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« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 »

January 16, 2005

Event: Sleeping with the users: Ethnography in the 21st Century (8 February 2005)

Sleeping with the users: Ethnography in the 21st Century by Louise Ferguson

Ethnography is on a roll, with increasing numbers of articles in mainstream media extolling its merits from the corporate perspective, while companies such as Intel have in recent years been busy hiring anthropologists to inform the design process.

But what exactly is ethnography? Isn't the idea of 'tribes' terribly old fashioned? What can ethnography offer the design community? And how do we do it? Louise Ferguson will talk about the contribution that ethnographic approaches can make to the design and evaluation of 'systems' in their widest sense, and will discuss how to go about 'doing' ethnography, including the pitfalls to avoid.

Louise Ferguson consults on qualitative user research as director of Digital Habitats Ltd. She has conducted ethnography for research, design, evaluation, and strategy in a wide range of contexts, including public sector, blue chip companies and micro firms. Louise has contributed to user experience and technology projects and publications for organisations including the Design Council and The Work Foundation. She has been engaged in systems development since the early 1980s, holds a Master's degree in human-computer interaction, and is currently Vice President of the UK chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association and co-director of the UPA's international Voting and Usability Project.

The session will then be followed by drinks in the Watershed.

Please Note: We have a restricted number of places available, so please respond to swug@usabilityviews.com to reserve a place, indicating if you require wheelchair access.

Date: 8 February 2005
Venue: NESTA Futurelab, 1 Canons Road, Harbourside, Bristol BS1 5UH.
Start Time: 6.15pm for 6.30pm
End Time: Around 7.30pm and then moving on to the Watershed for drinks.
Cost: Free - again, only because of the support from Nesta Futurelab and Louise Ferguson.

How to get there: http://www.nestafuturelab.org/about_us/location.htm

Posted by Chris McEvoy on January 16, 2005 | | Comments (3)

January 06, 2005

Bristolian Brain Drain

I've only just discovered that Abigail Sellen (formerly HP Research Labs Bristol) and Richard Harper (formerly and briefly at Appliance Studio) have both sailed off for Microsoft waters in Cambridge. MS issued a press release back in June. Sellen and Harper wrote The Myth of the Paperless Office.

Posted by Louise Ferguson on January 06, 2005 | | Comments (0)

January 04, 2005

Event: How To Make Brilliant Stuff That People Love (11 January 2005)

Tools And Techniques For Great User Experience: Dr Patrick W. Jordan

In order to create compelling products and services which users will really love we have to do three things. These are: understand the user, know what they want, give it to them.

In Pat Jordan's presentation we will look at a number of tools and techniques designed to give us in-depth user insights and to enable us to specify user requirements — both practical requirements and emotional ones.

The application of these tools and methods will be illustrated with a series of case studies. These will cover a wide range of products and services as well as a variety of industries and application areas. Attendees should be able to take away some useful techniques and approaches which they will be able to apply in their own work whatever field they are in.

The approaches described will be based upon a three-level hierarchy of user needs — functionality, usability and pleasure. It will be argued that for products to succeed in the mass market, they need to meet users’ needs on all three of these levels.

The session will then be followed by drinks in the Watershed.

Please Note: We have a restricted number of places available, so please respond to neil.suffield@environment-agency.gov.uk to reserve a place, indicating if you require wheelchair access.

Date: 11 January 2005
Venue: NESTA Futurelab, 1 Canons Road, Harbourside, Bristol BS1 5UH.
Start Time: 6.15pm for 6.30pm
End Time: Around 7.30pm and then moving on to the Watershed for drinks.
Cost: Free - again, only because of the support from Nesta Futurelab and Pat Jordan.

How to get there: http://www.nestafuturelab.org/about_us/location.htm

Posted by Neil Suffield on January 04, 2005 | | Comments (1)