The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
By Alan Cooper
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Time: 6:30
Location: TBD
RSVP: Via Meet Up
As part of a series of book clubs looking back on “classic” and influential books about user experience, we’ll be kicking it off with Alan Cooper’s The Inmates are Running the Asylum (on Amazon.ca).
About The Book: Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars-everything-being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum argues that the business executives who make the decisions to develop these products are not the ones in control of the technology used to create them. Insightful and entertaining, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum uses the author’s experiences in corporate America to illustrate how talented people continuously design bad software-based products and why we need technology to work the way average people think. Somewhere out there is a happy medium that makes these types of products both user and bottom-line friendly; this book discusses why we need to quickly find that medium.
The Craftsman
By Richard Sennett
Date: TUESDAY, November 26, 2013
Time: 6:30
Location: Beer Revolution | 1080 8 St SW, Calgary, AB (map)
RSVP: Via Meet Up
About The Book: Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than “skilled manual labor,” Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman’s work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world.
View ‘The Craftsman’ on Amazon.ca
FYI: The book is broken down into 3 sections: Craftsmen, Craft, and Craftmanship. Each sort of stands alone. Some of you may wish to just focus on a single section. That’s your call. :)
Type Camp Calgary
Posted on: September 4, 2013
Date: October 5, 2013
Location: John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd (207 8 Ave SW)
Cost: $319 (Register by 1 October)
Instructors: Laura Worthington & Shelley Gruendler
Details: This Type Camp will focus exclusively on script lettering.
After an introduction to varieties of scripts, we will help you develop your own hand lettering script style. You can cultivate a new visual identity or just experiment with possibilities.
By the end of the workshop, you will have a beautiful, brush lettered, and stylized finished piece that you can use for a variety of practical purposes. It could be used as your email signature or a wordmark for your business cards or even for your own personal greeting cards. The lettering and script skill set and procedural method can be applied to all kinds of future projects.
Responsive Web Design Webinar
Posted on: July 22, 2013
- In: Around Town
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Habanero recently redesigned their own website using responsive techniques and experimented with a number of approaches such as content-first design, retina/high-DPI support, etc. Some things worked well and some didn’t, which the team will share.
Date: Wednesday, July 24th
Time: 10am (MDT)
Sign up for this webinar: https://habanero.webex.com/mw0307l/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=habanero
The session will be led by Pablo Romero, a customer and employee portals consultant with over ten years of experience in marketing, customer care, and business strategy, and Jas Shukla, a senior consultant who teaches our User Experience Done Right! course across Canada. Jas was also an integral part of the designing and planning process behind Habanero’s own responsive website redesign.
Jas and Pablo will share best practices, ways to increase customer engagement, and explain the benefits of using responsive design techniques. By using Habanero’s own website responsive redesign as background, we’ll delve into why this design philosophy can increase the quality of customer experiences across different devices, especially important given today’s high-DPI screens.
Website: http://www.habaneroconsulting.com/about/news/Responsive-web-design
Book Club: Lean UX – July 30th!
Posted on: June 24, 2013
Lean UX
By Jeff Gothelf with Josh Seiden
Date: TUESDAY, Juy 30, 2013 Looking forward to seeing everyone!
Time: 6:30
Location: Hop In Brew Pub, 213 12 Ave SW, Calgary
RSVP: Via Meet Up
About The Book: The Lean UX approach to interaction design is tailor-made for today’s web-driven reality. In this insightful book, leading advocate Jeff Gothelf teaches you valuable Lean UX principles, tactics, and techniques from the ground up—how to rapidly experiment with design ideas, validate them with real users, and continually adjust your design based on what you learn.
Purchase the book at the O’Riley Media Book Store (use discount code DSUG for 50% off the ebook price or 40% off the print).
- In: Around Town
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Habanero‘s ‘UE Done Right!’ is back in Calgary, here are the details…
Date: June 18th – 19th
Website: http://www.uedoneright.com
About the workshop:
Designed for everyone from designers to communicators to project managers and developers, this two-day course is packed with case studies, responsive design best practices, and tips to increase team collaboration. Participants will practice the techniques through hands-on activities and will be given a comprehensive set of course materials and templates.
The seminar runs June 18 – 19 in Calgary, but we also have availability in Toronto and Vancouver. You can find out more information here: http://www.uedoneright.com
We have a special promotion code for CalUX until May 31 to get the reduced rate of $699 – just enter CALUX in the promotion code box.
Space is limited to 22 students for the best learning experience, so register soon!
Also check out our new course running in September “Portal Management Done Right!” for the people who launch, maintain, and run the solutions we design! http://portalsdoneright.com
Boozer Experience · May 16, 2013
Posted on: April 19, 2013
May 16, 2013 · 5:00 pm
Commonwealth Bar & Stage
The first of many Boozer Experience nights! Come out and meet fellow UX professionals and like minded folks over some beer, snacks and good conversations.
Hope you can join us!
RSVP on Meetup
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