Damn, I look good!
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 24, 2008, at 12:00 PM, "Los Angeles IxDA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
This past Wednesday, IxDA Los Angeles partnered with local design shop
Almer/Blank (http://www.almerblank.com) to host a fun Halloween
party! We
invited guests to come dressed as their favorite website,
application or
device and we were impressed with some really great costumes. Some
were
simple and fun like the person who dressed as Apple. Other costumes
included
an iPod shuffle, a Wii, a "wicked user" and an interactive BBC home
page
with arrange-able Velcro modules! First prize went to a woman cleverly
dressed as "Pirated software". The link to photos is included below.
We also had fun with a Halloween-themed persona creation contest. As
we all
know, good personas can be powerful tools to help us design better
user
experiences. Sadly, we don't often get time or budget to perform the
user
research to create them. To address this reality, our exercise was
all about
creating *provisional* personas based on observation and empathy,
but no
user interviews. Even provisional personas can help give everyone on a
project a clear idea of who the user is so that collaborative
conversations
can focus on what's right for the persona.
The contest was structured like so:
You work for Target.com. Marketing has found a growing trend in online
shoppers from the Zombie community. Since Zombies can't talk (and
they'll
eat your brains if you get too close!) no interviews were possible,
but we
wanted to explore how the exercise of creating a persona can help
interaction designers get inside your users heads and ultimately
create
solutions that will satisfy their goals.
Each team had 30 minutes to brainstorm as a group to develop a
provisional
persona for a Zombie that took into account any special considerations
Zombies may need. After the session, the group's leader had to
present the
new persona. Obviously this was a bit of fun, but the exercise
helped remind
us all about how useful it can be to try to at least form a shared
idea of
who the user is and try to understand their needs and goals.
The winning team captain and the costume contest winner both won a
copy of
About Face, by Alan Cooper. Check out our photos from the event:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Angel.J.Anderson/IxDALAOctober2008#<http://picasaweb.google.com/Angel.J.Anderson/IxDALAOctober2008
>
IxDA Los Angeles would like to thank our gracious hosts at Almer/
Blank for
the fantastic spread of food and wine and for going the extra mile
with fun
Halloween lights and décor!
Stay tuned for and announcement about the next IxDA Los Angeles in
December!
Kind regards,
Angel Anderson
IxDA Los Angeles
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