We’ve officially submitted a bunch of talk proposals to the IXDA conference taking place February 4 – 7 in Savannah, Georgia. Stay tuned to the IXDA site to learn what talks are selected.
Visit the talk abstracts below and let us know what you think.
Are Natural User Interfaces Mainstream Yet?
by Sabrina Boler, Design Director
Until recently, the parts required to build NUI devices were expensive, but higher volumes and technology advancements have enabled lower production costs and retail availability/selection of touch-based devices is no longer a barrier to consumer adoption. Does that mean it’s just a matter of time before NUIs become mainstream? According Sabrina Boler at Artefact, the answer is YES.
With Sabrina’s experience as the Design Manager for Microsoft Surface, where — as one of the original team members — she built a team that brought to life the potential of Surface’s capabilities, she can discuss Microsoft Surface as a key example of a NUI. Microsoft Surfaces uses a unique NUI which includes touch screen, multi-touch gesture and object recognition capabilities — but where is it headed next? [Link]
Is technology killing design education?
by Ken Fry, Design Director
Demand for interaction designers is growing — even during the recession. Additionally, technology is evolving at a phenomenal pace from touch screens to cloud computing to sensors. And all types of companies and industries — from software to mobile to retail to entertainment — are looking for ways to enhance the user experience of their products and services. This demand for interaction designers, evolution of technology, and changes to the market are outpacing the educator’s ability to stay relevant to students. Design educators who are focused on teaching static graphics and pure three dimensional form are becoming less relevant to technology companies. Educators who focus on experiences over form will remain relevant. [Link]
3-D User Interfaces: Where are we and where are we heading?
by Rob Girling, Principal Designer and Co-founder
Hollywood continues to fantasize and provoke us UX designers to imagine more dimensional user experiences. Perhaps for the first time however we are witnessing a bit of a critical mass for real working 3D UI’s. There are a number of factors influencing this trend from the change of perception of console gaming as a popular consumer activity vs. niche hardcore activity.
Rob will demonstrate that there is something viscerally compelling about 3-D movement and 3-D visual style, which he believes is commercially undeniably successful. When designers take the time to understand and master the new visual levers at their disposal (depth, lighting, animation, cameras, physics and materials) really exciting and delightful experiences can be created that give user experience designers new ways to engage and delight users as they interact with digital products of all kinds. In addition he’ll argue that various technologies are going to bring 3D UX to the mainstream in the very near future so we’d better start some kind of discourse about them. [Link]
Bridging the Gap between In-Store and Online Retail Experiences
by Jennifer Darmour, User Experience Designer
Jennifer Darmour, would like to offer a sneak peak at what the future holds for retail user experiences, particularly as retailers attempt to bridge the gap between online and in-store purchases. Artefact believes that in-store and online shopping experiences will become much more integrated — especially for shopping experiences that involve a great deal of research.
In addition, Jennifer will speak about how many companies, particularly retailers, are looking for ways to create relevant/personalized feeds for their target customers that go beyond Facebook and Twitter. Jennifer can speak about what companies need to consider when developing personalized feeds for its target audiences, why they have become a point of interest particularly for retailers and what makes feeds one of the most relevant and effective ways to reach target audiences. [Link]
Design Implications of Visual Perception
by Dave McColgin, User Researcher
Dave will share multiple audience activities and demonstrations of perceptual abilities and limitations paired with their related rules of thumb. He will address the use of dimension, color, motion, symbols, and contrast for design, e.g.:
- How detailed images of our retinas show us the best uses of color and contrast
- How we direct our gaze and attention and what it means for interface layouts
- Our “sliding window” of temporal processing and implications for motion design
- What optical illusions teach us about 3D and eye movement
- How low-level processing of certain visual attributes make them “pop”
- How we process depth and which are the strongest cues
- Why your volume and brightness adjustments use a non-linear scale
[Link]
From mobile banking to matchmaking — hot emerging market opportunities for designers
by Masuma Henry, Lead User Experience Researcher
We need to challenge our assumptions about emerging economies. We must take a harder look at the unique cultural characteristics. We need to learn from the good design examples already being used.
From this talk, you’ll walk away with surprising examples of good design and an understanding of why these products succeeded in emerging markets. Learn about techniques for uncovering insights that will foster new design ideas and innovation. And lastly, become familiar with exciting technology innovations that demonstrate hot opportunity areas…..from mobile banking to matchmaking. [Link]
The Future is Physical
by Olen Ronning, User Experience Designer
Technology is rapidly changing the way we interact with our world. It is becoming woven into the products and environments all around us — cars, devices, clothing, accessories — even in the surfaces of homes and public spaces.
Speaking to Artefact’s experience and collaborations, Olen will present examples of these future interactions as well as opportunities for UX design methods — active research, experiential prototyping and multi-sensory design — to define these experiences. [Link]
Unifying Communications: Don’t call us, we’ll call or email or message or text or tweet you
by Martijn Van Tilburg, Senior Design Director
Martijn will delve into what these conversation trends mean for the mobile phone industry and the interaction design community, as well as how the phone can become the integrated center and unifying element for communication and collaboration, creating a much more positive user experience.
Martijn will also share future concepts and demos illustrating how interaction designers can help combine all types of conversations on the mobile phone in a user friendly manner. Lastly, Martijn will show how the phone, specifically the “address book” can become the integrated center and unifying element for communication. [Link]