October 2011: Design workshop with REEP

Thursday October 20, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

Sign up now, as space is limited!

The October edition of uxWaterloo features a hands-on design workshop for the Residential Energy Efficiency Program (REEP). We’ll work in groups to generate ideas for improving the user experience of REEP’s Green Home Planner, a web-based tool used by home owners to plan upgrades based on REEP’s audit of their home’s environmental performance. Bring your creativity and your curiosity!

About REEP

REEP is an environmental, charitable organization that has provided home energy evaluations in Waterloo Region since 1999. Over the past twelve years, REEP’s Certified Energy Advisors have shown 13,235 homeowners how to save 18,142 tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions and $4,531,000 annually on their energy bills. Participants have reduced their heat loss by an average of 25% through home retrofits based on REEP’s recommendations.

Download REEP’s personas and a product brief

To provide some context for this month’s design workshop, REEP has drafted 2 documents that describe their target audience and the product we’ll be working on. Download the PDF files below:

	Download the REEP personas
	Download the REEP product brief

Workshop: Tummeling towards a more humane Web

Hey UXers! Check out this fun workshop coming up at UW’s Stratford campus.

REGISTER OR FIND OUT MORE

How can the digital world be more emotionally resonant and human? Now that a large amount of web activity takes place in real-time social environments between people directly instead of graphic interfaces, we’re bringing together some of the best people who know how to do this in live performance: actors, directors, dancers, casting agents etc. We’ll investigate how they work to create conditions for great emotional engagement and mix them in conversation with innovative thinkers and makers from the digital world.

Heather Gold, solo performer, social artist, web veteran and co-founder of TummelVision.tv has mixed web and performance approaches for over 10 years exploring public intimacy. She’s now extending her inquiry to the broader community and will “tummel” the workshop, bringing together to come up with our collective insights in this landmark gathering to discover direction for the next stage of social web and business and possibly even performance.

[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/zJb0l0J6h40]

(September 2011) Tom Robinson on designing for novices, experts, and others

We’ve all seen the frustrations of novice users struggling with a piece of software not designed for them. Novices need features to help guide them through complex software. On the other hand, features designed to help novices may slowdown and frustrate expert users. Before we can design for novices and experts, we need to know how both groups interact with software. Knowing what novices and experts need from software, and which group we should design for, will help us decide what features to include and exclude.

During this session, we will look at who novices are, who experts are, and who’s in between. We will then have an extensive group discussion about which level of expertise people design for and how they approach design for that group.

Tom Robinson is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo. He is researching how people learn to use computer software, looking at the stages of knowledge that people pass through as they learn. Previously, he worked at Maplesoft and TD bank as a GUI developer. He has a bachelors and masters degree in Computer Science, also from the University of Waterloo.

Thursday September 15, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

RSVP

(August 2011) BrewUX 2: More beer, more pizza, and new friends.

This month we’re meeting once again at the Red Baron Lounge, located on-site at the Brick Brewery in Uptown Waterloo. We’ll have a couple of brief presentations about UX happenings around town — and plenty of time for meeting new faces, talking shop, and raising a few glasses together. This is a private gathering for UX Waterloo, in which you can sample just about everything the brewery has to offer.

Where and when

Thursday August 18, 2011
5:30 to 7:30 pm
Red Baron Lounge at the Brick Brewery
(Entrance at the side of the building near the front)
181 King Street South
Waterloo, ONT
[Map]

RSVP required

You must RSVP to attend, as this is a licensed event. We’ll be checking names at the door. Sign up early before it’s sold out!

Please thank our sponsor

Our thanks to Brick Brewery for sponsoring this @uxWat event! To show our appreciation, please visit Brick on Facebook and “Like” them, or tweet a quick thanks to @BrickBrewery on Twitter.

BrewUx July 2011

(July 2011) BrewUX! Free beer, free pizza, and priceless conversation

We’ve got something special on tap for UX Waterloo this summer. In both July and August, we’ll be meeting at the Red Baron Lounge, located on-site at the Brick Brewery in Uptown Waterloo. Our thanks to Brick Brewery for sponsoring this event! It’s a private gathering just for us, in which you can sample just about everything the brewery has to offer.

We’ll have a few brief presentations about UX happenings around town. And plenty of time for meeting new faces, talking shop, and raising a few glasses together.

Where and when

Tuesday July 19, 2011
5:30 to 7:30 pm
Red Baron Lounge at the Brick Brewery
(Entrance at the side of the building near the front)
181 King Street South
Waterloo, ONT
[Map]

RSVP required

You must RSVP to attend, as this is a licensed event. We’ll be checking names at the door. Sign up early before it’s sold out!

Please thank our sponsor!

Many thanks to Brick Brewery for sponsoring UX Waterloo this summer. Please visit Brick on Facebook and “Like” them. Maybe even drop a comment to let them know you appreciate their support!

June recap- Pixels Everywhere with Bob Rushby

In our June event, the uxWaterloo group had Bob Rushby speak about Digital Light.  From the Google office in Kitchener, Bob took us through the concepts that are possible when pixels are everywhere!  Digital Light is a vision of the future, where the entire world becomes a canvas for expression. 

Five years from now, Bob predicts that lighting will be transformed.  Lighting will no longer simply illuminate, but it will be turned into cheap pixels.  Pixels have already been used so you can dial from a keyboard that is projected onto your hand, doctors can see the veins of a patient, and customers can order from menus that look like they are part of the table they are sitting at!  Bob really showed us through his examples that the possibilities are endless and you can let your imagination run wild.  Check out the videos on the Baanto website to see how they have used pixels to allow multiple users interact with the same display and use this interaction with pixels as a social opportunity.

“Twists and Turns” on the Uniqa Tower, Vienna

The Uniqa Tower is a great example of how architecture can be used as art and signage.  Take a look at this video, where it looks like the tower itself is bending and turning.

Find out more about Digital Light!

Thanks again to Bob for sharing his thoughts and ideas with us.  Bob retired from Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. in February 2011 after an exciting career leading talented teams in the creation of ground-breaking high technology products. Christie is a global leader in projection and electronic display products and has the world’s largest installed base of digital cinema projection systems. Bob is currently involved with several exciting university entrepreneurship initiatives — in particular, the University of Waterloo REAP program and the Ryerson University Digital Media Zone. He is also writing a book on the theme of Digital Light… pixels everywhere.  To find out more, please contact Bob or check out the following sites.

• Bob Rushby- @bobrushby and bob.rushby@pixelizedlight.com
• Blog: http://www.pixelizedlight.com/
• Website: http://www.pixelseverywhere.com/

May Recap- Designing for iOS devices at Monolith Interactive

In our May uxWaterloo event, Simon Woodside shared the “single screen” approach that he’s used at Monolith Interactive when building iOS products.  He believes that your users will thank you for using a single screen approach, as they will find it more discoverable and that all objects will be easily related to each other.   Popovers are useful in designs that use a single screen approach.  A popover will allow for the rest of the screen to be used, even while it is open.

During the hands-on workshop portion of this event, we received client specifications for an iPad application.  We worked in groups to come up with a single screen solution that would meet the client’s needs.  When our groups showed our wireframes and talked through our designs, we were impressed by the many different ways each group interpreted the specifications!  Then, seeing how Simon’s team designed their solution truly showed how a single screen approach can work effectively, on both mobile or tablet applications.

Thanks to Simon for sharing with our group and facilitating this fun and informative workshop!

Remember that our June event, “Pixels Everywhere!” by Bob Rushby, has been moved to the Google office.  

Hope to see you there next week!

Next event- Pixels Everywhere– Thursday June 16, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Google Waterloo
151 Charles Street West, Suite 200
Kitchener, ONT

Update: June 2011 event location changed to the Google office

The location for our next event, “Pixels Everywhere!” by Bob Rushby, has been moved to the Google office. If you haven’t yet visited The Hub, here’s your chance to check out this amazing new space!

Thursday June 16, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Google Waterloo
151 Charles Street West, Suite 200
Kitchener, ONT
[Map]

June 2011: Bob Rushby explains why pixels will soon be everywhere

Bob Rushby thinks that pixels are about to escape the bounds of their current display devices. As the recently-retired CTO of Christie Digital, he knows something about throwing pixels around, and in this month’s uxWaterloo session he’ll discuss the convergence of lighting and information display and the major effects it will have on architecture, graphic design, communications and how we live and work.

Electric lighting is used everywhere around us. It’s so ubiquitous that we are almost unaware of it. Yet the way we think about lighting is about to fundamentally change. No longer will lighting merely illuminate our desks, our walls and our buildings. Whether at home, in our workplace, or in public spaces, lighting is about to be transformed — it will communicate with us, interact with us, and help us see the world with new eyes. Pixels will be everywhere and this will have profound implications on our lives.

Bob retired from Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. in February 2011 after an exciting career leading talented teams in the creation of ground-breaking high technology products. Christie is a global leader in projection and electronic display products and has the world’s largest installed base of digital cinema projection systems. Bob is currently involved with several exciting university entrepreneurship initiatives — in particular, the University of Waterloo REAP program and the Ryerson University Digital Media Zone. He is also writing a book on the theme of Digital Light… pixels everywhere.

Thursday June 16, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Google Waterloo
151 Charles Street West, Suite 200
Kitchener, ONT
[Map]

RSVP

(May 2011) Designing for iOS devices at Monolith Interactive

iOS devices like the Apple iPad and iPhone represent a new paradigm for interacting with powerful computers. Designing for them presents a set of exciting challenges that we’re only starting to explore.

Simon Woodside and his company, Monolith Interactive, have been building iOS products for some time now. He believes that a “single screen” approach is a the way to build successful iOS products, and he’ll share his thinking through real-world examples and a hands-on workshop. This is a chance to see and understand how Simon approaches the challenges and to learn about designing for a truly engaging mobile platform.

Thursday May 19, 2010
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Accelerator Centre
295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo

RSVP