Notes From User Experience Week 2008

“ UX Week is the premier user experience conference, and in 2008 we consider what it takes to create great products and services in an uncertain world. With a mix of inspiring talks from recognized thought leaders and hands-on workshops delivering takeaway skills, this event delivers for user experience professionals at all levels — directors, managers, and practitioners.” Adaptive Path…

Don Norman / NN Group Author of fourteen books, including The Design of Everyday Things and The Design of Future Things

Don Norman / NN Group Don Norman told us what a good job user experience designers have been doing in recent years. "On the whole existing products have been getting better". But Don went on to say that simultaneously design is getting worse. He said it's because too few designers are the decision makers. "Who here is the CEO of a large company?" Nobody. He said until we get to this level designers and business people need to communicate better. "We need to act more like marketers... Sell the vision and show a spreadsheet with projected figures. Make the case for your ideas." Design & Operations need to work in unison for products or services to succeed. Apple, Amazon and Netfliks - their success is due to slick operations. It's seamless and they give you feedback. "They do all sorts of things just right". "It's the operations that make it work". Author of fourteen books, including The Design of Everyday Things and The Design of Future Things

Leah Buley / Adaptive Path Experience designer for Adaptive Path

Leah Buley / Adaptive Path She asked the audience "When did you discover User Experience". I think for me it was when I worked at Tearaway Magazine in the late 1980s. We looked at changing the font of the magazine from Avante Garde to Helvetica. Several reasons for this were considered. First of all the business need. We could fit more words per cm using Helvetica, meaning more in-depth articles and better value for readers (more readers = higher per cm rates for advertisers). Next we considered the font size and came up with an optimal size and line-spacing to ensure readability. Helvetica was also thicker so more readable on newsprint. This along with other tweaks to the magazine shot it to the top of the readership ratings in New Zealand for the teen age group. Experience designer for Adaptive Path

Jensen Harris / Microsoft One of the key designers behind the new Ribbon user interface introduced in Office 2007

Jensen Harris / Microsoft On average people spend more time with Office than with their spouse. They use ‘Design Tenets’ – a set of rules your team believes in. “ Needs to feel like it was designed by a single person”. Use iterative prototypes to test features (but not the whole app). Run longitudinal usability testing – over weeks/months – it’s about the overall experience. “ We aim to give people a sense of mastery”. Plan to make mistakes. They do 3 to 5 iterations of the working prototypes. One of the key designers behind the new Ribbon user interface introduced in Office 2007

Mark Baskinger Assistant Professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University

Workshop “ Don’t you get it? Large is called Grande!”

Scott Griffith / Zipcar Zipcar has emerged as the world’s largest car sharing service

Scott Griffith / Zipcar Each Zipcar takes 20+ personally-owned cars off the road. Forty percent of Zipcar members have told us they either sold their car or decided not to buy a car because of Zipcar. Members also tell us they save over $435 a month using Zipcar! They appreciate the low rates, living without the hassle of car maintenance and that we pay for gas, parking and insurance. Zipcar has emerged as the world’s largest car sharing service

Scott Griffith / Zipcar 225,000 members and 15,000 new members every month. Have a dedicated Experience team (previously Product Marketing). Clear separation of teams: Experience (Design) Member Services (Operations) Zipcar has emerged as the world’s largest car sharing service

Scott Griffith / Zipcar People are used to getting self-service. Zipcar is a lifestyle brand. Their mission statement doesn’t even mention cars. “We’re in the freedom business”. GOAL: Give freedom to urban dwellers, businesses and universities. Keeping it simple: One price for gas, insurance, the car. Zipcar has emerged as the world’s largest car sharing service

Scott Griffith / Zipcar Think about the total experience. Concentrate on back-office to support the experience. Zipcar has emerged as the world’s largest car sharing service

Audrey Chen / Daily Show Senior Information Architect at Comedy Central

Audrey Chen / Daily Show www.thedailyshow.com/video/videos.jhtml

Audrey Chen / Daily Show Had to tag 1400 episodes 10,000+ video clips Team of 16 writers, 12 video recorders 2 shifts 15,000 tags Senior Information Architect at Comedy Central

Rob Nader + Dan Levine / Current Current is a global television network that gives you the opportunity to create and influence what airs on TV

Rob Nader + Dan Levine / Current Global TV network. In 58 million homes. Viewer created content (e.g. news) Viewer-created commercials. They pick a feature news story every hour. Participation rate of 4-7%/month. Very high for social media. Lesson learnt: Publish, then filter. Releasing a Current TV API soon. Current is a global television network that gives you the opportunity to create and influence what airs on TV

Rob Nader + Dan Levine / Current

Dan Saffer / Interactive Gestures Experience design director for Adaptive Path

Jane McGonigal Game designer and future forecaster

Jane McGonigal Game design is the perfect UX model for real life. Make your life fun – real life should be more like games. Reality is broken. Gaming gives constant feedback ad reinforcement (this doesn’t happen enough in real life). People say: ‘I’m better at games than real life” Game designer and future forecaster

Jane McGonigal Games work better: Better instructions (goal) Better feedback (environment responds) Better emotions Better community (collaboration/same goals) “ All part of the same experience” It’s a quality of life problem. Game designer and future forecaster

Jane McGonigal What humans crave: Satisfying work to do. To experience being good at something (or better). Time spent with people we like. Chance to be part of something bigger. Game designer and future forecaster

Jane McGonigal Happiness – it’s measurable. “ Rise of the happiness engineers” UX Designers who commit to making people happy. Multiplayer games are the ultimate happiness engine. Game designer and future forecaster

Jane McGonigal Reality Games Prius Dashbaord Chore Wars Nike Plus Zyked +1me.com Sharkrunners Weather overlays Social networking collar for pets Plant twitter Trackstick (GPS) $USD170 Bluetooth headset which tracks emotions Game designer and future forecaster

Jane McGonigal Her prediction: “ We will harness our cognitive surplus” Her latest game: superstructgame.org Superstruct is the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. By playing the game, you’ll help us chronicle the world of 2019 - and imagine how we might solve the problems we'll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It’s about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential. Game designer and future forecaster

Dan Albritton / Megaphone MegaPhone makes a real-time multi-player gaming platform where anyone can use their cell phone as a controller to interact with big screens in public spaces, using a regular phone call.

Dan Albritton / Megaphone Primarily aimed at digital screen installations Massive multiplayer games Interface: buttons and audio “ So simple – just call that number” Quick adoption. Link to realworld rewards (e.g. tickets) Runs on low bandwidth, almost any phone. MegaPhone makes a real-time multi-player gaming platform where anyone can use their cell phone as a controller to interact with big screens in public spaces, using a regular phone call.

Dan Albritton / Megaphone zap game ( video ) popcorn game ( video ) karaoke ( video ) MegaPhone makes a real-time multi-player gaming platform where anyone can use their cell phone as a controller to interact with big screens in public spaces, using a regular phone call.

Dan Albritton / Megaphone Goals Make new experiences possible Make idle time valuable Socialise the phone experience MegaPhone makes a real-time multi-player gaming platform where anyone can use their cell phone as a controller to interact with big screens in public spaces, using a regular phone call.

Jake Barton / Local Projects Award-winning hybrid physical/design firm focused on museums and public spaces

Jake Barton / Local Projects Memory Match - Neighbourhood networking : physical geospatial

Jake Barton / Local Projects Storycorp

Jake Barton / Local Projects Beijing expo ( video )

Jake Barton / Local Projects Cube : Reacts to pedestrians, weather

Exploratorium / Field Trip A hands-on museum of science, art, and human perception

Exploratorium / Field Trip Spectrum screen ( video ) Nice horsey ( video ) Cuppa tea? ( video ) A hands-on museum of science, art, and human perception

Michael B Johnson Leader of Moving Pictures Group at Pixar Animation Studios.

Michael B Johnson Philosophy Casting. Art as a team sport. Peer driven relationship between creative and technical. Director-driven studio (not the producer). Culture of constructive criticism. Leader of Moving Pictures Group at Pixar Animation Studios.

Michael B Johnson Making a movie in 3 easy steps Design a rich believable world. Create engaging characters. Tell a compelling story. Leader of Moving Pictures Group at Pixar Animation Studios.

Rachel Hinman Mobile design strategist for Adaptive Path

Jeffery Veen Design Director, Google

Dennis Wixon User Research Manager - Microsoft Surface Computing.

Dennis Wixon The past CLI : Command Line Interface Now GUI : Graphical User Interface Near future NUI : Natural User Interface Future OUI : Organic User Interface User Research Manager - Microsoft Surface Computing.

Dennis Wixon Microsoft Surface “ Not just a PC on a table” Flat to encourage collaboration. Seamless with persons actions. Spatial. An emotional connection. User Research Manager - Microsoft Surface Computing.

Dennis Wixon OUI Organic User Interface This is the future ( video ) User Research Manager - Microsoft Surface Computing.

Dennis Wixon www.organicui.org User Research Manager - Microsoft Surface Computing.

Jesse James Garret Co-Founder and President of Adaptive Path

Jesse James Garret Aurora Video Mozilla Labs Concept Series Aurora Concept

Dan Saffer / Tap is the New Click Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path

Dan Saffer / Tap is the New Click Microsoft Surface Sphere ( video / video with technical stuff) Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path

Darren David & Nathan Moody Stimulant

Darren David & Nathan Moody NUI Stimulant

Mike Kuniavsky Principal, ThingM - an ubiquitous computing device studio.

Aaron Powers iRobot ( Scary Link )

Johnny C. Lee HCI Researcher, Carnegie Mellon University / Researcher at Microsoft Applied Sciences

Johnny Chung Lee Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote Foldable Displays (tracked with the Wiimote ) Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote www.johnnylee.net www.procrastineering.blogspot.com www.wiimoteproject.com HCI Researcher, Carnegie Mellon University / Researcher at Microsoft Applied Sciences

My Takeaways Don’t get GUI – time to get NUI! And then (sooner or later) we can get OUI. A successful UX comes from SMOOTH OPERATIONS. UX peeps increasingly hand-sketch UIs then rapidly prototype in Flash etc. Big trend (in US) towards gestural interfaces, UX for devices, ‘realworld’ social networking and gaming.

Notes From User Experience Week 2008

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Notes From User Experience Week 2008