Category: personal

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Design Jam Bristol: gallery UX challenges

On Saturday 16th June myself and around 20 other strangers rocked up to Spike Island* in Bristol for a user experience (UX) Day called Design Jam Bristol.

As with the typical wonder of discover I found out about the event from a RT on twitter from a London UX pro.

Ever since I started to create ‘things’ for other people I have been interested in how those things are discovered, used, misused or neglected. The summary of the day grabbed my attention:

Design Jam is a one-day design session, during which people will team up to tackle engaging User Experience (UX) challenges. Similar to developer ‘hackdays’ the aim is to get UX professionals, designers, developers (and more) together to learn and collaborate with each other while working on actual design problems. The sessions champion open-source thinking & sharing and are non-profit, run by local volunteers.

After a tour of the building (they do a lot!) we got chunked into random groups (me, Keir, Robin and Tom) and cracked on with the task which was to explore how to encourage everyday folk to visit art space and galleries like Spike that were compelling and rewarding. The following are some of my own thoughts as well as the group around making art spaces a Celebration:

  • We ARE the user – most of us had never been to Spike island before
  • discovery ain’t easy – even when you are near the building you’d have no idea. We thought of ‘maplines’ to offer various guides around the stuff on offer
  • Art spaces can be intimidating
  • The experience starts from the very first interaction with the words/building and should be considered part of the staff/artists remit. Three states: pre, during and post-visit
  • What should anybody care about these spaces?
  • Let us talk, take photos, videos and make our our interpretations
  • How can digital be used to help the artist and visitor make connections e.g. put communication methods with the work
  • ‘speak to the curb’ attract passing traffic – from the outside what does the building communicate?
  • Consider ‘the wall’ which mixes physical communication and captures online
  • Destroy and rebuild what these spaces are for – this non typical event dragged my carcass to spike
  • View the PDF (12mb) of some of our thoughts used for our presentation

I like free stuff, used to paint a bunch, made digital pieces and like to support local events… yet rarely do I dip into the art spaces available across the uk. For me personally it is partly due to being completely unaware of what is happening. I now mostly discover things from my networks such as twitter so it is essentially art spaces not only have a presence here but realise that it is likely a link removed from the organisation itself that will get me through the door. Make it easy for us to point to you, ask you questions and reflect on our points of interaction. Come to us, help us and we’ll reward you with visits and actively spread the word.

I would like to thank the organisers, other teams and my own team for a thought provoking and entertaining day.

* This was my first visit to Spike island…..

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Understanding user-centred design workshop

Stu Church from Pure Usability ran a full day workshop talking and demonstrating the benefits of a user-centred approach to JISC funded projects. Here are my notes:

  • Project issues include the need to address user-centred design for searching, showing resources and supporting user-contributions to collections.
  • A user-centred process is the key to success and can be applied at all stages of a project (never too late to start!)
  • Benefits include improved credibility, reputation, visits and user happiness
  • ISO 9241-210 – Human-centred design for for interactive systems
  • Key elements include user goals & needs, user research and evaluation
  • Start with your business goals and then see what you can do to make the user experience as great as it can be
  • Have a snappy sentence that you can always refer to about the ‘UX vision’, a great recent example from Mark Boulton ‘A make new mantra: A statement of design intent‘ which for CERN is to “create wonder”
  • Identify user requirements and user stories
  • Rapidly design, prototype an refine
  • Evaluate to get insights and measure performance
  • You can do loads yourself without a professional to get quite far – then get pro’s for the harder pinch-points
  • So what are you waiting for?!

 

 

 

 

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Running report: Forest of Dean Half Marathon 2012

Yesterday, 1st April 2012 I competed and successfully completed my first ever half marathon.

I felt good throughout the race and each step past eleven miles was the furthest i’ve ever run.

My time was 2hr 2mins and 35 sec (the winner was 1hr 14min) and my running partner Stephen managed 1hr 59mins 25 sec – not too shabby !

Having run several pretty tough cross-country races including the Slaughterford 9, I wonder what challenge we’ll attempt next?……

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Running report: Slaughterford 9

Me, nigel and Andy

Today me, Nigel and Andy ran a race called the Slaughterford 9 (miles).

We set off on the cross country route with smiles despite the surrounding temperature a chilling 1c.

The route was pretty tough with mud, a river crossing and more mud to negotiate.

That is all pretty standard for a run but the hills or valleys more likely, were epic! The t-shirt we got upon completing the race has the slogan “Did you run the hill?”….. nooo way, it was too muddy and steep and i doubt on a summer day I would have the stamina to beat the hill about 8 miles into the run (having been through a river just before, causing me to be numb from the waist down). I only saw one person run the whole hill and she was clearly in another world.

Even with a heavy mist, the route was spectacular and this helped me to get through some of the tougher sections (was it Johnny Cash who sang about the pain being the only thing that is real?!).

With 1/2 a mile to go I got painful calf cramp but limped across the line in around 1hr 40mins, only to discover that Andy completed the race in about 62mins – winner in his group.

  • Andy 1st (group) and 12th overall
  • Nigel 325 out of 371
  • Me 326 out of 371

See you in 2013 on the hills?

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Reading list 2012

Currently reading

Learning Futures by Keri Facer

Jupiter’s Travels, Ted Simon, started 23rd Oct 2012

A list of books read in 2012.

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Coping with flying

I have a fear of flying and have sadly turned down some great opportunities to see the world and meet great people. Eventually I decided that the risks paled in comparison to the regret I would have in later years.

I started off quite enjoying flying, my first flight was in 1996 from Bristol to Ghana (6.5hrs) via Amsterdam (1hr).

After that I did the USA (6hrs) and Canada (7.5hrs). Then I had a shocking flight returning from the Caribbean and decided a white-knuckle ride wasn’t my thing.

so I then turned down some amazing trips (so my family keep reminding me) to visit Portugal, New Zealand (twice) and some other spots.

I can’t pin point why I have this fear as I am a passenger in cars, bikes, trains, buses and all sorts of vehicles quite easily.

My brothers were going to Amsterdam and although I turned it down they booked me a seat anyway…. a short huff (under 1hr) they said with family would ease me back into the travel.

Needless to say I was petrified and drank like a fish as that’s what you’re supposed to right? (more on this later).

After surviving this I got brave and we went to Italy (2.5hrs) where I was just as scared.

I decided to list what I didn’t like and then investigate further – the result of which is now I am still scared but I can tolerate many of the things that trigger my fear. I thought i’d list them in the hope this brings some relief to others:

  • I struggle to sleep days before a flight – acknowledge little can be done but that you aren’t the only one laying awake thinking about it either
  • drown out the sound of other people, put some music on in the waiting room – somebody always has a bad plane story so just drown others out
  • the plane looks odd compared to others – stop looking at the darn thing, just follow the person in front. Do not look at the plane except maybe to glance at the pilot
  • take something to read as you can use this during take-off and it at least gives me a distraction from trying to look out the window
  • That large knock shortly after take-off is the sound of the wheels returning to the carriage – this used to freak me out so much
  • other people annoy me so listen to some music instead or watch a video
  • I accept that I will have highs and lows during the flight – i focus on my breathing and the reason that I am travelling
  • Talk to a pilot – within 1-3 people I bet you’ll know a pilot who will be happy to chat about the bits you hate the most
  • Drinking doesn’t help at all i just need to use the toilet more which involves getting up so i have ditched this method
  • those herbal things are useless

All of the above have helped me in the last 2-3 years cope with flights and these have evolved to allow me to fly to New Zealand, Asia and other part of Europe.

I am still a sweaty, grumpy mess but trust me the other end is worth the hassle. See you in the sky!

 

 

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Rekindling my happy snapping

For the first time in a looong time I have picked up my Canon 350D. I got the camera a few years back after a freelance gig but I was always hung up on the features and we never took to each other.

Maybe this time will be different.

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My portrait by Nigel Goldsmith

A few weeks ago I was complaining about my avatar picture and Nigel Goldsmith, photographer and colleague offered to shoot me.

I wanted some shots that I could use for all my public accounts and conference talks that showed me in a professionally nerdy way and Nigel did a great job. The background is the stairway of the Wills Memorial Building here in lovely Bristol. Several people are shocked I stickered my laptop but it won’t get easily confused at a conference now will  it?

Portrait
Portrait

 

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Making Firefox mine – extensions and such

Whenever I use another computers browser it is always setup in a unique way, and mine is no different.

Though I have opera, chrome and safari I always come back to ye ole faithful Firefire. I like it naturally because I am used to it, and I got used to it due to some handy extensions that I probably use daily. I thought i’d list them as you may also find them of use:

  1. Firebug. THE must have extension if you are in anyway curious about what is under the hood of any website you come across. This beauty lets you select any page element and reveal the coding secrets behind. Better still, you can make changes and see live previews before your very eyes.
  2. ScreenGrab! I collect website screengrabs of sites that catch my eye and for keeping an archive of old designs before I update.
  3. Colorzilla. A really quick way to grab all the colours you find that you just have to have.
  4. Web developer toolbar. The ruler for measuring gaps between elements is worth the download alone.
  5. Open Attribute. The ultra fast way to get Creative Commons license details in the correct format at the click of a button.