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!
This month’s talk postponed
July 13, 2009 by petebagnall · 1 Comment
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Does Technology make any difference in our Social Life ?
July 10, 2009 by petebagnall · No Comments
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…
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Design – it’s a team sport!
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…
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Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye
February 9, 2009 by Mike Little · 1 Comment
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.
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Tagged: #nuxuk, eye-tracking, Usability
Talk On Interaction Between Usability Professionals and 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!
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Tagged: #nuxuk, agile, UCD
Usability Event in Manchester 28th Jan
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.
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Tagged: #nuxuk, event, prwd, ROI
Final Dates for Jan, Feb and March Meet-ups – Updated
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
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Tagged: mdda, meeting
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!
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Tagged: event, Events, mdda
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!
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Tagged: business case, event, manufacturing, ROI, topics