(April 2010) UX Show and Tell

Monday April 19, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 (Then drinks afterwards if you’re interested!)
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

A chance to share our work and learn from each other

This month we’re hosting our first UX Show and Tell, an event that’s become fairly popular with other IxDA and UX-related groups around the world. It’s no wonder, as it’s quite a lot of fun and is a great way to learn from each other.

Bring examples of anything from your work: research artifacts, personas, sketches, wireframes, design comps, prototypes, documents… anything goes. Tell us a challenge you faced. Or show us a problem you solved. Bring a question you have, or simply show off something you’re proud of.

We’ll keep things brief, so please choose only one or two pages from that 5-pound design specification. 🙂

Do I NEED to bring something to show?

No, it’s not required that you bring something to show. But we certainly encourage you do so, as you’ll be surprised how much fun it can be. Remember, you don’t have to show a lot. Even a single screenshot can be plenty. And yes, you DO have something that others would find interesting or valuable!

RSVPs requested

If you’re hoping to attend, please click here to RSVP via Communitech. As usual, everyone’s welcome to join us, so spread the word!

Join us for informal drinks and chitchat afterwards

After the event ends at 7:00, we’re planning to get together at a nearby pub or restaurant. If this sounds like fun, just hang out for a few minutes afterwards while we see who’s interested and decide where to go.

Like Tabletop Interfaces? You can make your own!

In last Thursday’s March UX Group meeting, Dr. Stacey Scott spoke to us about the exciting projects that she and her team are working on with tabletop interfaces. She brought us through the history of tabletop interfaces and showed us that there has been a large amount of work that brought us from the earliest prototypes, to what we’ve seen with more mainstream products like Microsoft Surface and the SMART Table.

Imagine playing Risk, but on a tabletop interface!

This video shows some the amazing projects that Dr. Scott and her team in the Collaborative Systems Laboratory at the University of Waterloo have been working on. They are focussing on applications for tabletop interfaces in two main areas: 1) military command and control operations  and 2) digital board gaming. One day, the army or navy might be using these systems and we might be able to enjoy digitalized versions of strategy board games (like Risk and Pax Romana) on our own kitchen tables!

Want to build your own tabletop interface?

Well, if you can’t wait and want to try building your own interactive tabletop, you’re in luck! Contact Professor Michael Haller’s Media Interaction Lab in Austria, from which you can order the same kit that Dr. Scott’s team uses for their work. Order the special grid paper and pens, install a projector, set it all up on any table that you have lying around and voila… you’ll be able to tinker with your own tabletop interface!  If you have any luck, you can enter in the SMART Multitouch Application Contest and compete against other developers who are working on surface applications.

Join the new IxDA Waterloo site!

In other news, we have a new IxDA Waterloo site!  Check out the link to see more information, learn about other IxDA events, and gain access to more resources about design and user experience. While there, we encourage you to join IxDA (it’s free) and indicate your membership with IxDA Waterloo. We’re currently looking into ways to combine our current UX group blog with this new IxDA site.

Send us your ideas for future events

The UX group planning commitete brainstormed after last Thursday’s event and we came up with some great ideas for future events. We plan to continue the tradition of “UX drinks” after our monthly events, so we can get together to chat in a more social atmosphere. If you have any thoughts or ideas, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!

Is there a UX war going on?

The February UX Group meeting was a great success. Blair Nonnecke led a guerrilla usability workshop. The resulting discussions and explorations were rich enough that we didn’t actually get through the entire workshop!

Blair’s focus on building community and on sharing experiences helped us to understand that we all have similar challenges. Moreover, the discussion around the suitability of a martial metaphor made it clear that there are a wide range of experiences amongst our group members. It’s not at all clear that there’s any kind of metaphorical war going on here!

For the 40+ folks that attended, thanks for making the evening such a rewarding one. For those of you who missed it, come out to a future event and get connected. For everyone, let us know what kind of activities and presentations you’d like the UX Group to organize. Add your thoughts to the comments for this post.

(March 2010) Next Generation Tabletop Interfaces

Thursday, March 18, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

“One day, your computer will be a big-ass table.”

As the above parody so hilariously illustrates, we have yet see tabletop interfaces in every home. We’re at least a few years away from finding them in Best Buy or Future Shop. However, specialized markets for these devices are indeed emerging — and new applications are on the horizon. This month, Stacey Scott will overview some of the digital tabletop research being conducted in the Collaborative Systems Laboratory at the University of Waterloo. She’ll focus on two specific application areas: military command and control operations, and digital board gaming.

Even before Microsoft announced the Surface system in 2007, the Human-Computer Interaction community was actively researching digital tabletop technologies since Pierre Wellner proposed the DigitalDesk in 1991. Yet only recently have hardware and software advances begun to make digital tabletops a feasible technology for real-world markets. Innovations in operating systems (e.g., Microsoft 7), development environments (e.g., Windows Presentation Foundation), and input technologies (e.g., FTIR and TouchCo “multitouch” technologies) are enabling a move beyond proof-of-concept tabletop systems. We’re also well beyond simple demonstrations of new interface metaphors and interaction techniques for manipulating and sharing digital photos.

RSVPs requested

If you’re hoping to attend, please help us anticipate numbers by registering here RSVP’ing to Wanda Eby at Communitech. Thanks!

About the speaker

Stacey Scott is an Assistant Professor of Human Systems Engineering in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Scott received her Ph.D. in Computer Science (specializing in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Collaboration) from the University of Calgary in 2005. She received her B.Sc. in Computing Science and Mathematics from Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS) in 1997. She completed two years of postdoctoral studies in the Humans and Automation Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, USA) from 2005-2007, where she developed awareness technologies to facilitate collaborative decision-making in time-critical military command and control operations.

Dr. Scott’s graduate research focused on understanding collaborative tabletop work practices with traditional media and developing interface design requirements for digital tabletop platforms. She is now combining this previous theoretical and high-level requirements work with the applied research experience gained in her postdoc to pursue the development of digital tabletop systems that support real-world collaboration in complex task domains. In general, her research interests include computer-supported collaboration, large-screen displays, interface and interaction design, and information visualization.

Guerrilla Usability Workshop

Usability doesn’t have to be a big investment of time and resources. Guerrilla usability techniques can be applied to just about any project and deliver valuable insights. Join us for a guerrilla usability workshop led by Blair Nonnecke, a user experience researcher and practitioner who is an Associate Professor at the University of Guelph. You’ll get hands-on experience in valuable techniques that you can use on your own projects.

Please bring your own favorite guerrilla technique for show and tell!

RSVPs requested

If you’re hoping to attend, please help us make an appropriate reservation by RSVP’ing to Wanda Eby at Communitech. Thanks! Everyone’s invited, so spread the word.

Thursday February 18, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

(January 2010) Is user experience becoming a commodity?

Monday January 18, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
Meeting Room #2
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo
[Map]

In November, Kem-Laurin Kramer of Research in Motion (RIM) wrote a provocative article for JohnnyHolland magazine that opened with these words:

After 10 years in the field, I woke up one day to realise that my service as a UX practitioner had become a commodity. Usability had become the “in thing” and everyone could do it and show that their products were better than the competition. Usability as a buzzword, populated Product Lifecycle processes in many organizations. So it comes as no suprise when the general attitude of stakeholders these days is one of a shopper saying: “One McUser Experience with usability fries please.”

On January 18, Kem will lead us into a deep dive on this question of whether our practice has become commoditized. Are we producing goods or services that lack differentiation? Is it a problem that user experience is concerned with aesthetics? Can anyone do our job?

Hope you can join us for what’s sure to be a lively, perhaps even heated, UX Group get-together!

RSVPs requested

If you’re hoping to attend, please help us anticipate numbers by RSVP’ing to Wanda Eby at Communitech. Thanks!