Usability Professionals Association

Announcing World Usability Day 2009 on Nov 21 @ Yahoo

November 11, 2009 – 7:21 pm

WUD 2009

Where

Yahoo! Embassy Golf Links campus (see address here: http://bangalore.yahoo.com)

When

Nov 21, Saturday from 930 am to 4 pm

What

WUD is an annal meeting place for discussions and idea generation towards the design of more usable services, systems and products. WUD discussions in the past 3 years have included the design of usable technologies and systems for healthcare, education, government services, and transportation, among others.

The theme for WUD 2009 is “Design for a Sustainable World”. Designing for a Sustainable World focuses on how our products and services impact our world. We look at all products and services, whether they are buildings, roads, consumer products, business, services or healthcare systems; throughout their life cycle.

Among the topics we will be covering are:

Sustainable architecture and green buildings (how it works, how to build)
Sustainable living and lifestyles (what it involves, how to get there)
Sustainability metrics and measurement (how to begin, what to focus on)
Accessibility (how to make universally accessible systems)
Digital Communities for Sustainability

How to register?

To register, add your name directly to the event Twiki page at http://www.upabangalore.in/mwiki/mediawiki-1.15.1/index.php?title=WUD_Bangalore_2009 or send an email to pande [dot] amit [at] gmail [dot] com

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

World Usability Day banner at Bangalore Airport

November 24, 2008 – 8:48 am

The WUD Bangalore 2008 banner went live at Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) this weekend. Awesome work Narayan and the team.

5 days to go for the big day….

Posted in Usability in Bangalore | 3 Comments »

Horn OK Please - Poster Competition: Call for Entries

November 19, 2008 – 7:49 am

Horn OK Please - WUD 08

Transportation is one of India’s biggest bottlenecks. We all complain about the pace of flyover construction, the stray bullocks on the road, the overwhelmed policeman at the busy intersection, the potholes and slush during the rains, the
flight and train delays. But, we can be part of the problem or part of the change we seek.

This World Usability Day, join other designers, architects, technologists, and other professionals to discuss how we can make things better.

Horn Ok…Please. A Poster Exhibition Campaign for WUD 2008.
Here is your chance to participate, get noticed and contribute to the event.The theme this year is:Improving the Transportation Experience in India

Create an A2 (60 cms x 43 cms) size, single or multiple poster campaign, highlighting what you feel are the biggest problems faced with Transportation In India and how we can improve it. The posters can be under any of the four approaches:

Awareness and involvement
Ideas for Public Private Partnerships
Technology interventions in transportation
Mobilization of communities for collective action

For example, Exponential growth in cars could be the biggest problem, and Car-pooling could be a possible intiative. The poster can depict the different aspects of the solution that would improve the experience.

Send in your entries by November 25th, to wud08.blr@gmail.com along with your Name, Contact No, Occupation and Address.

All posters will be showcased at the event.The top three posters chosen by a panel of Judges, will receive a cash prizes totalling to Rs. 35,000/-. Public and private stakeholders present at the event, will guide the winners to take their ideas to implementation. Winning entries will also be showcased after the event atprominent locations such as the Bangalore International Airport.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

World Usability Day 2008

November 15, 2008 – 6:33 am

Inviting all designers, architects, user experience professionals and fellow citizens…

29th, Nov 2008 | Yahoo R&D Campus (Inner Ring Road) | 10:30 am – 4:30 pm

World Usability Day (WUD) was founded in 2005 as a global initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, in November, over 300 events are organized in over 40 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

WUD 2008: Usability in Transportation

The 2008 World Usability Day focuses on Usability in Transportation. Usability in transportation speaks to the interaction of people and the vehicles, the challenges and issues infrastructure and modes for moving around in our environment. World Usability Day 2008 is focused on exploring and creating awareness for several aspects of transportation in Bangalore and in India.

The Bangalore event includes:

Keynote talks by decision makers from the Bangalore International Airports Limited (BIAL), Maini Motors (Reva, India’s first electric car company), and Urban Planning Experts
Un-conference style sharing of ideas through interactive, rolling presentations
Public Exhibition of transport solutions for Bangalore from usability enthusiasts
A forum to voice opinions with key decision makers
Transportation Design Challenge

Who will participate in the event?

World Usability Day invites Designers, Architects, User Experience professionals, Urban Planners, Transport Service Authorities, Design Students, Academicians, enthusiasts and other citizens concerned about making Bangalore a better place to live in. We specifically invite all designers and technologists interested in issues related to public services and domains.

How to participate?

WUD 2008 seeks Volunteers who can support with organizing the event and Unconference speakers interested in speaking about the design and usability of transportation systems, both offline and online.

Those interested in volunteering may email or call Sarit Arora or Amit Pande or any of the organizers mentioned below.

Unconference speakers may register themselves directly through the main event website, simply by adding their topic to the Wiki.
How to register?

Register for the event at the WUD 08 wiki:

http://www.upabangalore.org/mwiki/index.php/WUD_Bangalore_2008

Poster Campaign: Horn Ok…Please

Transportation is one of India’s biggest bottlenecks. We all complain about the pace of flyover construction, the stray bullocks on the road, the overwhelmed policeman at the busy intersection, the potholes and slush during the rains, the flight and train delays.

But, we can be part of the problem or part of the change we seek.

This World Usability Day, we hope to create a dialogue and open interaction within the design community and with citizens and decision makers to make Bangalore better – together. One way we hope to create this discussion is through Horn Ok…Please.

Horn OK…Please is a poster exhibition campaign for World Usability Day that hopes to create awareness about issues in transportation through stories, observations and case studies. Your posters can cover one or more of the following areas.
• What are the opportunities and constraints for transportation in Bangalore and in India? What are some solutions to our biggest local problems?
• What kinds of green initiatives can companies and individuals take to reduce the environmental impact of their transportation needs?
• What aspects do we need to consider when designing transportation systems (at every level) for citizens in India. What aspects of language, culture and history need to be taken into account?
• What emerging technologies (online and offline), such as mobility, GPS, open source maps and others can be used to support local navigation and transportation needs?
• How can citizens participate more closely with government and public authorities? How can government and public authorities benefit from the technology and design expertise that is available in Bangalore and in India?
• What accessibility issues and challenges need to be addressed by transportation systems?

In addition to the above questions, if you have worked on or come across any other projects on the experience of the overall transportation space that could be relevant to this event and would benefit the audience, please email us.

You can submit your posters to wud08.blr@gmail.com. Please send the posters in PDF format, in A2 size or above.

Winning poster entries will be showcased at the event exhibition and subsequently at prominent public spaces in Bangalore, in addition to winning prizes on event day.

List of Volunteers and Organizers

For more information regarding the event please contact:

Sarit Arora – sarit@humanfactors.com - 9880271049

Amit Pande - apande@yahoo-inc.com – 9845690069

Sudhindra V – sudhindra.v@gmail.com - 9972176615

Muthukumar – muthuonline@gmail.com - 9845913390

Narayan Gopalan – narayangopalan82@gmail.com

Organizers and hosts

Corporate Sponsors

Posted in UX Events, User Experience and Business Innovation, Usability in Bangalore, Bangalore | 9 Comments »

Call for participation - World Usability Day 2008, Bangalore

November 7, 2008 – 9:41 am

29th of November | Yahoo Campus (Inner Ring Road) | 10:30 am – 4:30 pm
World Usability Day 2008 - Bangalore

World Usability Day (WUD) was founded in 2005 as a global initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, in November, over 300 events are organized in over 40 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

WUD 2008: Usability in Transportation

The 2008 World Usability Day focuses on Usability in Transportation. Usability in transportation speaks to the interaction of people and the vehicles, the challenges and issues infrastructure and modes for moving around in our environment. World Usability Day 2008 is focused on exploring and creating awareness for several aspects of transportation in Bangalore and in India.

The Bangalore event includes:

Keynote talks by decision makers from the Bangalore International Airports Limited (BIAL), Maini Motors (Reva, India’s first electric car company), and Urban Planning Experts
Un-conference style sharing of ideas through interactive, rolling presentations
Public Exhibition of transport solutions for Bangalore from usability enthusiasts
A forum to voice opinions with key decision makers
Transportation Design Challenge

Who will participate in the event?
World Usability Day invites Designers, Architects, User Experience professionals, Urban Planners, Transport Service Authorities, Design Students, Academicians, enthusiasts and other citizens concerned about making Bangalore a better place to live in. We specifically invite all designers and technologists interested in issues related to public services and domains.

Register Now!

http://www.upabangalore.org/mwiki/index.php/WUD_Bangalore_2008

Poster Campaign: Horn Ok…Please!

Horn OK…Please is a poster campaign leading up to WUD, Bangalore that focuses on creating awareness about issues in transportation through stories, case studies, and different solutions.[read more]

Download posters!

Help us spread the word. Download Posters and Publicity material for the event.

Poster 1 | Poster 2

Organized By

Sponsored By

Posted in UX Events, Usability in Bangalore, Bangalore, World Usability Day, Nov 5 07 | No Comments »

TimeOut magazine coverage of UPA Bangalore activities

September 2, 2008 – 9:48 am

A few weeks back, I had an interesting discussion with Akhila Seetharaman, journalist with TimeOut Bangalore about the field of design and user experience and its relevance for our everyday life (including in Bangalore). We spoke about UPA Bangalore, the growth of the User Experience community in Bangalore in the past 5 years, good bad and ugly products and services and experiences in Bangalore, and the role design can play in improving all of these.

My friend Sarit Arora from Human Factors (also head of the ACM SIG on Human Computer Interaction and CHI Bangalore) also joined me for a morning chat with Akhila at the Indira Nagar Coffee Day. TimeOut recently published Akhila’s article - you can read the article on TimeOut’s website.

The article covers topics most of us are familar with: Globalization, the rise of the creative economy, the importance of design and story telling and how the design and User Experience field has evolved in India. It also lists products and experiences we’ve all struggled with or appreciated in India: kick-starting scooters, filling in paper forms, the Indian railways website, cleartrip.com and such.

I hope you enjoy reading the article. Do send suggestions for how UPA can further communicate with the media and expand the discussion on design and usability.

Posted in Usability in Bangalore, Bangalore | No Comments »

UX Jobs at Honeywell Hyderabad

August 25, 2008 – 6:03 am

Interested candidates can contact Vinod directly at Vinod.Subramanyam at honeywell {dot} com

Positions: User Experience Designer/Usability Engineer/Sr. User Experience Designer/Sr. Usability Engineer
Location: HyderabadExperience: 2 to 5 years, preferably in a software product based environment

Education: Formal education in Human-Computer Interaction Design, Visual Communication, New Media Design

Core Skills & Responsibility:
1. Must have demonstrated skills in User Research, Scenario Building, Focus Groups, Concept Generation, Prototyping, Heuristic Analysis, etc
2. Create task flow diagrams; define navigation and interaction pattern, create Low/High fidelity prototypes, storyboards and guidelines for UI development
3. Manage the user experience and interface design effort, including the visual design

4. Developing User experience strategy for larger development projects/ programs
5. Inclination to understand and solve complex technical issues pertaining to human computer interaction.
6. Obtain stakeholder buy-in for the proposed designs and mentoring of internal teams on usability and user centered design
7. Conduct quality evaluations to ensure the user experience vision, design and standards are being fulfilled in the applications
8. Work on multiple projects within the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) in a faced paced environment.

Other skills:
1. Creative and Proactive
2. Excellent visualization skills
3. Good understanding of prototyping tools
4. Strong communication, analytical and interpersonal skills working within cross-functional teams a must

Interested candidates can contact Vinod directly at Vinod.Subramanyam at honeywell {dot} com

Posted in UX jobs in Bangalore | No Comments »

Design consulting gigs

August 20, 2008 – 9:37 am

A few friends running start-ups in Bangalore have been pinging me for good consulting/full time design talent. Am putting some of the profiles here - if you’re interested in any of them, reach the contacts below directly or give me a holler at pande dot amit at gmail dot com and I’ll connect you to these gigs.

Startup #1

…a well funded stealth mode startup looking for Web 2.0 and UX designers to work on a contract / consulting basis. Based out of Marthahalli, Bangalore.

Here are the basic requirements, to discuss this opportunity in detail send an email to vinodhn@msn.com or call on 98866 38995.

Profile: Web 2.0 Design Wizard

Skills:
1.Solid design experience covering the entire cycle of mockups to final design. Hands on knowledge in Adobe photoshop and Dreamweaver. 2-4 years of experience in handling the entire design life cycle.
2. Good understanding of HTML, CSS, JS
3. Familiarity with Ajax and new Web2.0 frameworks
4. Understanding end user needs and community models
5. Ability to build highly scalable frontend
6. Prior experience in web companies will be plus
Startup #2

…Internet start-up based in Singapore and Bangalore. CEO currently in town scouting for talent. Looking for full time/consulting folks.

Analyst Programmer

- 1 to 2 years of working experience
- Good Knowledge of Web2.0, HTML and CSS
- Experience with Ruby on Rails, MySQL Database and familiar with Linux operating system
- Must be able to work to meet project deadline
- Team player with good inter-personal skills and self-motivated

Web Designer

- Familiar with Web2.0 design
- Ability to produce good artwork in digital format (Photoshop, Illustrator etc.)
- Good knowledge of HTML and CSS
- 1 to 2 years of working experience
- Must be able to work to meet project deadline
- Team player with good inter-personal skills and self-motivated

Posted in UX jobs in Bangalore, Bangalore | No Comments »

Dcamp 2.0 trip report (coming soon)

August 10, 2008 – 9:21 pm

Posted in UX Events, Usability in Bangalore, Bangalore | 1 Comment »

dCamp Bangalore 2.0

June 30, 2008 – 5:48 am

dCamp Bangalore 2.0 , an unconference focused on design, development and user experience, is open to everyone interested in the topic: designers, usability practitioners, developers, marketers, entrepreneurs, and others.

Date : 26 July 2008, Saturday, 10.00 am onwardsLocation : Aditi Technologies224/16, Ramana Maharishi Road, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore – 80(O) +91.80.23613344

Directions :With Windsor Manor on your right, continue straight under the bridge towards Cauvery Theatre on Bellary Road (also called Ramana Maharishi Road). Proceed from Cauvery Theatre junction towards Mekhri circle, on the left is the Aditi facility. Participants/volunteers/planners can now sign up at the dCamp Bangalore 2.0 wikiParticipate in the DCamp Design Competition. Fame and fortune, just a design away! Also see dCamp Bangalore 1.0 wiki & dCamp banglaore 1.0 Photos/Blogs

dCamp Bangalore 1.0 Poster

Posted in UX Events, Bangalore | 1 Comment »

Usability Professionals Association - Bangalore Chapter