Refresh the Triangle

Saturday, August 29, 2009

What the heck is TriUPA?

At this past week’s Refresh event, I had a few folks ask me about TriUPA and our upcoming workshop on concept models.  So here’s a quick explanation…

TriUPA, founded in 2005, is a local chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association focused on building and supporting the local community of practitioners in usability testing, user research, interaction design, and information architecture. Our mission is to add value to the local UX community through:

* engagement and participation
* learning and continuing education
* mentoring and professional development
* connections and community

Browse through our calendar of events to get an idea of the topics we address.  You can join TriUPA online.

Of course, feel free to contact me [Abe Crystal] directly with any questions.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Announce: RTP Semantic Web Group

Announcing the formation of a new Semantic Web Interest Group in the RTP area.

Meet local people interested in the Semantic Web, an initiative by the W3C to make the web “one giant database”: The Web of Data.

This group will meet in and around Raleigh-Durham to address ways of implementing and learning Semantic standards, which include RDF, RDFa, RDFS, OWL, and SPARQL. We also talk about applications that help to develop or use linked data, NLP, AI, ontologies and controlled vocabularies or related topics of interest.

Please join if you are a practitioner or interested in the semantic web, semantic technologies or Web3.0.

http://www.meetup.com/RTP-Semantic-Web-Group/

Thursday, July 30, 2009

TriUPA workshop—Modeling Concepts: New IA Techniques for a Web 2.0 World—September 8th, 2009

What: Modeling Concepts: New IA Techniques for a Web 2.0 World

When: full-day workshop: 9am - 5pm | Tuesday 9/8/09 | coffee & lunch included

Where: Council for Entrepreneurial Development in RTP

How: Capacity is limited—Register online now to reserve your spot!

Intended Audience

Senior User Experience Professionals, Information Architects, and Business Analysts.

About the Workshop
A staple in the information architect’s tool chest, the site map, approaches obsolescence faster and faster every day. The site map–a literal representation of every page on a web site–no longer adequately captures the structures behind today’s web sites. Information architects need a new tool.

A concept model can be that tool. While similar to the site map, a concept model avoids confining information architects to a specific framework for representing structures. It provides flexibility for accommodating a range of concepts and objects–not just web pages. It can represent a variety of relationships and easily incorporate contextual information. Modern web sites no longer are a collection of static HTML pages. Instead, they rely on templates, portlets, and complex interactivity. A user’s experience of such sites are hardly linear or hierarchical. Information architects need a visualization tool to capture the range of abstractions that form the foundation of modern sites.

This workshop will help participants adopt concept modeling into their own processes.  Besides introducing the deliverable and providing advice on how to create them, the workshop will help participants understand where and when concept models are appropriate to use. We will discuss the range of problems concept models can address and how to translate a model from an abstract representation of a site’s structure to concrete wireframes.

After providing an overview, the workshop will gradually walk participants through the process of creating a concept model. Working from a sample site, participants will learn and practice…

* gathering concepts
* compiling an initial model
* reviewing with “stakeholders” (played by the facilitator and other participants)
* revising the model
* adding a final visual polish, and turning the model into a screen design.

By the end of this workshop, participants will know:

* When concept models are an appropriate tool.
* How to create concept models to use in the gathering requirements.
* How to create concept models to use in the design process.
* How to design effective visualizations for concept models.

About the Speaker

Dan Brown is founder and principal at EightShapes, LLC, a user experience consulting firm based in Washington, DC that has engaged with clients in telecommunications, media, education, health, high-tech, and other sectors. Dan has been practicing information architecture and user experience design since 1995.

Prior to founding EightShapes, Dan consulted with organizations ranging from the US Postal Service, the World Bank, and the Federal Communications Commission to USAirways, FirstUSA, and Fannie Mae. From 2002-2004, Dan was a Federal employee, leading the content management program for the Transportation Security Administration. His portfolio includes work on public-facing web sites, intranets and extranets, and addresses most aspects of the user experience, from information architecture and content strategy to interaction and interface design.

Drawing on his expertise in communicating complex ideas and abstractions through high-quality visual documentation, Dan wrote a book on user experience deliverables: Communicating Design (New Riders, 2006). Amazon reviews call it “authoritative”, “practical, personal, comprehensive” and “a cool nerdbook”.  He’s written more than a dozen articles for Boxes and Arrows, an online journal dedicated to information architecture, on topics ranging from PowerPoint to the information architecture of home audio devices. He’s also written for UX Matters, the CHI Bulletin, and Interactive Television Today.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

TriUPA workshop—Sketching for Interaction Design—June 24th, 2009

What: Sketching for Interaction Design

When: A full-day workshop: 9am - 5pm | Wednesday 6/24/09

Where: Council for Entrepreneurial Development in RTP

How: Capacity is limited—Register online now to reserve your spot!

Intended Audience

The course is geared towards people who are practicing interaction
design and other user experience professionals, but can be beneficial
for anyone who is trying to apply core design thinking methods into
their personal and business practices. No previous experience with
drawing or sketching is required.

About the Workshop

Are you looking for new ways to bring design thinking and design
practice into your daily practice as a user experience professional?
Do you want to learn how great designers of all types get to that
“new” idea without having to wait for divine inspiration? Do you think
that “sketching” is only a tool left to those who have been formally
trained to draw?

“Sketching for Interaction Design” is a 1-day seminar and workshop
created to teach people what sketching really is all about, why it is
powerful and how you can bring it into your daily practice as a User
Experience Professional. In this class you’ll learn how the great
organizations of design and innovation use sketching in their daily
practice. You will also gain practice in sketching and see why it is a
distinctive tool from prototyping geared more towards idea generation
than for testing and communication. It is both a tool for personal
use, and a tool for group collaboration.

The course will contain these units:

Defining sketching as something similar to but different from prototyping
Placing sketching in the context of a larger design process
General practice using drawing as a communication tool
Class project working in teams
Communicating concepts in interaction design
Review period of team work
Take away lessons, and next steps for people wanting to apply
sketching to their practice
The course is geared towards people who are practicing interaction
design and other user experience professionals, but can be beneficial
for anyone who is trying to apply core design thinking methods into
their personal and business practices. No previous experience with
drawing or sketching is required.

About the Speaker

David Malouf is currently a Professor of Interaction Design in the Industrial Design Department of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). Before taking this position, David was a Sr. Interaction Design for Motorola Enterprise Mobility where he designed software, webware, and hardware interactions and interfaces. Motorola was the last in a 15-year journey of practicing interaction design, information architecture, UI design, project management and other roles and positions working almost exclusively with thin client technologies.

David is also one of the primary founders and the first Vice President of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). David’s passion for evangelizing and teaching interaction design, came to a climax in 2008 when he co-chaired the first Interactions conference, Interaction 08 | Savannah.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Last chance to register for “Adaptive Path’s Design Research” workshop

Deadline to register

TriUPA’s upcoming workshop on design research methods (”Adaptive Path’s Approach to Design Research”—http://triupa.org/DesignResearch), will be held on Friday, February 20th at CED from 9am - 5:00pm (lunch is included in the cost of the workshop).

» You must register online by 5:00pm Wed 2/18/09 to attend the workshop.

Don’t let money be an object to your attending the workshop! Contact Abe Crystal if you can’t afford the workshop fee, particularly if you’re between jobs or you can’t get expense approval from your employer.

About the workshop
This workshop is for intermediate to advanced UX professionals working to develop a more complete understanding of their customers. Todd (from Adaptive Path) will guide attendees beyond usability tests and focus groups to gain a deeper and more complete picture of their customers’ lives. This workshop covers everything from basic models of human behavior to interviewing and data analysis to strategies for making research work effective in your organization.

The majority of discussions about user research focus on the details of various methodologies such as interviews, lab studies, surveys, etc. But the bulk of the hard work and value in research comes from what happens before and after data collection. This day is structured to provide you with a framework for conducting effective user research with a focus on research planning and analysis. Effective research is about generating ideas as much as it is about evaluating design concepts; activities and concepts will focus on developing a deep understanding of your customers through qualitative and contextual research. Nearly every section involves hands-on research activities to help you learn to put the concepts we discuss into practice.

And here’s a nice review of a design research workshop Todd presented in Minneapolis, by TriUPA member Geoff Mackey.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

TriUPA Workshop—Design Research (Todd Wilkens/Adaptive Path)—Friday 2/20/09

TriUPA is hosting a full-day workshop on “Design Research,” presented by Todd Wilkens of Adaptive Path.

»» See TriUPA’s website for full details, and to register for the workshop.

Intended Audience

This workshop is for intermediate to advanced UX professionals working to develop a more complete understanding of their customers. Todd (from Adaptive Path) will guide attendees beyond usability tests and focus groups to gain a deeper and more complete picture of their customers’ lives. This workshop covers everything from basic models of human behavior to interviewing and data analysis to strategies for making research work effective in your organization.

About the Workshop

The majority of discussions about user research focus on the details of various methodologies such as interviews, lab studies, surveys, etc. But the bulk of the hard work and value in research comes from what happens before and after data collection. This day is structured to provide you with a framework for conducting effective user research with a focus on research planning and analysis. Effective research is about generating ideas as much as it is about evaluating design concepts; activities and concepts will focus on developing a deep understanding of your customers through qualitative and contextual research. Nearly every section involves hands-on research activities to help you learn to put the concepts we discuss into practice.

Topics include…

* Understanding people as people: How do we as designers and researchers think about the people we are trying to design for: Tasks and goals? Efficiency and errors? In this section, we will cover important ways to expand your view of “users” to be more holistic and complete. This, in turn, allows us to uncover more insights into their behaviors and motivations
* Framing and planning research: Research is only effective if it is appropriate to the goals of the project and business. We will discuss ways to ensure that your research project is set up for success from the beginning including uncovering project goals, creating targeted research questions, prioritizing efforts, and planning for timelines and budgets.
* Creating, choosing, and mixing methods: The key to data collection is having methods that are appropriate to your questions and team. In most cases this requires a lot of ingenuity, flexibility, and creativity since there are literally hundreds of methodologies to choose from. We’ll discuss some successful approaches that we have used in the past with a particular focus on qualitative and contextual methods as well as new developments in remote data collection.
* The art of effective interviewing: These days nearly all research endeavors require that your team gets out and talks to people. But interviewing is an art. We’ll take some time to explore and improve our skills in the two most fundamental aspects of interviewing: Listening and asking questions.
* Making sense of research findings: Simply collecting mounds of survey data, interview transcripts, photos, and videos doesn’t necessarily mean that you have learned much about your customers. The next step is to turn those observations into real insights. We’ll discuss a number of ways to make sense of your research findings with a primary focus on analyzing interview transcripts.
* Making research effective: Again and again we see good research fail to have an impact in organizations. We’ll end the day by discussing ways to make your research efforts actionable and durable in your organization to help demonstrate its value.

Friday, January 09, 2009

The Triangle microISV Group

A microISV (Independent Software Vendor) is a small software shop, usually with between 1 to 10 people, which is focused on growing organically (not through venture capital) and handles all business tasks (development, sales, PR, etc.) itself.

Are you running or part of a microISV in the Triangle? Or maybe interested in starting one or hearing from those who have? If so, the group is for you. It’s getting started on January 21 in Durham, so check out details on the microISV Group Meetup page and come on out.

Monday, January 05, 2009

TriUPA’s 2009 Professional Training workshop series

What’s TriUPA?
TriUPA is a local chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association based in the Research Triangle, NC.

We’re offering an extensive workshop program in 2009, which we hope will be of interest to folks throughout the Southeast.

About TriUPA’s Professional Training
TriUPA is excited to announce our 2009 Professional Training workshop series.  The goal of our workshop series is to bring to our community the best thinking and latest practices in the user experience field.

TriUPA focuses on four areas of practice…

1. usability evaluation and testing
2. user research
3. interaction design
4. information architecture

... and our workshop series is designed to address each of these areas.

Please save the dates for the following full-day workshops.  Detailed information and a link to register will be sent in advance of each workshop.  Fees will vary for each event, but will typically be in the range of $150 - $250 for TriUPA members, with discounts for corporate sponsors and students.

You can become a TriUPA member today, by registering on our website.  It’s $15/year for professionals; free for students.

Feel free to contact me with any questions about our workshop series.

Cheers,
--Abe
VP, Professional Development Programs // TriUPA

2009 Professional Training workshop series schedule

1. Matt Cornell — personal productivity for UX professionals — Monday, January 12th, 2009 [register now!]

2. Todd Wilkens (Adaptive Path) — design research— Friday, February 20th, 2009

3. Scott Berkun — UX and project management — Friday, April 3rd, 2009

4. David Malouf — sketching and interaction design — Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

5. Dan Brown & Nathan Curtis — UX documentation/deliverables — Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

6. Bolt|Peters — remote usability testing — TBD in October 2009

Thanks to TriUPA’s sponsors for making this workshop series possible:

* Lulu
* GSK
* BlueCross BlueShield
* Insight
* Lenovo
* Hesketh.com
* Capstrat
* User-View
* SAS
* MoreBetterLabs

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

New Javascript Group forming

I’m putting out a call for anyone interested in a Triangle Area Javascript Group to visit http://jsusers.com/groups/triangle-area-javascript-user-group and register your interest.  Thank you.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

MySQL Presentation by Jay Pipes

Jay Pipes from MySQL will be speaking at the next PHP/MySQL group meeting on December 12 in Durham.

Jay is the Community Relations Manager for MySQL North America, but don’t let the title fool you.  He’s an engaging and knowledgeable speaker with considerable real world experience building, installing and tuning large scale MySQL installations as well as working with some cutting edge companies and individuals.  If you’ve ever had a question about MySQL, now’s your chance to get it answered in detail, up close and personal with an expert. 

Jay will cover a number of topics relating to performance tuning and scaling, but the meeting will not be limited to just those topics. 

If you’ve never been out to a PHP/MySQL group meeting, Dec 12 should be your first one - we’d love to have you there!

More information can be found at http://www.tripug.org.

Thanks!

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

SocialCarolina.org Launched

Events about technology of some kind happening in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. Check it out at socialcarolina.org.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Triangle PHP Users Group (TriPUG)

A local PHP group founded by David Rasch. Consistent and valuable monthly meetings. More at http://www.tripug.org/.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Raleigh-area Ruby Brigade (raleigh.rb)

Like the Ruby programming language? We do too! Want to learn more about it? You’re in good company. Come join us in our pursuit of humane programming. Check out raleigh.rb.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Triangle User Experience (TriUX) and Triangle Usability Professionals Association (TriUPA)

TriUX.org is a blog that provides a central source for user experience-related events, organizations, and information in the Research Triangle Park (North Carolina, USA) area.

TriUPA.org is a group that focuses on supporting the local community of practitioners in usability testing, user research, interaction design, and information architecture.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Raleigh-Durham Web Design & Mark-Up Group

This Meet-Up group includes Freelancers, Entrepreneurs, “Back-end” Developers, Web & Graphic Designers, IT professionals, your average person who wants to create a Web site. We like to network, give presentations about our specialized areas, and enjoy ourselves!

This month’s meeting topic: August Design Heuristic: Bitmaps - Image Editing, Basic Photo Tips, Tools, Resources. Check it out at http://webdesign.meetup.com/36/calendar/6181844/