Author: Michigan UXPA

Thursday, October 1, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Gale Cengage, Farmington Hills

As mobile web usage grows exponentially, UX professionals are challenged with designing an experience that works across varied devices and operating systems while supporting a user on the move. Anthony Viviano, Senior Experience Architect at Organic Detroit, would like to share his experience in architecting mobile sites for Chrysler’s international audience. He’ll discuss best practices, talk about the unique needs of a mobile user and review his research and conclusions.

When

Thursday, October 1, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Where

Gale Cengage
27500 Drake Road
Farmington Hills, MI 48331

Map

Cost

$5 for Full-time Students (ID must be presented)

$10 for MIUPA and MOCHI members

$20 All others

RSVP

Please RSVP at Upcoming.org to ensure entrance to this event. You can also send an RSVP to events@miupa.org

Schedule

6:00 PM Registration, networking, and pizza

6:45 PM Announcements

7:00 PM Program

September 16, 2009, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

ePrize, Pleasant Ridge, Michigan

Michigan UPA is pleased to announce this joint event with the Detroit Java User Group

Josh Holmes is a User Experience Architect Evangelist for Microsoft.

He recently delivered a keynote at the Central Ohio Day of .NET and a session at Kalamazoo X called “The Lost Art of Simplicity.”

This talk transcends technology  and presents ideas that all software developers and architects should be thinking about.  Josh will give this talk to the Detroit JUG this September.

Josh Holmes is a UX Architect Evangelist with Microsoft focused on building and educating the dev partners with a UX or Rich Internet Application offering in Central Region. Prior to joining Microsoft in October 2006, Josh was a consultant working with a variety of clients ranging from large Fortune 500 firms to smaller sized companies. Josh is a frequent speaker and lead panelist at national and international software development conferences focusing on emerging technologies, software design and development with an emphasis on mobility and RIA (Rich Internet Applications).

Tuesday August 18, 2009, 6-8:30PM (Food and networking at 6, Program at 7)

Southfield Public Library in Southfield, MI

Nick DeNardis, associate director of web communications at Wayne State University will discuss his approach for reviewing and creating usable web sites.

• A lot of people are involved with planning and constructing a single web site. How can you break through the administrative barrier and focus on your users?
• Become an authority as a web professional and fend off requests that don’t meet your users goals.
• Create a plan for testing and modifying the web site based on your users needs and how they actually use your site.
• I will focus on higher education where a lot of sites offer the same “product”. Identify strategies to stand out and care about your users.
• View your site from an outsiders perspective, does it pass the “ten second test”? Can you find the information you need?
• And last but not least, did you take enough time to care about users with special needs?

Nick is the Associate Director of Web Communications at Wayne State University. As host of the video blog, EDU Checkup, he reviews higher education websites from the point of view of a first time visitor, while critiquing the design, information architecture and code of the sites.

He is a staff writer at .eduGuru, a higher education marketing and web development blog. He takes an active role in the higher education web community by sharing his thoughts and real world analysis in the Wayne State Web Communications Blog.

Nick is also an officer for Refresh Detroit, a group of web professionals whose goal is to promote web standards, usability, and accessibility and to spread the knowledge of web design in the Detroit and Ann Arbor Michigan areas.

Location

Southfield Public Library, “The Meeting Room”

26300 Evergreen Rd
Southfield, MI 48076 (map)
Website

Elections are complete and the 2009-2010 officers of the Michigan UPA are

• President: John Rivard
• Vice-president: Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus
• Secretary: Jackie Park-Cross
• Treasurer: Mike Beasley
• Events: Deborah Edwards-Onoro

We also have interest and commitments from several enthusiastic volunteers, and they will be announced soon.

Thank you for your interest and participation in the Michigan UPA and we look forward to another year of excellent events covering the state of Michigan.