I had the pleasure of speaking at the Oregon Transit Conference this week in sunny Seaside, OR. This was the conference for representatives of Oregon's many transit agencies. Topics ranged from grant writing how-tos and leadership to the future of public transit itself.
If you design services or want to learn more about how design is being applied to the design of services, do not miss your opportunity to grab an early bird ticket to the Service Design Network conference in San Francisco this October.
Chris Risdon's blog post about the importance of documenting process as well as a recent Core77 article inspired us to share some of the thinking behind the visual design of materials for UX Week, Adaptive Path's big annual conference for user experience folk.
Since Adaptive Path's beginning, we've been striving to push the practice of Experience Design forward, and are always happy to see that others want to do the same. We wanted to let everyone know that we'll be attending the 2011 Forrester Customer Experience Forum next week in New York.
You love Paul Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid). Or, maybe you just don't know you love him yet. But, trust me, you do. Your love for him is in you. Waiting to find its way out.
Whether you already love him, or don't know you love him yet, there is a likely a burning question in your mind…one you've always wanted (or will want) to ask him. One that keeps you up at night (or will), that you mull over (or will) as you stare out the window while you're being creative. It's one of those annoying brain itches you can't scratch with your short brain arms.
Well, my friends, relief has come. Think of me as your conduit, a portal that will deliver your question to the man himself. I can scratch your brain itch. Let me explain…
I'm excited to announce that Paul Miller, composer, multimedia artist and writer, will be a keynote speaker at this year's UX Week (our conference for UX folk, for those of you not in the know). He'll discuss his book, Sound Unbound, a collection of thirty-six essays from musicians, writers and artists like Brian Eno, Moby, Chuck D, and Bruce Sterling. These are reports from the front lines on the role of sound and digital media in an information-based society. In preparation for his talk at UX Week, I'll be interviewing him and sharing our conversation on our blog later this month.
Last week I attended and presented at the 2011 Polish IA Summit. The organizers (the Polish agency UseLab) and presenters did a good job at showing the state of IA in Poland and, by listening to each other, asking the right questions, and socializing, helped promote IA in Poland. My closing keynote, “UX: (still) the next step for IAs?” aimed at doing the same thing; it was a call to look around at others in the field, at nearby fields, and User Experience as an umbrella for their work.
Both days of the program were mostly filled with case-studies, except for the bookend keynotes by Martin Belam, Claire Rowland & Chris Browne, Marianne Sweeny and me. Below are my observations, written down as extremes on different scales.
In Adaptive Path’s newsletter of September 28, I shared my views on the European UX scene. In response, several people wrote to me with additions to the landscape. Below are the most interesting ones, followed by my impressions of 3 more European conferences: Euro IA, UX Russia and Design by Fire. And yes, I will count Russia as part of Europe in this respect.
Updates to the European UX Landscape
I did not mention UXCamp Europe, but that event attracted 400 attendees last May and plans are forming for next year’s event. (thanks, Henning Grote!)
I did mention one London IA…
Few people like visiting a booth at a conference. That’s why we saw it as a great opportunity for a redesign experience.
We set up a conversation space at the recent Forrester Customer Experience Forum, alongside the handful of other exhibitor booths. Our talented designer Trina Hancock envisioned it as a serene oasis in an otherwise chaotic space, bringing our love of experience design to the conference room floor.
Here’s the thinking we brought to the space:
White space beats screaming — Hotel carpet is already complex enough. Add glowing lights, flashing signs, and a bunch of schwag and…
Last week I attended the three-day Customer Experience Summit and became acutely aware of a left-brain/right-brain divide in the field of customer experience. In my practice and writing, I discuss customer experience as an evolution of user experience, and is largely addressed through customer research and design activities. At this conference, customer experience was seen primarily as the evolution of customer service, the majority of attendees had call center backgrounds, and the conversation was very “business-y” in tone, dominated by discussion of metrics, customer satisfaction surveys, and Six Sigma “Voice of the Customer”.
I was dismayed at the lack…
From Microsoft comes two nifty product demos emerging from their Labs.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas showed off Bing Maps, with new technologies that allow you embed Flickr photos and even live video in “street view” mode.
Gary Flake walks you through Pivot, a tool for data analysis and exploration through realtime visualization.
In an earlier post, I referenced Daniel Kahneman’s presentation on experience versus memory, and now you can his talk. For my money, perhaps the single best presentation at TED 2010.
The recent TED Talk that most surprised me as relevant to experience design actually comes from TED India,...