September 2014 – A Simple and Usable UX Book Club

After a great summer, we’re back! We hope your batteries have been recharged and you’re ready to trade in your beach novels for UX lit.

Join us on Thursday September 11th at 7pm to discuss Simple and Usable web, mobile, and interaction design by Giles Colborne (@gilescolborne). You can grab the book directly from Amazon.ca and other places, including WordsWorthBooks in Uptown. And if you’re just looking to borrow a copy instead, we’d be happy to lend you ours.

As a special treat this month, we’ll be joined by Giles himself! We’re honoured to have him on hand to help further the discussion and give us a chance to pick his brain. (As there may be some jetlag involved, let’s not go too hard on him though.)

Giles’ book is an easy to read page flipper on how we can approach the surprisingly difficult activity of simplifying designs. It outlines interesting and real-life examples, and talks about how we can apply them to our own work.

This time around, we’ll be hosting the event in Waterloo’s own Seven Shores Urban Market and Cafe, the wonderfully delicious cafe in Uptown Waterloo. We’ve booked the private back room – a great space for intimate and lively conversation! As space is limited, registration will be capped at 20. Be sure to register soon to avoid disappointment.

If you can’t make it to UX Book Club on the 11th (and even if you can!) you can also catch Giles at the Fluxible 2014 conference, September 13-14. He’ll be giving a workshop on “Rediscovering Efficiency” which will teach techniques for designing highly efficient user interfaces.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

Thursday September 11, 2014
7:00-8:30 pm
Seven Shores Urban Market and Cafe
10 Regina St. N Unit 4
Waterloo, Ontario

Job: UX Designer

On behalf of our client in the Security Software sector, Procom KW is searching for a UX Designer with at least 5 years experience. This is your chance to work with a company in an exciting industry, using the latest technologies, multiple platforms and environments and a sexy suite of products– what more could you want?

UX Designer Job Details

Reporting to the VP Product Management, the UX Designer will be working closely with Engineers and product owners to take product requirements and create complex and functional user interfaces that amaze the end users.

UX Designer Job Responsibilities

• Transform requirements into software workflows that follow user requirements
• 
Create wireframes, and high and low fidelity prototypes to express an exciting design vision
• 
Work with the Engineering team and stakeholders to confirm design concept validity
• Interact with the user community and internal product owners by conducting research and focus groups
• Test designs to ensure UX is seamless and follows the UX of the product suite and recommend improvements

UX Designer Mandatory Requirements

• BA in Visual Design, Computer Science or a related technical field
• 
5–10 yrs experience in UX/UI design
• 
iOS/Android/web/Windows experience
• Expert using Adobe CC – Photoshop and Illustrator
• 
Experience with CSS/HTML/JavaScript

UX Designer Nice to Have Skills

• Practical experience with Agile and Jira considered an asset

UX Designer Start Date

• Immediate

UX Designer Assignment Length

Permanent, full time

UX Designer Location

Waterloo, ON

If interested in this position, please send your resume to paigec@procom.ca

August 2014: Another informal pub meetup

Our July uxWaterloo session featured informal talk and drinks. It was so much fun that we’re doing it again for August! As is always the case, the laid-back atmosphere and conversations are a welcome addition to any summer schedule. Join us!

We’ll be back to a program of speakers and workshops starting in September, but now’s the time for conversation and relaxation…

Please register for this free event

Thursday August 21, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Patio at The Barley Works
(upstairs in the Huether Hotel)
59 King St. North
Waterloo, Ontario

July 2014: Informal Pub Meetup

It’s time to chase away those summertime blues with a July uxWaterloo session that features informal talk and drinks! We’ve done this before — even using this very same announcement — and the laid-back atmosphere and conversations are a welcome addition to any summer schedule. Join us!

As an added bonus, there’s a very good chance that Bob and Mark will provide an update on Fluxible 2014. There are some exciting things brewing! Really!

Please register for this free event

Thursday July 24, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Patio at The Barley Works
(upstairs in the Huether Hotel)
59 King St. North
Waterloo, Ontario

June 2014: Intellectual property for designers

Update: Pub UX!!!

Unfortunately, our speaker Kuyler Neable for Thursday’s session has had to postpone on short notice. We’ll reschedule him for the fall, but our June event will now be a pub meet-up. Join us for a uxWaterloo session that features informal talk and drinks! We’ve done this before, and the laid-back atmosphere and conversations are a welcome addition to any summer schedule. See you there!

What is your most valuable idea? Why is it valuable to you? How do you know it is actually yours?

Ideas are intangible, and, yet, can be highly valuable. Creativity and innovation have a significant impact on many aspects of our lives, from the global economy and international trade, to individual, personal expression. Governments create laws to protect intellectual property. Technology companies rely on new inventions for commercial success. Our personal identities may rely on originality and expression. We all live and thrive in a world of ideas, each in our own way.

But, to what extent to you actually own your ideas? How can this ownership be enforced? How does our intellectual property law system simultaneously account for inventions as assets for a corporation, the aesthetics of a unique design, or the individual expression of a person? Please join Kuyler Neable in exploring the concepts, principles, and laws that contribute to patent, trade-mark, copyright, and industrial design protection.

Kuyler is an intellectual property lawyer with the firm of Bereskin & Parr LLP. He spends his days helping his clients realize the value of their high-tech inventions by protecting their intellectual property with patents, and is also an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Western University, where he lectures on copyright and trade marks.

Thursday June 26, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Patio at The Barley Works
(upstairs in the Huether Hotel)
59 King St. North
Waterloo, Ontario
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

May 2014 bonus event: Product Design at ZURB

We already have a terrific UX Book Club event happening this month on May 22. Register now if you haven’t yet done so.

But now there’s more!

Fluxible 2013 featured ZURB founder Bryan Zmijewski presenting on Design that Drives Action. This month, two of Bryan’s colleagues will bring a new talk to uxWaterloo as part of the ZURB World Tour.

The folks at ZURB have been practicing product design since 1998, long before people even realized they were building digital products and not just websites. Yet most companies are still struggling with the concept of product design in a digital world. But they don’t have to. In this special uxWaterloo event, learn how you can elevate your game and design online products that everyone will want to use.

Alok Jethanandani is one of ZURB’s stellar designers. He’s worked on several client projects and is the main designer on ZURB’s product suite of apps.

Rafi Benkual is ZURB’s Foundation Advocate. He works on the world’s most advanced responsive framework, helping others design responsively.

Thursday May 15, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

Job: Director of User Experience at Sun Life

Location: Waterloo or Toronto, Ontario

Summary

Reporting to the AVP, Digital Strategy, the Director, User Experience is a new role. The Director, User Experience and team will provide thought leadership and be the resident authority team on user experience and information architecture principles.

This person will have a demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with a variety of business leaders, technology leaders, brand teams, and other key stakeholders to develop large growth businesses.

The ideal candidate will bring deep understanding of customer research, knowledge gathering, ideation, prototyping, design frameworks and concept visualization. He or she will bring years of experience building and leading a team ideally including user experience leads, architects and researchers. The Director, User Experience will partner and work with the business units and regions to ensure alignment incorporating feedback and best practices. This role will interface and have accountabilities for communication with a variety of stakeholders in Canada, the US and Asia.

Accountabilities

• Develop and implement an enterprise level strategy for embedding user experience (UX) guidelines and best practices in the organization.
• Provide strategic guidance in support of the user experience and information architecture service by understanding the direction and goals of the business.
• Identify and champion the User Experience to deliver business value and increase the Sun Life Financial digital brand recognition
• Identify innovation opportunities improving the customer experience and lead generation with a focus on creating and updating the digital properties to address user challenges.
• Define and incorporate relevant UX, web and mobile usage research and date to appropriately inform design decisions
• Create and effectively present UX deliverables; wireframes, workflows and paper prototypes to explain and negotiate design solutions to key stakeholder.
• Define and measure metrics to track user satisfaction both overall and specific to strategic development
• Build and maintain key relationships in Canadian, US and Asia with Marketing leaders by optimizing their digital channels and ensuring a customer-centric approach is consistent with the Digital Marketing vision and mandate.
• Keep abreast of industry trends, web development technology and advancements insuring SLF provides best in class services
• Staff and train the team according to strategic direction and technical requirements
• Foster and promote a positive working and leaning environment

Skills

• Strong knowledge of user experience design; information architecture and interaction design. Leading expert and thought leader in UX methodology.
• Familiar with User Centered Design Process.
• Ability to successfully manage and deliver on multiple projects.

Education and Experience

• University or advance degree in business, marketing or communications
• Minimum 7 years’ experience in digital environment
• Experience with developing and executing UX strategy in a mid to large size corporation
• Business minded and oriented
• Excellent communication skills – written and verbal
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to develop relationships to influence change
• Innovative problem solving skills and excellent analytical abilities
• Strong ability to identify and implement process improvements

To apply

Please apply for this position by email at ashley.avolio [at] sunlife [dot] com. We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

May 2014: The art of seduction at UX Book Club KW

UX Book Club KW is meeting again in May and this time we’re focusing on art of seduction. Well, in terms of designing interfaces, at least!

Join us on Thursday May 22nd at 7pm, to discuss Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences by Stephen P. Anderson (@stephenanderson). The book takes a fresh approach to designing sites and interactions based on the stages of seduction, and examines what motivates people to act.

It’s packed with excellent examples of websites employing seductive design, and goes even further to delve into the fundamental psychological theories behind exactly why each of the examples work so well.

We’re pretty excited to be hosting this month’s meeting at DVLB, the fabulously hip coffee bar in Uptown Waterloo.

You can grab the book directly from Peach Pit Publishing, Amazon.ca and other places, including WordsWorthBooks in Uptown. And if you’re just looking to borrow a copy instead, we’d be happy to lend you ours.

So, have you been seduced? We hope so – see you there!

Because space is limited at DVLB, we have to cap registration to 18.  Go ahead and register now:

Thursday May 22, 2014

7:00 to 8:30 pm
DVLB
84 King Street North
Waterloo, ON N2J 2X4

April 2014: Building the muscles of innovators, with Steve Portigal

How can you broaden your sphere of influence within the field of user experience? You can start by building your muscles! Steve will take a look at some fundamental skills that underlie the creation and launch of innovative goods and services. He will discuss the personal skills that he considers to be “the muscles of innovators” and the ways you can build these important muscles, including noticing, understanding cultural context, maintaining exposure to pop culture, synthesizing, drawing, wordsmithing, listening, and prototyping. Along the way, he will demonstrate how improving these powerful skills will equip you to lead positive change.

Steve Portigal is the founder of Portigal Consulting, a bite-sized San Francisco firm that helps clients to discover and act on new insights about themselves and their customers. That means that he’s important enough to have a company named after him, but not important enough to have an invincible army of minions… yet. Steve delighted conference attendees at Fluxible 2013. He’s also author of Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, a Rosenfeld Media book.

Sounds like a great time, right? Register now!

Thursday April 17, 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6

March 2014: How research weaves into a product’s destiny

Who doesn’t like a great metaphor? If you’re a UX practitioner or researcher, you love them right?

In this month’s session, join Janice de Jong, Julia Thompson, and Susan Simon Daniels as they use the three fates of Greek mythology to illustrate truths about UX research.

The three fates, who represent destiny, are:

• Clotho. The spinner who creates the thread of life. She is the youngest and represents what is possible. Clotho is pictured with a spindle and thread.
• Lachesis. The allotter who measures out life. Lachesis is in the middle and decides what kind of life a person will lead and for how long.
• Atropos. The last and oldest fate is the one who cannot be turned away—she cuts the thread when the time has come.

There’s an interesting parallel between the three fates and the three stages of research throughout a product’s life cycle:

• Clotho would be trend research typically started earliest and carried out on the farthest horizon, about three years from now. Hear Janice de Jong explain the purpose of trend research, strategies on how to conduct this analysis and how trends influence the product life cycle.
• Lachesis would be research around product ideas and concept exploration typically carried out a year or two before a product comes to market. Listen to Julia Thompson describe the goals of exploratory research, best practices for methodologies and how research influences product meaning.
• Atropos  would be research on the product’s usability typically carried out in the months before the product is launched. Hear Susie Simon Daniels identify goals for usability research, best practices for studies and how usability research impacts the product being shipped out the door.

By weaving these three stages of research together, you’ll learn how to spin out a meaningful user experience. We’ll follow a product case study to show the research fates at play through the three stages of trends, exploration and usability research.

Sounds like fun, right? Register now!

Thursday March 20 , 2014
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Communitech Hub, P2P Room
151 Charles St. W.
Kitchener, ON N2G 1H6