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Written by David Charney
Posted: March 12, 2009 (1 year, 5 months ago) | 0 comments
RIApalooza was big hit in Chicago last year and this Summer it is back. There were great presentations and great networking. Visit the website at www.RIApalooza.com and get signed up today. Early birds only pay $10 dollars.
Here is the info:
Following the overwhelming success of 2008’s RIApalooza, we are proud to announce RIApalooza 2!
Join your fellow RIA professionals for an invaluable unconference aimed at exploring and promoting the development of Rich Internet Applications.
RIApalooza promises a platform agnostic and “PowerPoint-Free” zone, which means we are going to forgo the boring marketing pitches in favor of talking technology. RIApalooza is about creating Rich Internet Applications; how to go about building them and what is being built.
Presentations and sessions will be begin at 9am on Friday, May 8th. A social meet-and-greet will immediately follow at 5PM.
The event will be held at the Illinois Technology Association, located at 200 S Wacker Drive 15th Floor Chicago, IL 60606.
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 16, 2008 (1 year, 10 months ago) | 0 comments
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. - Albert Einstein
Knowledge is a big ingredient when it comes to our ideas and actions. It is the foundation to what we do, how we think, and how we interact. Knowledge is often applied through the presentation of materials or, in some cases, by doing something less than smart and having a realization. This is my preferred method. When developing educational or training based applications we tend to look at three key ideas involved with understanding and applying knowledge: developing state-of-mind, problem solving skills, and experience.
Develop State-of-Mind
Knowledge is like compound interest. Learning and understanding how to apply knowledge is easier and faster once a foundation is in place. By developing the state of mind, we memorize more because we understand clearer and connect the dots more efficiently. A professional is a professional because they have a foundational view and experience of the subject at hand. By focusing the presentation of the materials on developing this foundation, a base can be set to focus on their their ability to apply their knowledge.
How? Ask the professionals. Find out what is foundational and build upon that. Listen to the questions that are asked by the students in current classes. There is a good chance that these questions are asked often and the answers and are asked because of a gap in their state-of-mind. By answering these questions in the materials, a new point-of-view, or state-of-mind will develop.
Develop Problem Solving Skills
Developing your audience’s state-of-mind runs hand-in-hand with their ability to problem solve. Too often information is simply given and not challenged. Taking a multiple choice test does not necessarily prove any information is actually understood. Applying knowledge tends to involve making decisions and solving problems to situations, so focus your presentation of the materials on building these skills.
How? Present problems and let the user figure out the answer. Sometimes a questions or situation will provide multiple views and approaches. Let the student explore. Help them if they need it. They will start to understand how changing a variable over here, directly relates to the outcome over there. Challenge their minds.
Develop Experience
Experience usually develops through the interaction someone has to a given subject. Experience is what develops alongside their state-of-mind and problem solving skills. It comes through understanding and feeling comfortable with their ability to apply knowledge to situations and scenarios.
How? With today’s technology and story telling methods, we can develop experience without expensive and time consuming on-the-job training. Even without training on an actual auto engine, the material can be presented through text, images, animation, and interactivity. By laying a foundation to what what an engine is, and scenarios to why it may be broken. It can allow the student to explore the various parts, names, and functionality. A few focused interactive challenges can be presented that test the students understanding of the engine and their ability to solve the problem at hand.
By focusing on these three learning ideas, students will retain more information, have a clearer understanding, and often find the subject matter far more interesting. All the ingredients you want in a good education.
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 5, 2008 (1 year, 11 months ago) | 0 comments
I gave a short presentation titled “The Helicopter View of UX & Design” at the latest (October 1st) CD2 (Chicago Designers & Developers) user group meeting in Chicago. Using my finely toned brain-tato, I took the 101 approach to UX and here… wait for it… is the break-down:
The Definition of User Experience
Charts and graphs aside, the User Experience (UX) is simply the user’s experience (ignore my use of term in definition) when interacting with a product, service, or idea. It relates to how user’s interactions are perceived, how they are used, and how information is communicated. It is a component of and quite the bed fellow of user-centered design which has a strong focus on the audience, their needs, and limitations.
The Many UX Factors and Elements
UX breaks down into a billion factors and elements including design, brand, interaction, usability, navigation, functionality, behavior, layout, sight, sound, touch, taste?, information architecture, animation, input/output, human factors, limitations, content information, work-flow, technology, and environment, to name a few in no specific order. All these elements factor back to the definition and each could have a blog post (and eventually will).
Where We are Seeing UX
- Entertainment - So much UX I can barely breath
- Marketing - If UX was deep in the woods at night, marketing would be the sleeping bag
- Products - Utilizing marketing, budgets are being pushed all they can!
- Services - Similar to products, UX is telling the story and adding the energy
- Training & Education -The flame is lit. I hope the fire spreads quickly. There is a lot of good UX can bring to furthering knowledge.
What is SO Great About UX?
- Allow the information to better relate to the user
- Develop emotional responses between user and information
- Information retention advantage due to developing state of mind and experience (cause of all that great stuff above)
- Can provide an environment that strengthens usability and drives exploration
Peripheral Experiences
Remember that the user experience isn’t focused on just the use of the solution but also what happens before and after the solution. An example that comes to mind is the iPhone. After it was announced, everyone talked about it, waited for it, quit their jobs to wait in line for, happily bought it, savored the box and unwrapping of it, and did all this before even using the phone. This is all part of the experience! What about when someone is done using your solution? Does it just end? Do you never hear from this person again? What continues the experience for them?
Where Do We Begin?
Define and understand the goals, objectives, and mannerisms of the Client and their audience [as well as their limitations]. How do you do this? Talk to your client, brainstorm, survey, meet the audience, walk in their shoes, take field trips, develop personas, test and validate. Remember, it is better to work with the client then for the client.
Examples Anyone?
- iPhone - The iPhone has a simple UI that utilizes animation and simplicity to flow the user through the information. By understanding the hardware limitations, the UI is fine tuned to focus the user on finding and using the information, not feeling the hardware.
- Google Earth - Before Google Earth people looked at roads and satellite imagery as a type of map. After Google Earth people saw a world they could explore. Quite the powerful experience.
- Facebook - Powerful UI and 3D aside, Facebook is a means to communicate. You can experience all the aspects of your friends lives and often many people’s lives you don’t know.
- UIC Dental Education - Using a haptic device (think pen connected to an arm connected to a motor connected to a computer), the user can move the cursor, mapped with a dental tool, around a set of simulated teeth. When the user’s dental tool touches the 3D teeth, the motor stops the pen from moving. This forced feedback let’s the user “feel” the teeth, gums, and even cavities. Experiences can utilize all sorts of input devices.
- Further Examples - The FWA (the fwa.com) - Check out this site’s growing catalog of fantastic UX. Creativity is hard not to step on as you wander through the many unique solutions that are out there on the web.
That’s a high level my fellow designians. Remember, the experience is more than throwing someone in a 3D world. It is about perception, use, and understanding of information. With a little thought and flash of creativity, you will be developing UX before you know it… or at least before I know it. Now go outside!
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 4, 2008 (1 year, 11 months ago) | 0 comments
Hey hey! CD2 just got an email from Steve Krug, the brilliance behind the book Don’t Make Me Think. Steve and Lou Rosenfeld have an upcoming usability workshop here in Chicago (October 17) and Washington, DC (November 12).
CD2 members can get a $150 dollar discount by registering at Steve’s site (sensible.com) using the discount code “cd2″.
From Steve’s site Advanced Common Sense:
In this day-long session, I’ll teach you how to do your own low-cost/no-cost testing that’s simple enough to make it a routine part of your design process.
The day will include
- A complete explanation of how I recommend doing testing (Hint: very simple, very fast, and very cheap)
- Two live usability tests on attendees’ sites, so you can see the whole process in detail
- A chance to practice conducting a test on your own site
- Advice on how to interpret your findings and decide what changes to make
- Plenty of time to answer your questions about testing or any other aspect of usability
Who should attend?
The short answer is “anyone involved in publishing a Web site.” Graphic designers, programmers, writers, editors, project managers, sole proprietors, and VPs can all benefit from this session.
Whether you already do testing and want to know more, or have never done testing and want to start, or even if you don’t ever intend to do your own testing but are responsible for hiring, managing, or paying other people to do it, this session will prove valuable.
Some of the topics covered
- What I mean by “discount” user testing, and why it always works
- How to get buy-in: Ways to deal with bosses, stakeholders, and check-signers
- What kind of people–and how many–to test (My motto: Recruit loosely, and grade on a curve)
- What to test, and when to test it
- How to record tests and use the recordings to your advantage
- The art of specifying test tasks
- How to facilitate–when to listen and when to probe
- Why I don’t use exit and entrance questions
- How to decide what to fix
- No more big honkin’ reports: Why you should avoid writing test reports, and what to do instead
- Remote testing methods and tools
- …and much more.
Written by David Charney
Posted: June 2, 2008 (2 years, 3 months ago) | 0 comments
Well the first RIApalooza event has come and gone and I must say I enjoyed it. This two day event had good speakers, good topics, a nice mix of theory and demonstrations, good networking, and a healthy turnout of supporters. It was great to see Microsoft and Adobe (both sponsors) working together for the good of the cause. It was also nice to see all programs and platforms recognized.
Dave Meeker from Roundarch did a great job kicking off the event by discussing the core of all this RIAmadness. What, Why, Who, When - it was all covered.
Tim Heuer & Corrina Barber from Microsoft showed the ease designers and developers can look forward to using Blend. Good demonstration. I saw Blend on a lot of laptops by the end of the day.
Josh Holmes from Microsoft & Michael Labriola from Digital Primates had a great presentation on RIA. From practices to theory they covered a broad spectrum of the key components of RIA and answered that big question, “What’s the big deal?”.
Geoff Cubitt, President & CTO of Roundarch (and a Purdue man) discussed RIA while relating it to the fine work of Roundarch. He discussed different technologies (Flash, Flex, Dojo, AJAX, Silverlight) and touched a bit on selling RIA to the client.
Anthony Handley from Magenic did a great job showing designer & developer collaboration while bringing life to an application using Silverlight and XAML. He made it look so easy.
The one and only Corey Miller from Magenic (the guy who put Purdue on the map) recreated a Flash image gallery inside Silverlight and showed how to populate it with Flickr images. He did a nice job showing the many Flash designers and developers in the room that they don’t have to take that many steps back to start exploring Silverlight.
Ka Wai Cheung from We Are Mammoth discussed time saving RIA models and the power behind smart design.
So that’s a wrap. I hope this is the first of many.
