The UX Group of Waterloo Region is nothing if not pragmatic. If the thought of coming out to a meeting in the heat of August seems daunting, then a casual meeting on the patio at the Heuther may be just the thing to clear away your reservations. The next meeting is on Thursday August 20 at 5:30pm. All the details can be found here, but, really, what are you waiting for?
June UX Group event is on Thursday
The June meeting of the UX Group of Waterloo Region is happening at 5:00pm on Thursday June 25 at the Accelerator Centre. This month it’s a presentation by Qixing Zheng called From Concept to Production: Prototyping with Expression Blend 3. The event is hosted by the Infusion Angels Innovation Centre and registration is required.
Another month, another fine meeting of the UX Group of Waterloo
This month’s meeting of the User Experience Group of Waterloo looks like fun. It’s an opportunity to talk about the state of UX in Waterloo Region. Even cooler is the venue, the wonderful Whole-Lotta-Gelata in Waterloo. UX chatter, gelato, paninis — how can you beat that? It’s on Thursday May 21 at 5:30pm.
Two nights on the town: UX and QA/Agile peer-to-peer groups
I’m lucky to have access to some great resources in town for career-related learning. Communitech, the Waterloo Region Technology Association, host many peer-to-peer groups focused on a variety of areas of interest to people working with technology. I’ve mentioned the UX Group of Waterloo Region in previous posts. This month’s meeting was an entertaining night of UX-related videos (and accompanying popcorn)
This week, in addition the movie night, I also attended the Waterloo Agile Lean peer-to-peer meeting on Testing in Agile – a QA’s journey. Guelph-based Innosphere shared their experiences with QA and Agile over the last 2+ years. The thing that I enjoyed most was hearing how similar many of their experiences are to what we’ve found with integrating QA and Scrum at Primal Fusion. It’s reassuring to hear that others are on the same path and have arrived at similar solutions to the various challenges.
Lights! Camera! Interaction!
The User Experience Group of Waterloo Region is having a movie night on Wednesday April 22, starting at 5:30pm. There’s the promise of “a variety of movies about our relationship with the tools and technologies that surround us” as well as munchies! As my second post for this blog floated my theory that The Dam Busters is a great metaphor for a start up, I’m looking forward seeing to what folks have to bring to the cinematic UX mélange.
If you haven’t been to one of the UX Group meetings before, come on out. It’s a great opportunity to meet with like-minded folks.
Finding the Scrum/UX balance
At Primal Fusion we use Scrum to manage the development work that we do. Since launching at DEMO in March we’ve released weekly updates to our Thought Networking product, and sometimes released more often! That’s a brisk pace that we plan to maintain, as a great benefit of Scrum is that you get functionality out in increments and start to get feedback right away. It’s quite a rewarding approach, and as a development manager I love the challenge.
As a long time user experience designer, though, I must confess that I do find it a challenge to reconcile Scrum with user-centered design practices. I’ve spoken with industry colleagues who find it a challenge as well, which is, I suppose, comforting at some level. Even so, it feels like we’re figuring out the right balance at Primal Fusion. One reason is that we’re always willing to try something at least once in our sprints to see if it helps us be more effective. Another is that we’re not afraid to make mistakes as long as we can learn from them and get better.
I’m still sorting out how we’re doing with the balance and how to articulate it. As I get clarity on it I’ll share what I discover.
Field research: How do UX folks behave in a pub?
Speaking of events that well worth attending, the next monthly meeting of User Experience Group of Waterloo Region happens this coming Thursday March 19. The great thing about this group is that the meetings are mix of engaging speakers (like last month’s Scott Berkun event) and more low key design discussions. This month’s Books and Brewskies event is definitely in the low key design discussion category, with the added bonus of a relaxed pub environment.
Do you have a question about how to do guerrilla testing? Are you wondering how to do UX in an agile environment? Are you trying to cope with a strategy for rolling out UX in your company? Do you long to become a UX designer? Do you have a movie metaphor you want to share?
Do come out and connect with your fellow UX folks and help build a thriving UX community in Waterloo region.
Hello, my name is Mark
As I previously wrote, I was a panelist at a Digital Design and User Experience Forum at the University of Waterloo last week. The event was every bit as energizing and engaging as I hoped it would be. My fellow panelists, a diverse group with a shared passion for design, were thoughtful and articulate, and the questions from the crowd were great.
Even better than the panel discussion was the series of presentations made by teams of students showcasing UX-related projects that they have been working on. There were some great idea on display, as well as effective communication of those ideas.
There was also time to mingle and meet people, sharing stories and interests, which brings me to the point of this post.
For me a satisfying and rewarding career is a gift, one that really ought to be shared. Whenever an opportunity to participate in an event like this presents itself, I make an effort attend. I get a chance to meet interesting people, and share whatever I have with whomever might be interested. An event like this is, in its best form, all about giving, whether it’s time or knowledge or introductions or whatever else we have. The conversations and shared experiences can be wonderful.
There’s occasionally a further benefit. As it turns out, a perfect alignment of the stars has led to one of the student presenters at this UX Forum coming on board at Primal Fusion for a summer position with our UX team. This outcome obviously can’t happen on a regular basis, but it did on this occasion. Students and industry practitioners, do take note!
Digital Design and User Experience Forum
I’ll be a panelist at next Wednesday’s Digital Design and User Experience Forum, hosted by Infusion Angels Innovation Centre and Design Exchange Waterloo at the University of Waterloo. I’m sure it will be a fun event and I’m looking forward to some lively discussions.
Here are some more details from the organizers:
- Listen to guest speaker’s discuss User Experience Design and Interaction Design related topics
- Network with leading industry experts
- Showcase your work
- Get feedback from industry experts
- Connect with fellow digital design enthusiasts
- Learn more about Microsoft Windows 7
- Learn more about becoming a User Experience designer
- Showcase your 4th year design project, or even your own pet project
Guest speakers from Microsoft Canada, Infusion Development and the Waterloo User Experience Group will discuss Microsoft Windows 7, becoming a User Experience designer and other Interaction Design and Experience Design related topics. The forum will also be opened up to interested participants to present projects and receive feedback from peers and industry experts.
March 11, 2009 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm
Tatham Centre, Room 2218, University of Waterloo
To attend this free event, RSVP via email to events@infusionangels.com or by visiting ic.infusionangels.com.
If you’re interested in presenting there will be cash prizes of $250.00 awarded to the most innovative project and to the best presentation. For more information or to sign up as a presenter please contact Monica Tsang.
Art and technology at Pixar
Last night I attended a public lecture by Rob Cook, vice president of software engineering at Pixar Animation Studios. The lecture was organized by the Perimeter Institute as part of their public outreach program. Rob talked about how Pixar makes movies, with a bit of a spotlight on how physics (of the classical, not quantum, kind) is introduced to a cartoon world.
I’m a big Pixar fan, and recognized many of the processes and methods that Bob presented from my close scrutiny of the special features on various Pixar DVDs. He had a couple of striking ideas that I hadn’t previously encountered, though, that to me feel as relevant to user experience designers as to film makers.
The first is his take on John Lasseter’s assertion that “Art challenges technology but technology inspires the art”, which is a comment on how the artists and technologists work together at Pixar. Rob’s spin on this was, roughly, that the artists don’t know that it’s impossible, and the technologists are too proud to admit that it is and so deliver it. What user experience designer hasn’t been told by a developer that a design is just not possible, only to see it delivered? Conversely, what developer hasn’t been given an ‘impossible’ design but then found a way to make it work?
The other idea relates to describing what Pixar does as a movie making enterprise and how it related to traditional artistic endeavors (again, paraphrasing from memory here): the team is the artist, and the technology is the brush. This one seems like it has an even more obvious parallel to the creative tension between UX designers and developers, and to the often collaborative nature of creating software products. I really do like this analogy.
I feel like watching Ratatouille or The Incredibles now!