If you’ve ever wished for easier access to participants for your UX research, here’s a helpful guide on how to build your own UX research participant test. Included here are insights into the pros and cons of creating your own resource group. Part of that could include a dive into eye-tracking software as a unique way of judging User Experience design. And if your eyes are aching for inspiration, check out the list of winners of the International Design for Experience Awards.
The National Crowdfunding Association (NCFA) – yes, there’s a national crowdfunding association – says things are heading in the right direction in Canada. British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario are pushing forward on crowdfunding exemptions for startups and SMEs. That means startups would be able to raise up to $1.5 million per calendar year. According to the Association’s database, the number of Canadian crowdfunding portals more than tripled from 17 in 2012 to 70 in March 2014.
MaRS is now in its third week of Wearable Wednesdays, a meetup for Canada’s growing wearable tech startups to meet and mingle with those interested in the market. This past Wednesday focused on wearables in the health care industry.
Finally, in the spirit of improving the music listening experience for Canadians, Songza is now pushing out playlists that factor in the weather. This cold Spring is about to warm up.
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It’s our great pleasure to welcome them to CommerceLab. Together, we’re helping connect the academic and business worlds with the information they need to innovate, grow and compete on a global scale.
CommerceLab Advisory Board
What our advisory board members are saying
“So few Canadian organizations really grasp how quickly things are changing in terms of consumer technology. CommerceLab is an indispensable resource not just for tech companies, but for anyone who wants to stay competitive in the mobile, cloud-based world we now live in.” - Morag Johnston, Director of User Experience, Rogers Communications
“In healthcare and education alone, gamification research is showing that we can measurably improve health and learning outcomes for Canadians. Gamification helps us navigate some otherwise overwhelming data in ways that really do change our behaviour for the better. We’re just starting to pay attention to this important opportunity.” - Neil Randall, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo, Director of the Games Institute
“Canada’s digital signage software companies are some of the most successful in the world, but we’re only beginning to realize the massive market opportunity in this space. That’s why CommerceLab is so important—it’s one of the few places Canadians can go to identify emerging technologies and their business applications, across a vast range of Canadian sectors.” - David Haynes, Founder, Preset Group
]]>The American-made, Vancouver-based Grow Conference is ascending Whistler’s Pacific ranges this year. Discussions will center around the future of connected devices and the Internet of Things, along with the conference’s perennial goal of bringing together people who are “passionate about identifying problems worth solving.”
Canada’s Minister of State for Science and Technology, Greg Rickford, announced a $20 million business innovation access program for small- and medium-size-businesses. The program aims to provide $50,000 in vouchers to entice entrepreneurs to partner with universities, colleges, and research facilities that are actively conducting research, while at the same time giving students experience tackling real-world business problems.
Toronto’s AisleLabs, which uses big data analytics to understand shopper’s in-store activities, just closed a round of funding. The company gathers data using wifi signals and iBeacons, transmitting intelligence to marketers that can make offline retailers understand buying patterns with as much analytic sophistication as their online counterparts. The data could also help dramatically improve the effectiveness of DOOH displays.
Which reminds us: If you happen to be passing through the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, get your hands on MasterCard’s new DOOH initiative, which includes two enormous flex screens, an eight-panel video wall and a 65-inch touchscreen. The campaign, called “Priceless,” allows passersby to check out behind-the-scenes sports moments and buy sports memorabilia – even if they’re not going to a game.
]]>A second spotlight at SXSW has been on education, with Canadian companies taking center stage. Montreal’s Learning Bird focused its talk on the power of the web to match teacher expertise with student learning styles. Meanwhile, Toronto’s Planboard focused on strategies that engage professional learning communities to build online resources and tools for students and educators.
Speaking of education, real-time publishing platform, ImgZine, has released a white paper on increasing employee engagement through a mobile first strategy. And Toronto’s Dx3 conference recently offered us lessons on why the future of work is play, with companies like PHD interested in how game mechanics can improve their business. Here, for example, is how the company is gamifying its approach to media planning.
And in education for interactive display readers, on March 25, Omnivex CEO and Director of Software Development Doug Bannister will be hosting a webinar on “Breaking Through the Digital Signage Hype.” Bannister plans to help set aside the current fixation with what digital signage “could” offer and turn our focus to what it can do now, covering the pros and cons of a wide range of offerings.
This week also saw the University of Waterloo announce the ten finalists of VeloCity‘s incubator, all of whom are vying for a slice of the $100,000 startup pie. Finalists who win the pitch competition will receive $25,000 and a chance to work in the VeloCity garage in downtown Waterloo. Check here for a full list of finalists.
And in news that’s simply out of this world, Toronto hosts the Space Apps 2014 hackathon in April. The competition is all about lacing up your moonboots and hacking out an app for space – with NASA’s assistance, of course. It’s an international event with entries of all sorts, from “silly to serious, fantastical to feasible.” Space App entrants will get to lay hands on NASA’s vast troves of data and work with a selection of its scientists and mentors.
]]>Meanwhile, in Calgary, Slyce acquired $10.5 million of its own in VC funding for its visual product search application, which places retailers’ offerings in front of mobile consumers. And BlackBerry is back in the news this week with tests of a targeted social ad offering. The smartphone maker is testing an advertising model in its BBM Channels that would allow advertisers to select specific market segments to get eyes on their digital ads.
Back in Toronto, Vantage Analytics is announcing it’s now monitoring 600 different Shopify stores with its easy-on-the-eyes analytics dashboards. In numbers, they’ve analyzed over 800,000 transactions worth more than $65 million.
In Canadian digital signage news, Buffalo Wild Wings will be rolling out digital tablets and displays to a BBQ-sauced tabletop near you. The digital screens will not only take food and drink orders, but let us play games, listen to our incessant requests for a better playlist, and allow us to pay our bills. The interactive displays will be in all North American Wild Wings locations by the end of 2015.
If you’re looking for UX inspiration, this article is here to remind you to keep it clean and clear. If that sounds too complex, check out this 17-year-old Indian student’s Chrome plugin that aims to improve UX for Color Blind Internet users. The program, called ReColor, adjusts image output for the best experience by the user and has already passed its fundraising goal on Indiegogo.
And, finally, in rapid-fire startup news, Toronto’s Extreme Startups accelerator is announcing its fifth cohort this week. Startups include Dub, a professional networking app; Fora, a marketplace for accredited courses for young professionals in Africa; Hurrier, an on-demand delivery app; Preo, an app for ordering at bars and restaurants; and Innohub Uplette, which delivers context-aware mobile landing pages to devices that can be tailored and optimized in real-time.
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These questions and more will be addressed by an online panel whose expertise covers IP licensing agreements, legal and financial issues.
On Thursday, March 27th, 1pm EDT, VIEW online at the CommerceLab YouTube channel: youtube.com/theCommerceLab
JOIN in with your questions via Twitter addressed to @theCommerceLab.
This online panel will be run as a Google Hangout On Air. If you would like to join the panel, we have spots for up to 2 academic researchers exploring the licensing option. If you would like to participate, email [email protected] with a couple sentences on where you are in your commercialization process and why you would like to join.
]]>These questions and more will be addressed by an online panel whose expertise includes: evaluating startups and their potential, funding, legal questions, HR, growth planning and more.
On Wednesday, March 26th, 1pm EDT, VIEW online at the CommerceLab YouTube channel: youtube.com/theCommerceLab
JOIN in with your questions via Twitter addressed to @theCommerceLab.
This online panel will be run as a Google Hangout On Air. If you would like to join the panel, we have spots for 2 academic researchers exploring the startup option. If you would like to participate, email [email protected] with a couple sentences on where you are in your commercialization process and why you would like to join.
]]>As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the Ontario Government was wrapping up its Green Button app challenge for Ontario Energy. Now a winner has been chosen: Wattson, a personal butler that let’s you gauge usage habits in close to real time. A full list of winners can be found here, including Wattermelon, which, in true game-like fashion, allows you to compare your energy usage to your neighbors’.
Password authentication was a hot topic at Mobile World Congress, and Toronto’s Bionym took home the top spot in its annual Bluetooth Breakthrough Award, winning both Breakthrough Prototype and Overall Winner for its Nymi device. Nymi reads the user’s heart rate and translates it into a signature for unlocking devices.
Waterloo’s Desire2Learn has a new Sao Paulo office. The company has seen significant growth, and is edging up offerings in Latin America with new tech support and sales teams. This comes on the heels of a recent office opening in St. John’s.
Elsewhere in education, Ontario’s CoreFour just closed its first round of funding for “multiple millions of dollars” for its Edsby program, which helps students track and trace their progress through an online social application. And Samsung is in the process of giving one million dollars in grants to select schools across Canada to provide tech for young learners.
And at the intersection of education, art and digital signage, is Toronto-bound Art in Transit—A new DOOH program by Pattison that will display Cybele Young’s award-winning children’s picture book Ten Birds, and its follow-up, Ten Birds Meet a Monster, on Toronto’s digital subway screens and above ground video boards.
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JOLT a little too far along for you? Try Montreal’s new pre-accelerator program backed by Google, Tech Stars, and Steve Blank. The pre-accelerator, called NEXT, will focus on validating early stage problems and customer development as well as defining market size, funding opportunities and pitches.
Toronto’s very own Bitstrips, makers of those comic-strip-ified status updates, is rumoured to be raising $15 million in funding after reaching 30 million avatars in two months (and taking top spot among free apps at your local app store). The team may just use that money to scale up its deployment into your Facebook news stream.
Speaking of social media, Quebec’s Matrox Graphics has partnered with Shaw Communications to deliver its socially integrated DOOH technology to six stores in Western Canada. Matrox says the tech will “drive Shaw-specific social media content automatically collected off Facebook and Twitter” on an overhead band of 20 displays.
In Canadian gamification news, Sun Life launched a gamified investment experience to teach users about retirement and investment planning. The initiative, called MoneyUp, is aimed at in-office environments
And in news that’s just plain interesting, this week saw Thalmic Labs partnered with Clearpath to drive a robot with one arm, presumably leaving one arm free to defend against the robot invasion.
Finally, the Business Development Bank of Canada has opened nominations for Canada’s most innovative startup. Nominations are open until April 4 and awards will be presented between May 20 and 22.
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South of the border, at this year’s Digital Signage Expo, Intel’s Jose Avalos let slip that all-things-internet giant Google – and it’s Chromeboxes – will turn its eye to digital signage. Chromeboxes, according to Google’s Rajen Sheth, director of product management, “could become very inexpensive digital signage media players.”
And in other Google news, Waterloo’s Communitech announced it’s now accepting applications for the Entrepreneur’s Demo Day at Google in Silicon Valley. If you have a digital signage product, now may be the moment you’ve been waiting for!
In non-Google-related news, International Data Corp. Canada (IDC Canada) is reporting that 49 per cent of Canadians will eschew their living rooms to watch the Games from the comfort of their smartphones. The majority are using their devices to grab quick updates, while 19 per cent are using their devices to watch highlights and 11 per cent say they’ll also use their device to watch live events. These stats mark a significant move away from consuming live television events, and should open up new ways for companies to interact and engage with sports fans.
Canada’s digital reader Kobo claimed a market victory this week when Sony announced that it was removing itself from the digital reader market and handing over all its users to the Toronto-based digital reader. While no financials of the deal were released, Kobo has 18 million active users with access to 4 million ebook titles.
Finally, if you fancy yourself a Bruce Lee of User Experience, you may want to read UX the Bruce Lee Way, offering up such design nuggets from the martial artist as “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water… Go and be water, my friend.”
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