Five Sketches™

This week I’m attending the annual CanUX (Canadian User Experience) conference in Banff Alberta.

This year’s focus is on practical how-to methods for designing better user experiences on a budget. Speakers include Rahel Bailie of Intentional Design, one of two speakers who will discuss content-management strategy. Also on the speaker list: Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic, […]

This week, I’m attending a few days of training in agile software development, in an Innovel course titled Lean, Agile and Scrum for Project Managers and IT Leadership.
My first exposure to agile was in Desiree Sy’s 2005 presentation, Strategy and Tactics for Agile Design: A design case study, to the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) annual conference […]

If you’ve ever wondered where exactly on your web site or software your readers or users are looking, eye tracking will tell you that. The eye-tracking equipment emits a specific wavelength of light (invisible to humans) that helps the eye tracker to follow your eyes. As the light bounces off your retinas and back to the […]

I’m presenting on repurposing the core competencies that relate to ideation and design, at the April 2009 Society for Technical Communication session, in Vancouver, Canada. The presentation is titled: Ideation and design with Jerome Ryckborst.
During this session, I’ll talk about how technical communicators have skill sets that make them valuable outside the “traditional” domain of […]

Currently, I’m conducting research on usability analysis and on how Morae software might influence that. My research gaze is rather academic, in that I’m especially interested in the epistemology of usability analysis.
One of my self-imposed challenges is to make my research relevant to usability practitioners. I’m a practitioner and CUA myself, and I have little time for […]

I’m presenting the Five Sketches™ ideation-design method at the March 2009 Vancouver User Experience event, in Vancouver, Canada. The presentation is titled: Creating Usable Software Without Designers: It is possible!
I think the title is a bit provocative; the organiser wanted the topic to sound spicier. If it primes the audience for a good discussion, then that’s fine. […]

Tongue in cheek: “I’m officially a Certified Usability Analyst, now, because I have a stamp.”

To learn more about Certified Usability Analysts, visit HFI Connect: The user experience community.

I’m presenting the Five Sketches™ ideation-design method at the 2007 annual Canadian User Experience conference, in Banff, Canada. The presentation is titled: A Better Method for Designing with Developers.
It’s a full hour—lots of slides—and several handouts. See you there!

It’s been a year since that flash of insight hit me. Looking back, getting to what I now call the Five Sketches™ ideation-design method was an interesting journey.
The setting. I was working on a two-person usability team faced with six major software- and web products to support. We were empowered to do usability, but not design. At the time, the team was in the […]

I’m presenting the Five Sketches™ ideation-design method at the 2007 annual Usability Professionals Association conference, in Baltimore, USA. The presentation is titled: Teach your software developers this Ideation-Design process to reduce your usability work downstream.
It’s a short presentation—only six slides—so I’ve included three supporting documents on the conference proceedings disk. See you there!
Update
The slides are on […]