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.

This is a free, public event

Full Details & Registration on Eventbrite

Presenter

@keithdoyle from Navopia

Giveaways

• One copy of Luke Wroblewski’s ‘Mobile First’ book
• Three copies of Balsamiq’s ‘Mockups for Desktop’
• One copy of Axure

Sponsor

Venue and refreshments provided by Simple Usability

Tickets from http://nux032811.eventbrite.com/

We have two great sessions planned for the next NUX Yorkshire!

• UCD: the 70 year journey: is modern UX reinventing the wheel? (Ian Franklin)
• Tricks and Tools of the Trade (Open Space)

Note that we will be starting earlier than usual at 6:30pm – this is the new time for all future Leeds events

UCD: the 70 year journey: is modern UX reinventing the wheel? (Ian Franklin)

This session aims to make people aware that usability, UX and UCD has a long history and its roots in applied psychology, organisational psychology and ergonomics. Many of the issues faced now are very similar; so although the medium may be different (e.g. websites, social media, mobile phone touch pads) the user issues are the same.

About Ian

Chartered Psychologist and Ergonomist who first got interested in UX in 1984 when it was called HCI. After a short spell in user centred design research, Ian worked for the Dept of Work and Pensions on the design of in house systems (green screen then GUI). This included the development of a UCD methodology in the 1990′s which lead to him contributing to the UCD standard ISO 13407. His final work for the DWP was the development of the first touch screen job search kiosks in Jobcentres and the first job search website in 1999 which went live in 2001. During these projects Ian joined the IT company EDS and continued his work in UX. Ian is now self-employed. His passion is the application of psychology to UX and true participatory design, involving the end user in the design process as an active breathing participant. Mantra: technology should be done WITH users and NOT to them.

Ian doesn’t Twitter or Blog, but he is on LinkedIn and contribute to the discussion there. His public profile is here: http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/ian-franklin/3/547/a86

Tricks and Tools of the Trade (Open Space)

At the planning session in January, there was much interest in tricks and tools of the trade. In this session, people will have a chance to share their tricks and tools – ask other people for ideas – and we will post the list of tools & tricks discussed on this website after the event. However, if you want the inside infomation, you’ll have to come to the event itself!

What is Open Space?

Open Space will be facilitated by Keith Doyle. In the session, everyone will have a chance to say what they’d like to discuss, then we discuss it! For more info, search the web for Open Space Technology!

Event Details

Venue: Simple Usability, Round Foundry Media Centre, Foundry Street, Leeds, LS11 5QP

Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Let us know you’re coming

For free tickets, http://nux032811.eventbrite.com/

This is a free public event, if you can register for a ticket then it helps us know how many people are coming.

Twitter

hashtag: #nuxuk

“Usability & User Experience 101″

• When: Thursday, February 10, 2011 from 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM (GMT)
• Where: Michael E. Porter Lecture Theatre, MMU Business School, Aytoun Street, M1 3GH Manchester
• Who with: Paul Rouke, Head of Usability at PRWD
• Twitter Hashtag: #UX101
• Register for FREE: http://saschoolux101.eventbrite.com/

Event Overview

In this event, Paul will introduce you to usability and user experience, and provide you with a range of insights, tips and best practice that can be used when working on web projects.

The talk will cover key site areas such as homepages, landing pages and enquiry pages, and will include time for questions both during and after the talk.

You’re encouraged to tweet about the talk before, during and after, using the hashtag #UX101.

About Paul Rouke

Paul is Head of Usability and founder of PRWD, a Manchester based usability consultancy who help businesses generate more leads and more sales from their websites.

Paul is a usability consultant, trainer and speaker who absolutely loves sharing tips, advice and customer insights to SME’s through to blue chip companies on how they can improve their usability and on-site conversion rates.

Paul works with a range of well known and respected brands including Speedo International, Lakeland, JD Williams, Econsultancy, Smart Insights (run by Dr Dave Chaffey), The Royal Mail and The Scout Association who all recognise the increased sales and profit they can gain by investing in improved on-site usability to improve their conversion rates.

Paul is one of Econsultancy’s well respected training team, and he delivers two courses, Usability and User Experience and E-commerce Usability and Best Practice. Paul also writes articles for Econsultancy’s award winning blog, sharing tips, advice and recommendations.

In addition to working with Econsultancy, Smart Insights co-founder Dr Dave Chaffey brought Paul in to be the expert commentator on usability and conversion optimisation for Smart Insights, a digital portal and consultancy who provide advice and software to help businesses succeed online.

Paul’s business PRWD also has a usability blog sharing tips and advice and company news. You can follow Paul on Twitter for his latest insights, links and commentary on all things usability and conversion optimisation, or if you prefer you connect through Linked In.

1. Remote Usability Testing
2. Brainstorming of ideas for upcoming NUX sessions
3. Interaction Architecture for Startups and Digital Agencies

Tickets: Free tickets are available from eventbrite

Venue: Simple Usability, Round Foundry Media Centre, Foundry Street, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS11 5QP

Time: 7pm to 9pm

Tickets: free from nux.eventbite.com

Twitter hashtag: #nuxuk

Sponsor: thanks to Simple Usability for providing the venue and refreshments

Session Details

Remote Usability Testing

This session will be presented by Lee Duddell from whatusersdo.com

Lee will talk about when to use remote testing and what you can expect to get from it. He’ll also provide some examples of innovative uses of remote testing that you may not have thought of!

About Lee

Founder of whatusersdo.com an innovative online User Experience research service.

Brainstorming of ideas for upcoming NUX sessions

This session will be presented by Dina Salah from the University of York.

A modified form of Open Space, to reach interesting session ideas. Since the meeting is supposed to be self-organising, the facilitators put their energy not in running the meeting but creating a setting that gets everyone’s creative energy flowing. A full description of the original (non modified) form of open space http://www.agileopen.net/on-open-space

About Dina

Dina Salah is a 3rd year PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York working under the supervision of Professors Richard Paige. Her research focus is on how to bridge the gap between user centred design and agile software development processes.

Before starting her PhD she worked for 12 years in Egypt both in academia as a teaching assistant and an assistant lecturer in a number of Egyptian Universities, and in industry as an Oracle trainer, consultant and developer. She is an Oracle Certified Professional DBA10G, DBA9i, Developer 9i, Developer 6i, and Managing Oracle on Linux Certified Expert.

Interaction Architecture for Startups and Digital Agencies

This session will be presented by Peter Bagnall from Surface Effect

About Peter

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.

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.

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!

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!