Monthly Archive for January, 2012

Please join the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) in Winter Quarter for a 10-week seminar on current topics in the HCDE field by industry experts. Each 40-minute talk will be followed by a Q&A session. Members of the UW community and the public are welcome. More information about the series is available online at hcde.uw.edu/521.

Title: Making sense of chaos: An evaluation of the current state of information architecture for the Web
Date: February 3, 2012
Speaker: Anne de Ridder

When: Fridays, 12:30-1:20 PM
Where: Loew Hall, Room 206, UW Seattle campus

The introduction of new devices and advancements in web standards has created an environment for innovation and experimentation. With heavy weight on visual design that draws on patterns from traditional media mixed with interactions pulled from natural user interfaces, designing for the web now feels a bit like a beautiful, but lawless free-for-all. What about the best practices for the web that we’ve learned, tested and accepted? Do these/when do these/how do these apply in this new landscape? And for information architects, how should you approach your designs moving forward—stay the course, alter your path, or take a completely new direction? This talk will highlight findings from an initial exploration into these questions.!–more–>

Instructor: Professor Judy Ramey
1 Credit (Credit/Non-credit)
Registration for UW students is available by entry code; contact the HCDE advisor by emailing hcde@uw.edu.

About the Speaker
Anne de Ridder is the Director of User Experience at White Horse Productions, a digital marketing agency in Portland, OR, where she is responsible for all aspects of user experience research and design focused on the Web and mobile and tablet devices. Anne is an active participant in the Computer Human Interaction Forum of Oregon, IxDA, and UPA.

Please join the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) in Winter Quarter for a 10-week seminar on current topics in the HCDE field by industry experts. Each 40-minute talk will be followed by a Q&A session. Members of the UW community and the public are welcome. More information about the series is available online at hcde.uw.edu/521.

Title: Creating Great First Impressions: Designing Out of Box and First Time User Experiences to Delight Your Customers
Date: January 27, 2012
Speaker: Cathy Moya

When: Fridays, 12:30-1:20 PM
Where: Loew Hall, Room 206, UW Seattle campus

Your product never gets a second chance to make a first impression with users. Designing a great first encounter helps get the relationship off to a good start and helps reduce the chance that users will shelve – or return – the product.

This session will present case studies drawn from painful experience with users and user research regarding out of box experience (OOBE) and first time user experience (FTUE). We’ll examine what we can learn from unboxing physical products, but also draw parallels to software and online services.

You will learn:

• How to create a cross-group framework to determine OOBE and FTUE priorities in the design process
• How to define your “out of box experience” even if your product doesn’t ship in a box
• What types of onboarding experiences you can create to help users transition into the most effective learning mode for the product
• Ways to think about product design that might even eliminate the need for directions

Continue reading ’521 Seminar: Creating Great First Impressions: Designing Out of Box and First Time User Experiences to Delight Your Customers (1/27)’

Please join the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) in Winter Quarter for a 10-week seminar on current topics in the HCDE field by industry experts. Each 40-minute talk will be followed by a Q&A session. Members of the UW community and the public are welcome. More information about the series is available online at hcde.uw.edu/521.

Title: Hasslemaps, Theory of Constraints, and User Research
Date: January 13, 2012
Speaker: Skip Walter

When: Fridays, 12:30-1:20 PM
Where: Loew Hall, Room 206, UW Seattle campus

One of the most important and early parts of user research is to understand the workflows or value flows of the user being studied. For thirty years, Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints in conjunction with workflow mapping have guided research for workers in the enterprise. Until recently, a corresponding process and theory did not exist for consumers. With the publication of Adrian Slywotzky’s book Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It, there is now an excellent framework (hasslemaps) for placing the value flow of a consumer in context. With this context, valued solutions are easier to discover. This talk will compare and contrast Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints with Slywotzky’s Hasslemaps and point to when and where to use the respective techniques. During the talk we will discuss examples from Slywotsky’s book, from the use of this technique with HCDE class projects, and the use of these techniques with commercial tools like dScout in the context of loyalty marketing. Continue reading ’521 Seminar: Hasslemaps, Theory of Constraints, and User Research (1/13)’