Update on Leeds NUX Event 22 November 2010
09/11/2010 in Events
The next NUX event will take place in Leeds on 22 November 2010. Many thanks to the event sponsors, Simple Usability, who are provding the venue.
by Keith Doyle
by pete bagnall
No meeting tonight, Nov 8th.
08/11/2010 in News
Just to avoid any possible confusion, there is no meeting tonight. We’re going to postpone the session Sam was going to do into the new Year instead.
More news on that as we firm up plans.
by Keith Doyle
User Experience Architect Vacancy
04/10/2010 in News
There is a vacancy for a user experience architect at Aviva. If you want details, I can pass them on to you. Contact me at keith.doyle@extremeusability.co.uk.
by Keith Doyle
Leeds NUX Event on 22 November 2010
04/10/2010 in News
This event has been changed – new details here
by Keith Doyle
Next Leeds Event Details
08/09/2010 in Events
The event will now be in November – details here
http://northern-user-experience.org/2010/11/09/update-leeds-november
by Keith Doyle
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.
by Keith Doyle
NUX Event in Manchester Monday 6 September 2010
20/07/2010 in Events
After our summer break, we’re back in September with the following two items:
- Agile User Experience, presented by Sam Sutton
- Design Exercise, facilitated by Peter Bagnall
Please note, we will be starting earlier than usual at 6.45pm
Here are the full details:
Agile User Experience
Waterfall is dead, at least according to some. But in a software development world that is moving more and more to using Agile methods, where do traditional user experience practitioners fit in? I will be attempting to answer that question both from my own experience working within Scrum and Kanban, as well as looking at emerging best practice from leaders in the field of Agile UX.
About Sam Sutton
A passionate advocate of both agile development and user centered design, Sam has spent the last 3 years working as a designer within a Agile software development house, as well as working on projects as a freelancer. Sam has recently made the move to working full time as a freelancer, as Superdeluxesam. You can get in touch with him at www.twitter.com/superdeluxesam or sam@superdeluxesam.com.
Design Exercise
Pete Bagnall will be leading NUX’s second design exercise in September. The focus will be on high level design, rather than detailed design this time – looking at what information users might require, what the process through their task is like and therefore what functionality will help them achieve their goals. We’ll also look at how this competes with the business goals, and approaches for preventing conflicts between business and user goals, and between the goals of different user communities.
Clients often want guidance on which features they should include in their systems, and how to prioritise them. This exercise will help to show one method of answering those questions in a more rigourous and objective fashion, giving clients reassurance that it is based on more than the designers opinion. Being aware of what information is required to support a feature also helps to uncover dependencies between feature sets, which can help in planning development schedules.
Turning user goals into informational and functional requirements is a vital part of goal directed interaction design. Without this even the greatest interface design is likely to fail.
There will be an opportunity to discuss any techniques you use, so do feel free to bring you methods along!
About the Speaker
Pete Bagnall is an independent Interaction and Software Architect, at his company SurfaceEffect Ltd. He has had a varied career in the software industry from network research at BT’s research labs at Martlesham Heath (now Adastral Park) to working as an Interaction Designer in Silicon Valley. He’s taught courses for Lancaster University and presented workshops in design methodologies at the BCS annual HCI conference. More details can be found on his website www.surfaceeffect.com
Let Us Know You’re Coming
It helps if we have an idea of numbers, so if you want, you can let us know you’re coming at the Upcoming website. It is fine to just turn up on the night if you want.
Use Our Twitter Hashtag
If you want to tweet about the event or Northern User Experience, our twitter hashtag is #nuxuk
Join the Mailing List
Use the form on the right to add yourself to the mailing list and find out about events in the future.
Time
The event will be from 6.45pm to 9pm
Venue
Code Computerlove
Ducie House
Ducie Street
Manchester
M1 2JW
The entrance is on Peak Street, look for the robot above the door.
Sponsor
The venue has been kindly provided by Code Computerlove, a digital communications agency based in Manchester, England.
Future Events
- October 2010 (Leeds): agenda tbc
- November 2010 (Manchester): Communication theme for World Usability Day
- December 2010 (Manchester): Christmas social
- January 2011 (Leeds): Interaction Architecture for Startups and Digital Agencies
- February 2011 (Manchester): agenda tbc
- March 2011 (York): agenda tbc
by Mike (Admin)
Slides from Sarah Thew’s Talk
08/07/2010 in Resources, Usability, User Experience
Here are the slides Sarah Thew kindly provided to accompany her talk on “Does Technology Make Any Difference In Our Social Life?” from the meeting on 5th July 2010.
Sarah Thews slides: exploring users values motivations and emotions
by Keith Doyle
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
You can also search on twitter for #nuxuk
by Keith Doyle
NUX Event in Manchester Monday 5 July 2010
09/06/2010 in Events
The next event will see us have a chance to disuss two great items:
- Exploring Users’ Values, Motivations and Emotions, presented by Sarah Thew
- Does Technology make any difference in our social life, presented by Alistair Sutcliffe
Exploring Users’ Values, Motivations and Emotions
Requirements Elicitation is a technical and analytical process, but it is also a highly social and potentially emotive activity. All but the smallest software developments can have a wider organisational impact and the potential to change people’s working lives in positive and negative ways. Users’ reactions to such changes are shaped by their own personal values, motivations and emotions. Exploring and understanding such information can help requirements analysts in:
- Developing a deep understanding of users’ long term goals, working practices, preferences and problems
- Making design decisions
- Building a rapport with users
- Anticipating user wants and needs
Sarah Thew has been exploring these ideas during her PhD, carrying out a series of interviews with novice and experienced analysts investigating if and how they consider users’ values, motivations and emotions. These interviews contributed to the development of a method to support analysts in considering and exploring values, motivations and emotions during the requirements elicitation process, which she is currently evaluating.
About Sarah Thew
Sarah is a PhD student at Manchester Business School.
Does Technology Make Any Difference In Our Social Life?
This talk will give an overview of the EPSRC/ESRC Foresight project ‘Developing Theory for Evolving Socio-Technical Systems’ (TESS). The project is based on Robin Dunbar’s Social Brain Theory that explains the evolutionary constraints on human relationships and social organisation. With the spread of Social Networking Sites such as Facebook and MySpace, will we be able avoid those constraints to keep up with more friends and be more social, or is the downside, invasion of privacy, stalking, and a less social world ? The TESS project is researching these issues by studying social networks and work-related groups. I will describe current research on social networking sites and how this fits into the wider picture of social mediating technologies such as Twitter, Wikipedia, etc. Investigating the questions- does technology really change the way we behave in our social life, how do we adapt and use these technologies, and what impact might technology have a social capital?
For more information on the project http://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/DTESS.aspx
About the Speaker
Alistair Sutcliffe has been principle investigator on 15 EPSRC and European Union projects on requirements engineering, multimedia user interfaces, safety critical systems and cognitive modelling for information retrieval. His research interests span a wide area within Human Computer Interaction and Software Engineering. In HCI particular interests are interaction theory, and user interface design methods for the web, multimedia, virtual reality, safety critical systems and methods for usability evaluation. His research also covers application of cognitive theory to design, and design of complex socio-technical systems. In software engineering he specialises in requirements engineering methods and tools, scenario based design, knowledge reuse and theories of domain knowledge. Alistair Sutcliffe is a leading member of both the international HCI and requirements engineering communities and chairs / serves on a number of committees.
Let Us Know You’re Coming
It helps if we have an idea of numbers, so if you want, you can let us know you’re coming at the Upcoming website. It is fine to just turn up on the night if you want.
Use Our Twitter Hashtag
If you want to tweet about the event or Northern User Experience, our twitter hashtag is #nuxuk.
Join the Mailing List
Use the form on the right to add yourself to the mailing list and find out about events in the future.
Time
The event will be from 7pm to 9pm
Venue
Code Computerlove
Ducie House
Ducie Street
Manchester
M1 2JW
Sponsor
The venue has been kindly provided by Code Computerlove, a digital communications agency based in Manchester, England.
Future Events
- September 2010: Selling UX Internally & Design Exercise
- October 2010: agenda tbc
- November 2010: Communication theme for World Usability Day
- December 2010: Christmas social
- January 2011: Interaction Architecture for Startups and Digital Agencies
