Sphere.com Now Live!
Adaptive Path would like to congratulate the entire Sphere team on the launch of Sphere.com. As one of our first New Ventures clients, Sphere’s dedication to the needs of their users was not only inspiring, but it also produced a partnership that was as gratifying as it was fruitful. We very much appreciate getting the chance to work together, and we are absolutely delighted with the results.
You can also find out more about how we worked with Sphere in our latest essay, included below.
Preview Agenda Posted for User Experience Week 2006
We’re already hard at work on the schedule for User Experience Week 2006, which will be held in Washington D.C. this August. Just like last year, we’ll be featuring an all-new lineup of topics. This time around, the focus is on real-world UX challenges, opportunities, and (best of all) solutions.
“Sphere: Balancing Power and Simplicity,” by Ryan Freitas
There is no shortage of competition among blog search tools right now, and most of them are trying to differentiate themselves by pushing an overwhelming array of features at their users. Unfortunately, many of those features are secondary to what users are actually trying to accomplish. Adaptive Path was recently faced with the challenge of designing an interface for the much-anticipated blog search tool Sphere. The company’s founder and CEO, Tony Conrad, knew that Sphere’s innovative algorithm needed a compelling and straightforward interface to engage users. So in the Summer of 2005, he approached Adaptive Path and asked us to craft a user experience that allowed searchers to explore the power of the tool, yet still felt “simple.”
Read the rest of Ryan’s essay »
“Designing and Building with Ajax” Workshop in Austin and Amsterdam, “Elements” in Copenhagen
Jesse James Garrett, Yahoo!’s Bill Scott, and James Craig from Frog Design will be presenting Adaptive Path’s “Designing and Building with Ajax” workshop in Austin on May 10th. Then, Jesse and Bill are taking the workshop overseas to Amsterdam on June 7.
Get more information or register for Austin on May 10, or get more information or to register for Amsterdam on June 7.
Please note: our Ajax workshops fill up especially fast, so if you want to join our experts for a full day of Ajax know-how, we recommend you sign up soon!
While in Europe, Jesse will also be presenting “The Elements of User Experience” in Copenhagen on May 31. Get more information or register for this event.
“Beyond Usability 2.0: Four Pillars of Digital Product Design” Workshop in Chicago
Peter Merholz will be in Chicago with our completely updated 2-day workshop on May 17 & 18.
The new version of this workshop dives into all the essential aspects of digital product design: company insight, user research, information architecture, and interaction design. If you’re a business owner, designer, technologist, or information architect, you will benefit from taking these four deep dives into these essential aspects of digital product design.
Get more information or register for this event.
AP Hosts Cocktails/Networking in Austin & Chicago
If you plan on being in Austin on May 10th, or in Chicago on May 17th, why not join us for a drink? Our cocktail hours are open to everyone in the user experience community as well as our event attendees, so bring your colleagues along with you and sip some adult beverages on our tab.
Austin: Join Adaptive Path and our Ajax workshop attendees and presenters on May 10th from 5:30 to 7pm at 219West (219 West 4th Street, on the corner of 4th and Lavaca).
Chicago: Meet up with the AP team and our Beyond Usability 2.0 attendees on May 17th from 5 to 6:30pm at U Club (McCormick Tribune Campus Center at 3201 State S. Street).
New Ventures News Items
In our last newsletter, we announced that Adaptive Path joined forces with Bay Area venture capital firm Sierra Ventures to start helping out early-stage startups using our two-pronged support of both venture capital and product design methodologies.
The announcement generated a nice buzz — Dow Jones’ Venture Wire, TheDeal.com, The Investment Dealers’ Digest, and Red Herring Online all covered our new partnership. For more details, read Red Herring’s take on the matter.
And you can also find out more details about the program on our own site.
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