People & Technology

UxFest London Only a Week Away

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:50:31 +0000

It’s not to late to book places on the four days of Agile, UCD, UX, Service Design and IA courses than make up UxFext. Visit http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/schedule.shtml#uxfest

Free 1-hour Webinar for UxFest London

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:14:01 +0000

James Kalbach and I are going to present an overview of our four one-day UxFest courses that will be running in London from 13-16 March (some of the courses will be available elsewhere, too – Brussels and at the CHI 2012 conference in Austin Texas).

The webinar will start at 12 noon GMT on Friday, 3rd February and last about an hour. We’ll cover each of the four days in turn and explain why you need to up to speed with these topics in 2012:

12:00 Welcome and Introduction
12:05 Agile User Experience and UCD (WH)
12:17 Agile Requirements and UCD (WH)
12:30 Alignment Diagrams (JK)
12:42 Faceted Navigation (JK)
12:55 Q & A

Please note that the webinar is limited to 100 participants on the day, so be sure to join early to get your place (registration is no guarantee).

To register, visit
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/243691918

For our Spring 2012 training schedule covering Agile, UX, UCD, IA and Service Design see the schedule and online booking form.

Spring 2012 Courses in Agile, UX, UCD and IA

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:54:15 +0000

We’ve just launched our Spring 2012 training schedule for Agile, UX, UCD and IA courses in London and Brussels, including our popular UxFest early next year (March 2012). See the full details and book online.

Autumn Courses in Agile, UX & UCD Launched

admin — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:20:41 +0000

Our first UxFest London in February was a great success. It included four courses, two from William Hudson and two by O’Reilly author James Kalbach.

For the Autumn, we have kept the two most popular of the February courses and added two brand new, thought-provoking, but relevant days: Agile Requirements (William Hudson) and Alignment Diagrams (James Kalbach). As before, there are special discounts for every three places booked (3 x 1 day, 1 x 3 days and other permutations) or for booking all four days. (Note that the ‘UxFest Complete’ price already includes the 3-for-2 discount.)

See http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/schedule.shtml for further details and online booking.

UxFest London 7 – 10 February: Early booking extended

admin — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:00:25 +0000

We’ve extended the early booking discount for UxFest until 15 Jan. This is the perfect opportunity to hone your UX and IA skills for the next decade!

UxFest London, 7-10 February 2011: Four Days of UX, IA and UCD

admin — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:27:29 +0000

The four days cover an range of important topics for getting the most out of your web or intranet projects:

Dynamic User Experience: Ajax Design & Usability – how to use the greater interactivity offered by Ajax and DHTML to improve (rather than damage) user experience. Topics include an overview of Ajax from a non-technical perspective and its implications for usability and accessibility.
Agile UX & UCD – doing user experience and user-centred design within an Agile environment. How Agile differs from traditional waterfall methods and the strategies needed to make users the centre of attention. Participants do not need previous Agile experience although some familiarity with UX and UCD/usability is assumed.
Designing Web Navigation – principles and elements of navigation, including a simple-but-effective technique called cores and paths. Participants will learn about transitional volatility, the scent of information (amongst other topics) and how to create a unified navigation system.
Faceted Search & Beyond – faceted analysis, implementing facets and understanding the user interface design requirements of facets with hands-on exercises. Advanced topics include faceted navigation design with SEO, selecting multiple values, grouping and more.

Early bird rates run until 7 January and there are substantial discounts for booking three or more places. We also have a very special price for booking all four days.

I have presented the first two courses many times, including at international conferences. The dynamic user experience course has been part of the Nielsen-Norman Group Usability Week seminars. James Kalbach will be presenting the web navigation and faceted search courses. He is the author of O’Reilly’s Designing Web Navigation and is a well-respected speaker.

Visit our web site for full details and to book online.

Agile UX & UCD Courses (and IxDA talk) in November – Hamburg and London

admin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:20:23 +0000

Ever had a hard time selling usability or user-centred design to your technical colleagues or managers? Not sure how to fit UX & UCD activities into an Agile scrum (Brit. informal; a disorderly crowd)? We have an evening talk and two one-day courses coming up on these and related challenges in November:

The Psychology of Nerdiness and Its Impact on User-Centred Design (in English; Betahaus Hamburg, 19:00 04-Nov-10)http://ixdahh.mixxt.org/networks/events/show_event.24218

Agile User Experience & UCD (in English; Empire Riverside Hotel, Hamburg, 09:00, 05-Nov-10)
http://www.uxworkshops.com/user_experience_workshop_II.php

Agile User Experience & UCD (in English; St Pancras, London, 09:30, 15-Nov-10)
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/agileucd.shtml

October 2010 News

admin — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:12:57 +0000

Our Agile UX & UCD course was well-received in Brussels. We are running it again in London and Hamburg in November. Also, two of our courses have been accepted for the CHI 2011 programme in Vancouver next May – Card Sorting for Navigation Design and Agile UX & UCD. See our courses schedule page for more details.

September 2010 News

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:58:45 +0000

We still have places remaining on our Web and Intranet Usability Course on 13 September in central London. This course is ideal for development teams, managers and those wanting to move into or already getting started in usability. For experienced usability practitioners, the course provides practical activities that can be used with teams to help sell the case for usability and user-centred design.

Our two people-skills courses have been combined into a single day, focusing on communicating and negotiating with emotional intelligence (Gordon Brown could have done with this according to Tony Blair’s autobiography!)

We recently completed an interesting usability and user experience evaluation of a SharePoint collaboration site for a European Central Bank. It involved a design review and usability testing with internal users. We discovered some challenging issues around terminology and people’s perception of some of the solutions (‘a blog? I couldn’t possibly use that for a serious project at work’). Get in touch if you need usability, accessibility or user experience expertise.

July 2010 News – Additional course dates, venues and free reports

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:26:02 +0000

We’ve been making arrangements over the past couple of months to go pan-European (at least on a small scale) with our UX and UCD courses. I’m pleased to be able to add dates in Brussels and Hamburg to our regular London series for later in 2010. Plus, for London and Brussels, you can book three places across any of the courses and only pay for two. See our course schedule for more details.

Also, we’ve recently released our User Experience Benchmarking Report on US and UK clothing e-tailers (the top 6 of each according to traffic figures). It was a close-run contest between the two sets of sites, with the UK coming out just a bit ahead on average scores. However, if it weren’t for the USA’s top performer, the results would have been heavily in favour of the UK contingent. (I have tried very hard not to take sides – I was born and raised in the US and have been living in the UK since the mid-1970′s.) Download the full report to read the exciting details – a small taster is given in the overall summary chart below.

Click for full benchmarking reports