fantastic turnout for two speakers.

First Alistair Sutcliffe gave a talk on ‘Does Technology Make Any Difference In Our Social Life’

www.slideshare.net/nuxuk/does-technology-make-any-difference-in-our-social-life-4693984

The book Alistair referred to is: Dunbar R.I.M. (2004), The Human Story, Fabe & Faber

Then Sarah Thew presented on ‘Exploring Users’ Values, Motivations and Emotions’

www.slideshare.net/nuxuk/exploring-users-values-motivations-and-emotions

Posts about the event

consequencing

You can also search on twitter for #nuxuk

This month’s talk postponed

13/07/2009 in News

It seems the lure of summer is just too strong, so we’re postponing Prof Alistair Sutcliffe’s talk “Does Technology make any difference in our Social Life ?” until later in the year, around September or October. We’ll announce a date nearer the time!

Does Technology make any difference in our Social Life ?

10/07/2009 in News

Professor Alistair Sutcliffe from Manchester University has kindly offered to give a talk this coming Tuesday 14th July on the topic of technology and the impact on our social lives. It promises to be very interesting…

Read the rest of this entry →

Design – it’s a team sport!

26/02/2009 in News

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…

Read the rest of this entry →

Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye

09/02/2009 in Accessibility, Information Architecture, News, Usability

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.

Usability Event in Manchester 28th Jan

15/01/2009 in News, Usability

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.

Assistive Technology videos

18/12/2008 in News

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

Transport: Can public transport be a better experience than the car?

29/10/2008 in News

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.

next few meetings

04/10/2008 in News

We are going to be able to use Manchester Digital/MDDA offices on Portland Street for our next meetings. –  Thanks for sorting venues Paul.

 

I’ve set up a poll on Doodle to see what dates are the best for everyone, we are still looking at meeting every month. http://www.doodle.ch/participation.html?pollId=b4ss63xhtx24m8iw

 

We’ve also had offers to talk on a range of interesting topics so we can set up an agenda for the next six months or so.

 

Thanks

 

Judith