Guess which Canadian UX pioneer is featured in the latest Wired magazine?

You know the concept of user experience (UX) design has come of age when it lands in the pages of Wired magazine, but the U.S. publication knew that explaining it properly would require talking to a highly regarded Canadian.

In “Like Magic: Why A New Golden Age Of UI Is Around The Corner,” Andrew B. Myers looks at the strategies of Disney and others to create more holistic, deliberate customer experiences that span both digital and offline channels. A key figure in the rise of UX, he notes, is Bill Buxton, the Canadian-born computer scientist who studied at Queen’s University and the University of Toronto before pioneering UX at Alias Wavefront, SGI and, more recently, Microsoft. In the Wired article, Buxton suggests that, as much as various individual pieces of technology have gotten simpler, the plethora of devices and apps has created “cumulative complexity”:

The next challenge for experience design is to create a constellation of devices, including wearable gadgets, tablets, phones, and smart appliances, that can coordinate with one another and adapt to users’ changing needs. This focus on the totality of our devices stands in contrast to where we find ourselves today: constantly adding new gadgets and functions without much thought as to how they fit together. (For instance, anyone lugging around a laptop, iPad, and iPhone is also carrying the equivalent of three video cameras, three email devices, three media players, and probably three different photo albums.)

This is the piece that will help educate the masses about UX, so it’s worth reading to get Buxton’s take on how to solve this problem, and more.

 

The conventional wisdom that print newspapers were dying was shaken by the recent purchase of the Washington Post by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. That’s prompted Tyler Shandro, who sits on the board of directors of Digital Alberta, to write a thoughtful blog post, “The Transition of Newspapers: Gamification as a Solution,” about how newspapers can reinvent themselves in the digital age. Whereas many of the biggest publications, including the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, are counting on paywalls as a long-term saviour, Shandro suggests gamification and media could make a great match.

Game developers have honed how to get their players to purchase virtual goods with real world currencies. These same techniques used to motivate players . . . should be used by newspapers to motivate readers . . . a newspaper wants my money as a reader, why am I being sent off to painfully enter my credit card or call a toll-free number? Why is sharing and exploring content not gamified?

It’s up to papers like the Calgary Herald, where this post was published, to provide the answers.
For most of us, the time for riding roller coasters is now officially over, but anyone focused on interactive display should keep their eyes on Canada’s Wonderland, which announced a new ride called Wonder Mountain’s Guardian, which will open in May 2014. A writer on Theme Park Insider tells all:

Triotech, the Montreal-based company creating the ride doesn’t seem to have too much experience with major, well-known theme parks. Their CEO says this will beat anything Disney or Universal has. It is hard to believe that, especially when the budget for the ride is rumored to only be 10 million dollars. It will have the longest interactive screen ever built for a ride, so that’s saying something.

As always, however, it’s probably what will be shown on that screen that will count.

Elsewhere:

On CMSWire, Stephen Fishman wades into the sometimes-uncomfortable waters of collaboration with a piece called ‘A UX Horror Story’, which has a sub-head too risky to include here.

Badgeville, which has already become one of the leading vendors in the gamification space, has opened a gamification centre of excellence, according to Research magazine.

And finally, if you’re keeping up with the U.S. Open, check out this story on BrandChannel about how a 50 by 80-foot social media wall is brining together everything that’s being said on and off the court.