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Usability in Ireland - Gerry Gaffney interviews Morgan McKeagney

Usability in Ireland - Gerry Gaffney interviews Morgan McKeagney: "

Gerry Gaffney interviews Morgan McKeagney. For a transcript of this and other episodes, visit www.uxpod.com.

UIEtips: A Look Back at 3 of Our Most Popular UIE Articles of 2010

Happy New Year! We know a new year means looking forward and moving on to new adventures, challenges, and opportunities. But we’re glancing back at 2010 and sharing three of our most popular articles from 2010. Even in a few years, I think these articles will stand the test of time and still provide valuable insights to help you and your team with UX design.

Today, we’ll take a look back at:

How to Create a UX Design Library. Nathan Curtis of EightShapes walks us through the process of creating a library. He’s broken it down into four doable steps (and even has a fabulous poster-grade visualization of the process).

Five Indispensable Skills for UX Mastery. Here I explain five essential skills a UX designer needs to be really excellent at what they do.

Why We Sketch. In this article, I discuss how great designers use sketching for note taking, to convey their ideas in meetings, to record their conversations with their co-workers, and to support their design research.

We have big things planned for you in 2011. We’re working on some awesome new podcasts, articles, events, and virtual seminars to share with you throughout the year. Tell us how you’ll make design decisions in 2011. Share your thoughts with us below.

SpoolCast: Kim Goodwin’s “Getting Design Into the Corporate DNA” UI15 Session Sample

Duration: 11m | 6 MB

Recorded: November, 2010

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Design has made a lot of progress in the corporate landscape over the past decade, but many designers still find themselves justifying their existence on a fairly regular basis. Most companies, even those who claim to value design, aren’t taking full advantage of what design can offer them.

In Kim Goodwin’s talk, “Getting Design Into the Corporate DNA” from the 2010 User Interface Conference, she explains that it’s a matter of changing the culture of your organization. Kim understands that this is one of the most complex design problems you will ever have to face, but she can also tell you how to set it in motion.

One of the issues, as Kim points out, is that most businesses have a unit efficiency focus. This causes people to look inward and not share responsibility. It ends up promoting a lack of cooperation as turf wars develop and people begin competing for resources to ensure that their unit, department, or team is doing well rather than the company as a whole. This creates silos within the organization.

The alternative is a user-centered focus, but getting to that point isn’t easy. Kim concedes, shifting the way the entire company thinks is a daunting prospect. But she offers that organizational change is actually, in fact, individual change. She says to think of organizational change like moving a series of pebbles and boulders instead of the entire mountain. The organization is made up of individuals and shifting the organization is a matter of moving those individuals.

But it could be even more attainable than that. As Kim says, “Think about starting an avalanche. If you roll the right rock down the hill, it’s going to start taking others with it. You don’t personally have to touch every rock.” She encourages you to seek out the most influential “rocks” in your organization.

In order to bring change about, you need to be persuasive. Kim mentions that one of the greatest tools of persuasion is the users. She says that getting executives in front of users more often is one of the best ways to get them to begin to think differently about design. The more user exposure that you can get the more they will see the benefit of the design process.

You can also look for teachable moments. By that she means, look for a way to convey any unhappiness or dissatisfaction that your users may have. Then show how design can help improve the problem and give a clear way from Point A to Point B. In the end, it’s human nature to view change as loss. Exhibiting how design can improve things will help alleviate that sense of loss.

The audio to Kim’s full talk is available for purchase with all seven other Featured Talks from the conference as part of UI15 OnDemand. Also included are the handouts and presentation slides from the talks as well as the slides from the each presenters’ full day workshop. Get more information or place your order for UI15 OnDemand.

Have you experienced difficulty illustrating design’s value in your organization? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.

Give Us an Edge in the Global Brain Race (in Opinion)

Give Us an Edge in the Global Brain Race (in Opinion): "

Idea: Attract the best foreign students by fast-tracking their Canadian citizenship."

Don't Take Digital Innovation for Granted (in Mediacheck)

Don't Take Digital Innovation for Granted (in Mediacheck): "

In Canada, powerful actors want to make the Net more expensive, less open."

Finding Top Family Arts Destinations with VancouverMom

It’s another big year for Vancouver as the city celebrates 125 years since its incorporation and to boot, it has been designated a Cultural Capital of Canada for 2011. This means we can expect public celebrations, exhibits, performances and more throughout the year (many of which are already listed on the CelebrateVancouver125 website). In honor of this recognition and designation, local blog VancouverMom is putting the call out to find the “30 Best Family-Friendly Places to Explore the Arts in Vancouver”.

Some of my picks would be…

The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

Museum of Anthropology

Vancouver Art Gallery

Public art walking tours (on your own)

West End or Coal Harbour Community Centres

Granville Island for the Carousel Theatre

Granville Island for the Arts Umbrella

Public can submit their favourite places online until January 31, 2011. VancouverMom then will have the task of putting together the ultimate list for family-friendly art destinations in Vancouver. Follow on Twitter for updates about the poll and everyday family resources.

Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver

Tales of the Cocktail has been bringing mixologists, spirit enthusiasts, professionals and suppliers together for the last eight years with their festival in New Orleans. For the first time ever, the festival is going on tour and they have made Vancouver their very first destination — with plans to make the Vancouver edition an annual event.

“This is a Vancouver-based event because we’ve done some great things that have been noticed,” said Jay Jones, Consulting and Founding member of the Canadian Professional Bartenders Association (and new Lead Bartender at Market by Jean-George at the Shangri-La). Jones has been in the industry for 15 years and he told me that this event will showcase the work of our local cocktail community and bring some much-deserved international recognition which can benefit the city as a whole.

Jay Jones

The micro-festival in Vancouver will reflect the same high-standards of the New Orleans event, but highlight the Pacific Northwest, and more so Canada’s position on the world cocktail stage.

“It can help drive tourism and people will soon visit the city for its cocktail culture,” added Jones. “We’re known for our hospitality, natural beauty, restaurants, chefs, wine, and environment, and now you can add ‘great cocktails’ to form a complete package.”

Bringing the event here was the first step, the next was filling up the festival’s schedule with seminars and events that would showcase Canada’s spirit culture from coast to coast.

Seminars recently announced on the schedule include: Famous New Orleans Cocktails, For the Love of Gin: How the Historic Spirit is Making a ComebackThe Birth, Death and Rebirth of Canadian Whisky, The History and Importance of Ice in Cocktails, The Science of Cocktails: New Techniques Behind the Bar, and Who’s Your Daddy? A Mai Tai Paternity Test.

Special events include a tribute to the Caesar (“Canada’s Cocktail”), and a BC bar crawl. “A big part of the event is bringing the global community to Vancouver and getting them into our bars,” added Jones who praised the creative and innovative bartenders in our local establishments.

Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver will kick off with a welcome reception at the Vancouver Aquarium, a place Jones says is very fitting. “It will showcase our sea life, tourism, and some of the most beautiful things in our part of the world.” The theme of the event is “Gibson’s Finest Canadian Whisky presents ‘True North’” and cocktails will be inspired by various regions of Canada. Attendees will also be able to taste Vancouver’s new signature cocktail — the Dalhousie by Jonathan Smolensky of George in Yaletown — that was determined in a competition earlier this month.

Recipe for the Dalhousie

Start by taking 6-8 Canada plums, which have been dehydrated in coarse sugar, and steep them in Gibson’s 18yr Canadian whisky for 4-5 days. Then use these ingredients:

60 ml (2 oz.) Canada plum infused 18yr Gibson’s

15 ml (1/2 oz.) Domaine de Canton liqueur

10 ml (1/3 oz.) Zwack Unicum

1-2 dashes of high quality rendition of Boker’s bitters

Lemon peel

1. Chill a coupe glass and a mixing/Boston glass.

2. In a mixing glass, add the Canada plum infused 18yr Gibson’s, the Domaine de Canton, the Zwack Unicum, and Boker’s bitters. Stir until heavy and properly diluted.

3. Remove the pith of the lemon peel and rub the peel on the inside edge of the coupe glass, then toss the peel.

4. Double strain all mixed ingredients into the coupe glass and garnish with a small Canada plum fan.

The entire 3-day festival will wrap up with a Mardi Gras style closing reception and the finale, “Good Bye Vancouver, Hello New Orleans” Cochon de Lait. Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver runs March 13th until the 15th and tickets are now on sale.

The festival will return home to New Orleans July 20th – 24th, 2011 with its spirited schedule of seminars, dinners, competitions, parties and special events. Follow @TOTC on Twitter for festival updates.

Selasa, 25 Januari 2011