Mark Connolly – Page 19 – Connolly Design

May 18, 2010October 31, 2020

Yet another demonstration that beer and user experience go well together

We had a great discussion (or, rather, series of discussions) at this month’s UX Group event at the Huether Hotel in Waterloo last night. We started off talking about iPad, which was certainly in the spirit of our announced NUI discussion, but soon wandered off down various interesting conversational side roads. From business models, to retail user experience, to music and movies in the digital age, and more, it was a terrific night. Thanks to everyone who came out and made the event so special. And here’s to a speedy recovery for co-organizer Bob Barlow-Busch, who was too ill to make it out. You missed a good night, Bob!

The current plan is to try to assemble a group post that represents our collective take on the evening. Check back at the UX Group blog for more on that.

May 14, 2010October 31, 2020

Staying grounded with Boys Breakfast

One of the enduring traditions that I’ve been able to enjoy every other Thursday over the last decade here in Waterloo is a morning gathering known to its participants as Boys Breakfast. The attendance has varied dramatically in the years since the regular meetings at the long-departed Texas Bar-B-Q (a ghostly reminder of which appeared briefly late last summer while the space was being renovated; see the accompanying image), but some of the original founders are still there. While not exactly a secret society, it’s certainly been a well-kept secret, with new breakfasters joining via invitations to come on out and try it.

What’s the attraction? The diversity of breakfasters and the resulting wide-ranging conversations is certainly top of the list. This week’s gathering, for example, saw an architect, a writer, a historian, a venture capitalist, a librarian, a land developer, and a designer, amongst others, taking the conversations hither and yonder through the news and local topics of interest. Happily, conventional ‘networking’ isn’t on the menu!

The food has for some time been a top notch feature; Chris and Chef Willie regularly deliver wonderfully unique and delicious morning meals. Green eggs and ham (!) were a special surprise, and I have particularly fond memories of the scotch eggs served up some time ago.

In the end, the regularity of the gatherings may be a big part of the appeal. Year in and year our, Boys Breakfast is there, providing a defiantly local communal experience. Guys, you know who you are, and I thank you all for creating and maintaining this Uptown Waterloo tradition.

May 12, 2010November 1, 2020

Digital Media Boot Camp

On Monday and Tuesday this week I hosted a Digital Media Boot Camp at Canada 3.0 in Stratford, Ontario, on Canada’s digital media future. The goal was to come up with some concrete ideas around how to move forward on the vision of being able to do anything online in Canada by 2017, the country’s sesquicentennial year.

I was struck by a couple of things.

First was the diversity of people that showed up for what was essentially the “general public” stream of Canada 3.0. The range of experiences and backgrounds represented resulted in some great discussions.

The second was the recurring theme that emerged that access to the online world remains, in 2010, a real issue in Canada for a variety of reasons: economic disparity, urban/rural divide, fear, inexperience — all prevent full participation in Canada’s digital present. Ironically, technological barriers were emphasized at the conference, where both WiFi and mobile access were severely constrained.

(As an aside, there was also the irony, visible in the accompanying photo, of talking about a digital future using decidedly analogue markers and flip charts!)

There’s a lot of work to do to make a future a vision a reality.

May 10, 2010October 31, 2020

Bigger than the World Cup!

2010 is an important year for me as a soccer fan, but not because the World Cup takes place on the continent of Africa for the first time (though that is, admittedly, big).

I’m a big fan of watching my sons play organized soccer here in Waterloo. The new season kicked off last week for all of them, and the big 2010 highlight for me is that my four-year-old has joined a team for the very first time this year! I’m pleased to note that, like his brothers before him, he managed to get uniform number six for his inaugural season; he’s a free man, and number one in my heart.

Between the three boys, this season I’ll be watching games five days a week at fields all over the city.

Organized soccer is available in my community thanks in large part to the work of many volunteers, and I’m grateful for that. My boys are too!

May 3, 2010November 1, 2020

This boot camp needs you, no marching required

Next week is the Canada 3.0 conference in Stratford, Ontario. I mention it because I’ll be there on the afternoons of Monday May 10 and Tuesday May 11, facilitating/hosting DigitalMediaCamp from noon until 4:00pm. The great thing is that DigitalMediaCamp is free, courtesy of The Record. All you need to do is register for either Monday or Tuesday and then get yourself to Stratford.

What should you expect? As it says on the site, “the DigitalMediaCamp will allow participants to interact with others, experience new software and provide input to decision makers shaping the future of Digital Media in Canada.” DigitalMediaCamp registrants are also entitled to attend the morning keynote presentations that are part of Canada 3.0, and to explore the showcase booths and more.

Sounds like fun to me. Tell your friends, get thinking, and bring your ideas and an open mind to Stratford. Take the opportunity to work with others to help build a digital media vision for Canada.

April 23, 2010November 4, 2020

Albertasaurus poised to rampage through Waterloo

While I’ve known about it for years I only recently visited the Earth Sciences Museum at the University of Waterloo for the first time. I was accompanied by all three of my sons, two of whom had been there before, and we were there with a group of kids with their parents. We saw a presentation on dinosaurs that was engaging, fun, and educational. Millions of years were covered, with museum exhibits of an Albertosaurus and other extinct species illustrating points about how dinosaurs lived. The boys and I learned a new word too, discovering that the Brachiosaurus, as well as other dinosaurs and some modern animals, swallowed rocks to facilitate digestion; the museum has a specimen of such a gastrolith.

Finally, just prior to leaving, my sons led me to the 8.5 meter gneiss monolith, a truly massive slab of rock that dominates a stairwell in the Centre for Environmental Information Technology building in which the museum is housed.

As with other entries in this series, the Earth Sciences Museum makes Waterloo a better place to live — even if the large and extinct carnivore won’t really rampage through the city.

April 16, 2010November 1, 2020

Startup Lessons Learned Conference

Jim Murphy has organized a fun looking event for next Friday, April 23 from noon until 9:00pm at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo. It’s a simulcast of the Startup Lessons Learned conference happening in San Francisco. From Jim’s event description:

Startup Lessons Learned is the first event designed to unite those interested in what it takes to succeed in building a lean startup. The goal for this event is to give practitioners and students of the lean startup methodology the opportunity to hear insights from leaders in embracing and deploying the core principles of the lean startup methodology. The day-long event will feature a mix of panels and talks focused on the key challenges and issues that technical and market-facing people at startups need to understand in order to succeed in building successful lean startups.

Enjoy the thought provoking presentations and panels from San Francisco, and talk about it with like-minded people here in Waterloo. All that, and it’s free! What are you waiting for? Go sign up!

April 13, 2010November 1, 2020

They built a faux iPad and they’re going to use it

Speaking of UI prototyping, have a look at how the folks at Omni approached designing for the iPad without having laid hands on one. Not only did they make great use of paper prototypes, they created a non-functional mockup of an iPad to help get a feel for the interaction on a physical device. This reminds me of Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, carrying around a crude wooden prototype of the original Palm Pilot as part of his design research into that product.

UI prototypes help explore, share, and validate a design. Going the extra mile to create a simulation of the device on which a software product will be used undoubtedly contributes to a successful design.

April 12, 2010November 1, 2020

I built a ray gun and I’m going to use it

This month’s approaching UX Group meeting, a UX ‘show and tell’ for artifacts developed in support of creating a user experience, has me thinking about UI prototypes.

Creating UI prototypes is an important part of the design process. Whether built using pen and paper, dedicated prototyping software tools, image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop, or plain old html, a UI prototype makes the design concrete and helps to build a shared understanding of what a product’s user experience will be like.

At one end of the prototyping fidelity scale is a paper prototype, which has the great merits of being inexpensive, easy to create, and eminently disposable.

At the other end of the scale is what I like to call a ray gun. What’s a ray gun? To answer that, I’ll go back to my inspiration for this particular metaphor. One of the first science fiction books that I read when I was young was Tales from the White Hart, a collection of generally humourous short stories by Arthur C. Clarke. I haven’t read it in many years, but I have fond memories of it. (I’m not sure how accurate those memories are, though!)

One of the stories, “Armaments Race”, describes a competition between the makers of rival science fiction television programs to create impressive special effects for weapons. The details of the titular armaments race are quite entertaining as each program’s team unveils increasingly realistic simulations of ray guns. At this point I’ll add a warning for those of you who haven’t yet read “Armaments Race” that the next sentence is a spoiler, albeit one that is crucial to the point of this post! The punch line of the story is, in essence, that an actual functioning ray gun with real destructive power is built in the pursuit of a great simulation.

Metaphorically, then, a ray gun is a UI prototype that crosses a line into a functioning product. I have to admit that I’ve built more than one ray gun as a user experience designer. Depending on who you talk to, that’s either a good or a bad thing.

April 7, 2010November 3, 2020

A busy couple of weeks

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I appear to have neglected the blog. Here’s a quick roundup of some of what I’ve been up to.

The most recent edition of StartupCampWaterloo was two weeks ago already, and it was another fun edition with a variety of demos and great conversation. My former Primal Fusion colleague Alex Black showed off the cool stuff he’s been doing at his newest venture, Snapsort. It was fun to see the great progress that he’s made.

Last week I had the great fortune to hear a talk by Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives at Google. Inspiring stuff, and there’s clearly a lot of great work being done at Google in general and at the Waterloo office in particular.

This month’s edition of StartupDrinksWaterloo was last night, and while the free pizza was certainly a plus, it was the conversations and connections that remain the big attractions.

Meanwhile, in between these events and a variety of productive conversations with people, I’ve been chugging away on a product prototype as part of an informal project with some friends. I have to say that the recent warm weather has reminded me of the joys of coding away on the front porch and bringing an idea to life. Looks like I’ll remain heads down on design and prototyping for a little while anyway!