Fluxible presents a UX conversation that goes to the dogs
by Shane Schick — Sep 9 '13
It would be fair to say that throughout his career, Steve Portigal has been dogged about user experience design. But now we can hear about his passion directly from his dogs’ mouths.
As organizers prepare for next weekend’s Fluxible conference in Kitchener-Waterloo, the UX event’s blog features an unusual video Q&A with Portigal, author of Interviewing Users. Instead of the traditional talking head clip, the video uses Portigal’s two canine friends as avatars for the discussion on how businesses can deploy UX principles in a transformative way. This may be one of those seeing-is-believing kinds of posts, so check it out if you’re considering attending Fluxible and particularly if you’re thinking about taking Portigal’s workshop on “self-knowing.”
No one wants bad karma, but how do you ensure you get good karma? A recent article on Montreal TechWatch provides an answer by profiling I Can Go Without, an app developed by Soevolved Inc. that uses gamification to boost charitable giving. As Ildar Khakimov writes:
Gamifying good deeds is both simple and inspired: it allows us to make big changes with pocket change, and have fun while doing it. From local food banks to water improvement projects worlds away, I Can Go Without allows people to swap a want for someone else’s need.
Khakimov describes I Can Go Without as “intuitive, beautiful and fun to use.” What more do you want from a gamification app, or any app for that matter? May be worth downloading.
Everyone who’s anyone will be attending the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this week, but for those of us with busy day jobs or who missed out on early ticket sales, there’s always TUFF. This is the Toronto Urban Film Festival, and while it is best known as a (literally) underground short film fest that runs in the city’s subway stations, it’s also a great example of digital signage used to distribute entertaining content. A brief article on Mediacaster magazine explains:
TUFF programmers say the subway film festival reaches over one million daily commuters using the networked screens that make up Pattison’s digital signage service. In addition to the network screenings, Pattison has set up screens in three downtown stations running uninterrupted TUFF content all day long for the entire run of the festival: Bloor (north and southbound platforms)
You might not see the biggest stars at TUFF, but you will see how interactive display is finally getting its close-up.
Events this week:
uxWaterloo is hosting Making a Career in UX, with speakers Kate Willhelm and Kristina MacDougall, on Sept. 12.
Elsewhere:
- A post from Brafton suggests that Google is clamping down on bad UX design as it decides on search rankings.
- It may now be a part of Microsoft, but Nokia continues to reach out to developers, and ZDNet says it’s using gamification to do so.
- How much is digital signage expertise worth? According to this post on Sixteen-Nine, an unnamed company is offering a flat fee for opinions and advice. You decide if it’s worth it.
What did we miss? Send your helpful URLs, video clips and other items on UX, gamification and interactive display worth sharing my way at [email protected]
