The IA Cocktail Hour unorganisers are taking a winter break. This means there will be no IA Cocktail Hour on Thursday 25 June.
The next IA Cocktail Hour will be on Thursday 23 July. Topic will be announced shortly.
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The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is Thursday 28 May 2009.
David More is an information, experience and design consultant currently working for Optimal Experience but with many, many IA and user-centred design projects under his belt. 
In this IA Canberra meeting, David will be leading a discussion on mentoring and development for in-house IA/UX/UI teams. Prompted by David’s analysis, insight and examples, this will be a great opportunity to find out what others have found works (and doesn’t work) as well as sharing your ideas and stories.
We also hope you’ll join us for an informal dinner somewhere in Dickson afterwards.
Start Time: 17:20 for 17:30 (please come on time - the door is automatically locked at 17:30)
Finish Time: 19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 28 May 2009
Venue: Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute
Level 1
55 Woolley Street (above Zefferelli’s)
Dickson
Please RSVP to [facibus AT gmail DOT com] as soon as possible for catering purposes.
The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is Thursday 23 April 2009.
For this meeting, Donna Maurer will share ideas about designing for different information behaviours. When people use websites and intranets they are doing more than just ‘finding’ information. They may be looking for something they know about or exploring something brand new; filtering through large volumes then comparing results; getting an overview of a topic or diving deep. They may even think they want to find one thing, but actually need something entirely different. Each of these information behaviours needs very different approaches to information architecture, information design and page layout.
Donna recently returned from attending and presenting at SXSW Interactive and IA Summit, and will shortly depart for UX London. This is your chance to get some of her world-famous IA insights right here in little ‘ol Canberra.
Time: 17:30-19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 23 April 2009
Venue: Stamford Interactive
Level 1
301 Canberra Avenue (right near Officeworks)
Fyshwick
Please RSVP to [facibus AT gmail DOT com] as soon as possible for catering purposes.
We also hope you’ll join us for an informal dinner somewhere in Kingston/Manuka afterwards.
The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is Thursday 26 March 2009.
This meeting will be the first ever delivery of a engaging new presentation from Formulate Information Design, on the principles of visual perception and their relationship to electronic forms.
Come and learn about the ways we humans see, and how this knowledge can be used to help electronic forms communicate visually (and subconsciously) to users.
We also hope you’ll join us for an informal dinner somewhere in Dickson afterwards.
Time: 17:30-19:00 (door is locked from 18:00)
Day/Date: Thursday 26 March 2009
Venue: Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute
Level 1
55 Woolley Street (above Zefferelli’s)
Dickson
Please RSVP to [facibus AT gmail DOT com] as soon as possible for catering purposes.
The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is Thursday 26 February 2009.
Nathan McDonald of the Mustor Institute is going to talk about making sense of complex documents.
The Mustor Institute works hard to make the complex world of regulation, business, contracts etc accessible for, and understandable by, all through their novel “Regulatory DNA (MIS 1000)” approach. This system for navigating through these difficult domains has been described as “revolutionary” and “one of the most exciting developments”.
Nathan will demonstrate the clarity and simplicity provided by the DNA method using examples such as:
- NSW Building Industry payment regulations;
- Austrac Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) regulations;
- Australian Department of Defence contracts; and
- Australian Taxation Office regulations.
We also hope you’ll join us for an informal dinner somewhere in Kingston/Manuka afterwards.
Time: 17:30-19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 26 February 2009
Venue: Stamford Interactive
Level 1
301 Canberra Avenue (right near Officeworks)
Fyshwick
Please RSVP to [facibus AT gmail DOT com] as soon as possible for catering purposes.
The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is Thursday 22 January 2009.
Jessica Enders, Principal of Formulate Information Design, is going to take us on a fascinating journey of memory, cognition, language and sociology, exploring the hidden complexity behind writing a good question. This will be a dry run of a completely new talk being presented in the United States later in the year, so the more (feedback) the merrier.
We also hope you’ll join us for an informal dinner somewhere in Dickson afterwards.
Time: 17:30-19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 22 January 2009
Venue: Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute
Level 1
55 Woolley Street (above Zefferelli’s)
Dickson
Please RSVP to [facibus AT gmail DOT com] as soon as possible for catering purposes.
IA Cocktail Hour was a smash hit in 2008—well, at least those who attended got a lot out of it—and we’re looking forward to an even better year this year.
The schedule for the IA Cocktail Hours for 2009 is below. (For more information about the hours—e.g. locations and times—see IA Cocktail Hour.)
As you can see, there are plenty of empty slots just waiting for eager IAs/designers/developers/geeks/smart people willing to share their ideas and learnings with our friendly and interested group. If you’re interested in presenting, however formally or informally, please contact Andrew Boyd via facibus [at] gmail [dot] com.
| Date | Topic(s) | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Jan | Questioning questions by Jessica Enders (Formulate Information Design) |
Ipsos-Eureka |
| 26 Feb | Making sense of complex documents by Nathan McDonald (Mustor Institute) |
Stamford Interactive |
| 26 Mar | Visual design principles for electronic forms by Jessica Enders (Formulate Information Design) |
Ipsos-Eureka |
| 23 Apr | Communicating IA by Donna Spencer (Maadmob) |
Stamford Interactive |
| 28 May | Mentoring and development for in-house IA/UX/UI teams by David More (Optimal Experience) |
Ipsos-Eureka |
| 25 Jun | No IA Cocktail Hour (Winter break) | |
| 23 Jul | Group discussion: “Should I stay or should I go now? Dealing with doomed projects or clients” plus The future of IA Cocktail Hour/IAI Chapter meetings |
Stamford Interactive |
| 27 Aug | No IA Cocktail Hour (UX Australia) | |
| 24 Sept | Mining and Centralising the Knowledge of Your Own People by Stephen Holmes | Ipsos-Eureka |
| 22 Oct | No topic yet - maybe you? | Stamford Interactive |
| 26 Nov | No topic yet - maybe you? | Ipsos-Eureka |
The UX Book Club concept has been discussed a lot over the last week or so on various mailing lists. This is what Steve Baty had to say about it:
A UX (User Experience) Book Club is a get-together in which people interested in the area of user experience come to discuss a book relevant to the discipline.
A UX Book Club would operate as follows:
Everyone who attends needs to read the nominated book (you won’t be barred from entry, but it helps everyone get more out of the night);
Everyone needs to jot down and bring along: 2 things in the book that really struck a chord; and 1 thing they either hated, disagreed with; or don’t understand.
The book would be within the practice of user experience, which might include books like Indi Young’s Mental Models; Dan Saffer’s Design Gestural Interfaces; Todd Zakiwarfel’s Prototyping; and classics such as Don’t Make Me Think; the Inmates Are Running the Asylum; etc.
The book should not be arduous to read!
Next Month’s book will be announced at the current meeting.Communication via twitter & through mailing lists like IAI-members, IxDA and some of the LinkedIn groups dealing with UX and/or IA.
In keeping with the book-club theme the location would be somewhere like a wine bar or a bookstore. The important thing is that the noise level has to be low, and be able to accommodate a group of 15-30 people.
To provide some added interest (and help visualise the topic), each book might - where appropriate - include a film reference to watch along with reading the book. So, for example, Todd’s book on prototyping - or Buxton’s book on sketching - might be read in conjunction with a viewing of IronMan. Dan Saffer’s book on gestural interfaces might be read in conjunction with a viewing of Minority Report or Quantum of Solace. People would be instructed to watch the film with the topic of the book in mind. An alternative - if a venue could be found - would be to show parts of the movie at the book club meeting, but I think it’s more managable if people watch it themselves.
There is now a wiki at uxbookclub.org for contacts and discussing the concept. If you are interested, add your name here.
Now… to the year that was. I would like to thank the following people and organisations:
- Jessica Enders for coordinating through the year and sponsoring drinks/nibbles,
- SMS Management and Technology for sponsoring for the last couple of years until this was no longer possible,
- Stamford Interactive for providing a venue, drinks, and nibbles,
- Ipsos-Eureka for providing us with a venue, and
- Julie Hale and Donna Spencer for planning and direct assistance to keep things going.
If I’ve missed anybody, my apologies, please let me know.
We had a good year, with a lot of notable talks - my favourites personally were probably Jessica Enders on form design, Darren Menachemsen on Visualisations, and Dean Klemick on data visualisation. These were notable for both the quality of the presentations and the discussion that they engendered.
Going into next year, we need to think about how we continue as a group - venues, sponsorship, how we work with UXBookClub (or not), all that. If you’re coming to the End of Year drinks this afternoon we can chat about it then
And in closing, I would like to wish you all a Happy Silly Season and a good 2009.
PS: one more thing - don’t forget WebBlastCanberra08 (register here) is on Friday 5th December. It is definitely free
A quick note - we’re gathering at a location on the north side of Canberra, 2-5PM, on Saturday 29 November 2008. We’ll have drinks, and snacky bits, and talk about the year that was (and no doubt the year ahead). If you would like to attend, and do not know the address, please email me on facibus AT gmail DOT com.
Cheers, Andrew
The next Canberra IA Cocktail Hour is Thursday 23 October 2008.
This will be the final presentation-based Cocktail Hour for the year, so make sure you come along to see Dean Klemick give an interactive demonstration of an exciting quantitative analysis tool, using the results from the 2007 ‘A List Apart’ survey.
We also hope you’ll join us for an informal dinner somewhere in Dickson afterwards.
Time: 17:30-19:00
Day/Date: Thursday 23 October 2008
Venue: Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute
Level 1
55 Woolley Street (above Zefferelli’s)
Dickson
Please RSVP to [facibus AT gmail DOT com] as soon as possible for catering purposes.
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