hFIDO Blog

“A few years back, we decided to try something new. A potential client approached us and rather than preparing another project proposal, we offered the client what we now call a ‘Project Evaluation’. We charged them a fixed price for which we promised to evaluate the project, in all of our areas of expertise, and give them our recommendations.

That project became a game changer for us, starting an on-going relationship that opened doors into a new market. It was the process of the evaluation itself that brought the new market potential to our attention, and gave us the opportunity to develop this business model. It was a definite win, and one that a project proposal couldn’t have delivered.”

Read the full article on Smashing Magazine.

Seminar on Capturing Test Data – Tue., 1/31, 1-2 pm @ online Mad*Pow event
Our very own Dan Berlin is hosting a webinar covering “Best Practices for Consistent Capture of Usability Test Data” on Tuesday, January 31 from 1-2 pm. This seminar is for experience designers seeking to improve their data collection methods and foster straightforward data solicitation, moderation techniques, and capture of usability test data. Best practices will be shared for capturing usability test data in consistent and comparable ways to ensure that your collected data leads to actionable insights.

An Experience Research Director at Mad*Pow, Dan received his BA in Psychology from Brandeis University, spent seven years supporting hard-to-use interfaces at a cable technology firm, jumped into the world of usability through the MBA and MS in Human Factors in Information Design program at Bentley University, and then spent his first two years in the field at a digital marketing agency building a usability research practice and investigating neuromarketing techniques.

View presentation!
UPA Boston, February Meeting – Wed., 2/1, 6-9 pm @ One to One in Charlestown
A multidisciplinary panel from digital marketing agency One to One, “Mobile Mantras: An Experience Design Roundtable” discusses current experience design best practices for mobile development.

Panel Participants:

• Brian Assmus, Flash Developer
• Frank Dellario, Senior Mobile Producer – Mobile Technology
• Matt DiGirolamo, User Research Consultant
• Rob Fitzgibbon, Associate Director, Experience Design
• Hannah Liberty, Senior Information Architect
• Michelle McNulty, Lead User Experience Consultant
• Ryan Travis, Web Developer

6:00 – 7:00 pm Refreshments & Networking
7:00 – 7:30 pm Announcements
7:30 – 9:00 pm Presentation and Q&A

RSVP here.
Networking, Knowledge Sharing, and UX Methods – Wed., 2/8, 5-8 pm @ MathWorks in Natick
The MathWorks Usability Group invites you to spend the evening with a lively group of UX pros for knowledge sharing and networking. We’ll have short talks and displays to share research, design methods, and practices. You’ll have the opportunity to meet MathWorks UX team members as well as other regional UX professionals. We’ll also have lots of delicious food available, so come hungry!

RSVP by Wed., 2/1.

1. People make up their minds about you in the first 30 seconds of meeting you. Here’s the kicker: it’s an unconscious decision. They’ve already decided how they feel about you, but they just don’t know it yet.
2. Most people get nervous delivering speeches. Even thinking about delivering speeches makes people sweat. Unfortunately, they unconsciously communicate that nervousness to the audience, and the audience reads it as an attack, again unconsciously.
3. Once an audience believes it’s under attack, it stops listening and prepares (unconsciously) for flight.
4. Most presentations fail because the speaker presents information to the audience in a way that unintentionally ensures it will be instantly forgotten. Here is the surprising alternative: by changing a few sentences at the beginning of your talk, you can increase audience retention by four or five-fold.
5. To increase your charisma, focus on a single emotion that you feel about your content or the person you’re meeting, for three minutes before the beginning of your meeting, speech, or presentation.
6. BONUS! People believe non-verbal communication over verbal communication every time.

Learn more communication theory from Dr. Nick Morgan via his blog and videos.

“The 2011 Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) International Conference took place from June 21 through June 24, 2011. The conference lived up to its theme, “Designing for Social Change”, and heralded the 20th anniversary of the UPA Conference. Approximately 600 experienced and novice usability, user experience, and user interface design professionals gathered at the Hyatt Regency, in Atlanta, GA. This was my first UPA Conference, and I was fortunate to be an on-site volunteer. My expectations for this conference mirrored my experience of the many other conferences I’ve attended in the past, but this conference wildly exceeded my expectations. There were ample networking opportunities, education in usability, interaction with experienced professionals, and a glimpse of the disciplines’ future.”

UPA 2012 will be in Las Vegas, from June 5th to 8th – read the full article on UXmatters.