UX Intensive San Francisco 2008

Tonight’s happy hour is at the Sheba Piano Lounge. Meet up in the lobby at 5:20 and we’ll head over en masse. Sheba Lounge is located in the heart of the historic Fillmore Jazz District, just down the street from last night’s venue.

Sheba Piano Lounge
1419 Fillmore Street (btwn Byington St & Ellis St)

References from Design Strategy

Dan Harrelson — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:51:49 +0000

Thanks everyone for your participation in yesterday’s workshop. I appreciate the smart questions, and the interesting ideas you shared about design strategy. Also, I love all the feedback–keep it coming! Here’s a PDF file of the slides from the workshop; and here’s a list of many of the references and ideas that were brought up in the workshop and during discussions:

A blog post detailing one of my examples of experience strategy, the Target ClearRX drug delivery system. There’s several links within to articles and the backstory behind the pill bottle redesign.
I made frequent reference to Michael Porter and his seminal essay, “What is Strategy?” Unfortunately it’s $6.50 from Harvard Business Review, but it’s also a great read. Also a good read is a recent interview Michael Porter did with the Wharton School of Business explaining why “being the best” isn’t a strategy (requires sign-up).
I got a question about how to facilitate a meeting and keep them on track. One reference I made was to the KJ-Technique, a group decision-making technique that Jared Spool has written a nice article on.
I shared the User Experience Value Chain that was a part of Adaptive Path’s Leveraging Business Value report. The report includes one of my favorite tools that we didn’t cover during the workshop: it’s called linking elephants, and it’s a great tool for establishing ROI for UX.
And if you want to use numbers to help you make your case for design and UX, Henning Fischer’s essay on Business Case Modeling for Design Initiatives is a great how-to, plus you can download his spreadsheet that shows all his math.
The value curve example comes from Blue Ocean Strategy, but the authors prior article in HBR is cheaper and a faster read, if you’re looking for short cuts. Another example of a value curve is Scott Weisbrod’s example of the value curve for the Wii.
I talked about the value of creating tangible expressions of he strategy to define what the strategy is or could be. One of my favorite examples of prototyping and testing new experience-based strategies comes from Kevin Cheng’s presentation on Communicating Concepts through Comics.
And here’s the Charmr video that I shared, a great example of creating a clear vision of what an experience could be. Here’s more on the Charmr project.

-Brandon

Day 2 Slides are Up

Dan Harrelson — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:51:21 +0000

You’ll find Todd’s slide deck for Design Research here

Tonight: The Boom Boom Room

pam — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:42:51 +0000

Wind down from Design Research day at the Boom Boom Room, located in the heart of San Francisco’s old Fillmore district. The BBR is a sultry, down-home juke joint — the perfect atmosphere for honing your research skills — on the bartender.

The BBR is located on the corner of Fillmore and Geary Streets. Meet in the lobby at 5:20 to walk over as a group.

Slides Posted for Day 1

Dan Harrelson — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:04:32 +0000

You’ll find Brandon’s slide deck for Design Strategy here

Come to Hotel Tomo! Yo.

pam — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:44:52 +0000

Tonight’s reception at Hotel Tomo is open to the UX community and brought to you in part by Google. Feel free to invite your pals and colleagues. Stop by the registration desk to put their name on the guest list.

We hope to see you for cocktails, snacks and games.

Big thanks to our pals at Google for helping make our opening night reception possible. stop by their table to learn about current opportunities at Google.

Meet up in the lobby at 5:30 to walk over as a group. Or head over to 1800 Sutter Street when you’re ready. Exit the hotel, take a left on Post Street a few steps to Buchanan, cross Post and walk through the mall (which is Buchanan, technically) and the Hotel Tomo is on the corner of Sutter and Buchanan.

Stop by the registration desk if you have any questions.

Evening Events Schedule

Dan Harrelson — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:09:59 +0000

Please join us for any and/or all of next week’s evening events. Each day, from 5:30-7:00pm, we’ll be gathering for fun times and beverages at the spots listed below.

Tuesday - Opening night reception at Hotel Tomo in the Domes
1800 Sutter Street

Wednesday - Boom Boom Room
1601 Fillmore

Thursday - Sheba Lounge (Ethiopian Piano Bar)
1419 Fillmore

Friday - Closing night reception at O Izakaya Lounge in the Hotel Kabuki
1625 Post Street