UX Camp RVA – Oct 26
Posted: September 9, 2019 Filed under: conferences, events, panel discussion, presentations, training | Tags: content strategy, design, design thinking, front-end development, IXD, Product Design, Product Strategy, UX 1 Comment
SAVE THE DATE + CALL FOR SPEAKERS!
Richmond UX and Ladies who UX are combining forces to bring you a new event.
What is it?
This is an event where local designers come together and share their experiences to help each other become better together. The goal is to have designers of different experience levels come together and teach and learn from each other in 6 open sessions throughout the morning.
Who can attend?
Any of the talented designers in Richmond who have a concept for a talk, workshop, panel discussion or any other type of session that can help other designers get better. Come share your experiences with the community! Anyone who wants to learn more about UX, Design Thinking, IXD, Product or Design Strategy, Content Strategy, Front-End Development should attend.
When and where is it?
This is a half day crowdsourced event at VCU Brandcenter on Saturday, October 26th from 9AM-12PM.
The cost is $20
Proceeds will benefit a local charity.
Design Disruptors | RVA Screening
Posted: September 2, 2016 Filed under: events, presentations Comments Off on Design Disruptors | RVA Screening
When: Wednesday, September 7, 2016 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM (EDT)Where: Grace Street Theater – 934 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23220 – View Map
Richmond Design Community: the wait is OVER! Design Disruptors is coming to the Grace Street Theater Wednesday, September 7th! RichmondUX is thrilled to partner with AIGA Richmond, AMA-Richmond, CreativeMornings RVA, Ladies that UX Richmond, Richmond Product Management Meetup, RVA Content Strategy, and UXPA RVA to bring you this powerful new documentary!
Produced by InVision, a leading design collaboration platform, the film showcases conversations with dozens of top product designers and design leaders from today’s most innovative and influential companies— Airbnb, Coursera, Dropbox, Etsy, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Google Ventures, HubSpot, MailChimp, Netflix, Pinterest, Salesforce, Spotify, Twitter, Xero, Zendesk, and more.
Now more than ever, design is setting the pace for the future of business. Technology, architecture, interfaces, and physical products are evolving faster than consumers can keep up while designers are breaking the expectations of decades-old industries. Design Disruptors reveals a never-before-seen perspective on the approaches these companies use and how they are overtaking billion dollar industries through design.
Tickets
- Free for students (with valid ID)
- $10 for members of participating design organizations, including RichmondUX
- $15 general admission.
Note: All proceeds after expenses will go to Art180 and Art for the Journey, Richmond-based non-profits that run art-related programs for people living in challenging circumstances, encouraging personal and community change through self-expression.
Agenda
5:30 – Doors open, network/catch up with your RVA design community peers
5:50 – Welcome + Introductions
6:00 – Screening of Design Disruptors begins
7:30 – Continue dialogue at location TBA
About the Film
The documentary team interviewed more than 90 design leaders at the world’s most influential digital companies of our time to discover the true nature of the design-driven business revolution happening around the world. Set as a series of snapshots the film follows renowned designers behind the scenes to demystify how the design choices they’ve made directly impact our daily lives. Design Disruptors talks to leaders like Julie Zhuo, VP of Product Design at Facebook; Alex Castellarnau, Head of Design at Dropbox; and John Maeda, Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins about how design solutions have formed booming, billion-dollar companies and how we can keep up the momentum.
RUX August – Can I See Your Portfolio?
Posted: August 9, 2016 Filed under: events, meetings, presentations, training Comments Off on RUX August – Can I See Your Portfolio?
When: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM (EDT) Where: The Depot at VCU – 814 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23220 – View Map
When thinking about hiring you for a web design or development job, Most managers don’t care where you went to school, what your GPA was, or even what “skills” you say you have. They don’t even really care that much about where you have been working the past few years. What they care about is seeing your portfolio. Whether it’s a resume sent by HR, an email from a friend, or a business card handed to them at a conference, they immediately look for that URL which will show your body of work.
Your portfolio is the key to any user experience job. If you don’t have one, then you need not bother to apply. You can have all of the fancy schooling available; you can know the entire Adobe Creative Cloud product line like your own family; you may have have even worked at Ogilvy while moonlighting at Frog, but if you do not show your design thinking process, you might as well go into chartered accountancy.
Jason has been hiring UX professionals for over twenty years, and will share some of the insights he has gained about what works (and does not work) when presenting your portfolio, whether it’s to a prospective employer, client, or other designers.
What attendees will learn
- Who is the audience for your portfolio
- What every portfolio has to have
- How to present your portfolio effectively
Agenda
- 5:30-6:00 – Networking
- 6:00-6:45 – Featured Presentation
- 6:45-7:00 – Q&A
- 7:00-7:30 – Discussion / Networking
About Our Speaker, Jason Cranford Teague
Jason designed the first web based magazine, Computer Mediated Communications, in 1994 and has been at the forefront of digital innovation ever since. He wrote the first book for designers on Cascading Style Sheets in 1996. He was the lead designer on WebMD when it launched in 1998. He built the first online interactive comic book reader in 2006. He wrote the first book on modern web typography in 2009.
Jason is the co-founder and lead creative at The CranfordTeague Group, which specializes in digital communication strategies. He is also working on Invisible Jets, a start-up company that wants to revolutionize how we trust each other online.
Jason is finishing work on a new book, The NEW Web Typography, with Stephen Boss (Spring ’16) and has written several other books and dozens of articles for print and online publications over the last 20 years. He’s lived in London (off and on), Charlotte, Atlanta, Durham, and DC (not necessarily in that order) with his 3 cats, 2 kids, but just the one wife.
Twitter: @JasonCT
Company: @CranfordTeague
Blog: www.medium.com/jasonspeaking-report
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpj0RrS4y8FLwY8ntwswn9KqzoE7rk7kz
RUX July – UI Software Design Cage Match
Posted: July 25, 2016 Filed under: presentations, tools & methods Comments Off on RUX July – UI Software Design Cage Match
When: Wednesday, July 27, 2016 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM (EDT) Where: CapTech Consulting – 7100 Forest Avenue, Richmond, VA 23226 – View Map
This year has been a watershed one for UI design tools: Adobe finally launched X D, their direct competitor to Sketch, Sketch itself has not stopped evolving and is about to switch to a subscription model, and the venerable Photoshop remains a default install for many a UI and visual designer.
Though UI design is only one aspect of UX, it is the part of the process that defines the look and feel, as well as creating the assets for development. In that respect, choosing the best tool can have a big impact on both the quality of the designer’s work as well as their efficiency.
So, has the rise of Sketch and the advent of X D changed the playing field? Join us July 27th at CapTech as UI designer Rob Musser presents his analysis of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, X D, and Sketch.
Get ready to RUMBLE!!!
UX & Product Management: Two (well, three) Upcoming Events
Posted: December 16, 2015 Filed under: conferences, events, presentations | Tags: agile, product management, user experience, UX Comments Off on UX & Product Management: Two (well, three) Upcoming EventsIt’s almost as if we planned it.
Back in November, we began discussing our programming slate for the first half of 2016. In addition to hosting World IA Day on February 20th and chairing the UX track of InnovateVA on March 25th, we discussed having an event on product teams in January (Building Balanced Core Teams, January 20th at Snagajob).
Then earlier this month, Rosenfeld Media announced that they would be producing an event on Product Management and UX called, well, Product Management + User Experience. Given the success of our two previous virtual conference events, we figured: yeah…why not. So, in addition to our Core Team event on January 20th, we will hosting Rosenfeld Media’s PM+UX two weeks later to the day, on February 3rd at Gather.
As if that weren’t enough for you: friend of RUX and RVA Jeff Gothelf will be returning to Richmond on February 9th for an all-day workshop on Lean UX in the Enterprise. We’re not producing Jeff’s event, but we’re happy to help promote it!
So, that’s the news. Tickets to Building Balanced Core Teams are on sale now, with Early Bird pricing through January 10th; tickets for the virtual conference on PM+UX are also on sale now for $25. Follow the links to Eventbrite pages with detail on content, timing, and locations.
Hope to see you at two or three of these!
RUX September – The 3 Es of a Scalable Content Strategy
Posted: September 16, 2015 Filed under: events, meetings, presentations | Tags: content strategy, UX Comments Off on RUX September – The 3 Es of a Scalable Content Strategy
On September 24th, RichmondUX is excited to welcome Colleen Jones, author of Clout: The Art & Science of Influential Web Content, to Richmond! The venue is the Capital Ale House at Innsbrook, and will be a bit more social and casual in nature. Come ready to meet folks and network, before and after Colleen’s presentation!
Abstract
Today, business is digital. That makes content critical. A new report from IBM finds CMOs now plan to spend more on content than on advertising (Marketing is a (Buyer) Journey, Not a Destination). Content also is the substance of the user experience for digital products and channels.
So, you might have enjoyed some success with implementing a content strategy for a single product, channel, or marketing campaign. Now, imagine repeating that success. How do you make your content strategy scale across products, brands, channels, markets and more?
It’s a question that often brings up many, many, MANY more questions for midsize and enterprise organizations. This session will help you answer them with 3 useful principles to scale your content strategy.
Agenda
4:30-5:00 – Networking & Announcements
5:00-5:45 – Featured Speaker
5:45-6:00 – Q&A
6:00-6:30 – Socialize/Network/Exchange Social Media Profiles
About Colleen
With nearly 20 years of experience, Colleen (@leenjones) has led strategic initiatives for Fortune 50 companies, government agencies, and boutique brands. She regularly consults with executives to improve their strategy and processes for content and has reached thousands more people through the cornerstone content book, Clout. Colleen also cofounded our content evaluation platform, ContentWRX and is the publisher of Content Science Review.
Over the course of her career, Colleen has held leadership roles at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and Cingular Wireless (now AT&T). At Cingular Wireless, she won several executive awards for leading an interdisciplinary team to improve the customer experience across channels including web, IVR, mobile, and point-of-sale applications.
With an M.A. in technical communication from James Madison University, Colleen is an active member of American MENSA, American Marketing Association, International Association of Business Communicators, and the Association of Computing Machinery. She also founded Atlanta Content Strategy and is a past chair of the executive board for the Atlanta chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery SIG on computer-human interaction.
RUX August—The Power of CSS Flexbox
Posted: August 15, 2015 Filed under: events, presentations | Tags: front-end development, interaction design, responsive web design, UX, visual design, web design Comments Off on RUX August—The Power of CSS Flexbox
Note: Eventbrite registration is required for this event.
On August 26th, RichmondUX is excited to host a long overdue presentation on a topic in the intersection between interaction design, UI design, and front-end development. IT Analyst at VCU and long-time RUX member Gaurav Gupta will talk about the Power of CSS Flexbox.
Tickets are $5 through August 21st and $7 thereafter, available via Eventbrite. (Tickets will be $10 at the door.)
Abstract
Web developers have been trying to solve layout issues since the dawn of web. We started with tables, then floats and grids—each technique had its limitations. Thanks to Flexbox, it’s all about to change.
Flexbox is one of the most promising yet underutilized additions to the CSS3 specification. Using this layout model you can arrange elements in any direction, align them, distribute the space, assign sizes, stretch or shrink them to fit in parent element, wrap or rearrange them—all with far less CSS compared to grids.
Flexbox truly shines when used in responsive design. Changing the visual order, alignment, assigning proportional sizes of your boxes becomes a breeze. During this presentation, you will learn the basics of Flexbox specification and explore some of its practical uses.
Date: Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM
Location: Gather RVA, 409 E Main Street, Richmond
Schedule
- 4:30-5:00pm – Networking
- 5:00-5:45 – Featured Speaker
- 5:45-6:00 – Q&A
- 6:00-6:30 – Socialize/Networking
Who should attend? Interaction and UI designers, front-end developers, UX practitioners. Create web based products or services? This session is for you. Get your ticket today. Get your ticket today.
About Gaurav
Gaurav Gupta is an IT Analyst in the Office of the Vice Provost for Learning Innovation and Student Success at Virginia Commonwealth University. In his current position Gaurav wears multiple hats. As a web designer and developer, he builds websites and web applications with an eye towards simplicity and usability. In his administrator role, he has led the implementation of University’s online course evaluation system and manages its day-to-day operations. As a tech expert, he gets to play with the latest instructional technology.
RUX June—Designers & Content Creators: Make Love, Not War
Posted: May 30, 2015 Filed under: events, presentations | Tags: content strategy, design, UX, visual design Comments Off on RUX June—Designers & Content Creators: Make Love, Not War
Note: Eventbrite registration is required for this event.
On June 17th, RichmondUX and RVA Content Strategy are proud to welcome Christine Cawthorne and Jon Kohrs to Richmond to reprise their SXSW 2015 talk about resolving the conflicts that often affect the relationships between content creators and designers.
Tickets are $7 through June 2nd and $10 thereafter, available via Eventbrite. (Tickets will be $15 at the door.)
Abstract
The tension between designers and copywriters is at all-time high. Both designers of information, they need to get off their high horses, put their egos to one side and talk to each other. Users come to websites to get information, not to look at design, so content needs to be high up in the priority of a web build. Writers and designers both want to control the show, but if they start with UX in mind, the end result is much better for users.
This ‘marriage therapy’ session, based on cognitive behavioral techniques, will showcase how you can resolve the conflicts you’ve experienced – whether you are a Mr. Content or a Mrs. Designer. We’ll interactively assess the problems we face and work to resolve the arguments. We’ll find a way to build digital experiences together that are right for the user and – ultimately – the marriage too.
Date: Wednesday, June 17th, 2015 from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Location: The Depot (VCU), 814 W Broad Street, Richmond
Schedule
- 4:00-4:30pm – Networking
- 4:30-5:15 – Featured Speakers
- 5:15-5:30 – Q&A
- 5:30-6:00 – Socialize/Networking
Who should attend? Anybody who researches, manages, designs, or builds user experiences and anybody who plans, creates, and edits content for these experiences. Whether you are a member of Team Content or Team Design, please join us for this lively debate conversation. Get your ticket today. Get your ticket today.
About Christine
Christine is an online copywriter with a background in journalism at the BBC. Having worked as a homepage editor for Yahoo, AOL and BT, she has translated this experience into writing content and managing social media accounts for brands including Pizza Hut, Paul Smith, Nokia, Boots and many smaller companies. Christine is currently working on the GOV.UK project, training people in government departments and agencies about user needs and how to write for the web. She combines her passion for stories with a keen interest in how people actually use and consume content on the web. Christine also teaches students at the University of Sheffield and the University of Derby, helping educate the storytellers of tomorrow.
About Jon
Jon is the UX director at a national government agency and owner of Fresh Eggs, a UX consultancy in Kansas City. On the side, Jon and his wife raise two kids and are pursuing raising a social startup, Stand Up For Good. Jon grew up on a small farm in rural Kansas and built his first website at age 10 using Paintbrush and Notepad. Since graduating from Kansas State University, he has been responsible for a broad range of UIs over the last decade, leading teams and strategy to deliver better experiences inside the government and for nonprofit activities. He is passionate about connecting the dots and finding unique patterns to solve problems, especially those that bring about meaningful social change. He uses analogies in nearly everything he does and blogs about them at http://justinthemiddle.com.
Sponsors
RUX May: People Skills for UX
Posted: May 1, 2015 Filed under: conferences, events, presentations | Tags: methodology, UX Comments Off on RUX May: People Skills for UX
Note: Eventbrite registration is required for this event.
Back in November, we hosted a local, sold-out viewing of the UX Futures virtual conference, presented by Rosenfeld Media. Those who attended thought watching the online sessions together—and networking before, during and after—featured all the benefits of a larger, one-day conference, minus the hassle of travel. We asked if you’d like to participate in an event like that again, and the response was a resounding “yes!” Rosenfeld Media has announced their next virtual conference, and we are excited to bring you, People Skills for UX. See below for more details, from Rosenfeld Media.
Tickets are $25, available via Eventbrite.
People Skills for UX
The skills no one told you you needed.
Many of us feel comfortable managing the nuts and bolts of research and design. What stumps us are people—delightfully difficult, unpredictable, and irrational. How do we get better at understanding, collaborating with, and motivating the people who are integral to our efforts to make experiences better?
In People Skills for UX, our one-day virtual conference, we’ll explore four critical soft skills themes: listening, facilitation, negotiation, and leadership. We’ll do it with a unique outside-in twist: pairing presentations by experts from outside the design world with responses from UX experts who are deeply in it. If you’re interested in the people skills that are behind great user experience design, please join us.
AGENDA
10-11:30am: Negotiation
Conflict is a natural part of life in general and UX work in particular—whether you’re at an agency or in-house, whether you’re the design director or you just joined the team. When competing for projects, collaborating with developers, or bargaining for better salaries. Negotiation is how we align our conflicting interests. How can we negotiate the best deals & mash the ones where both parties come out as “winners”?
- 10-10:45am: Michelle Katz, formerly VP of Business and Legal Affairs, Universal Studios New Media
- 10:45-11:15am: Harry Max, VP Product, AllClear ID
- 11:15-11:30am: Discussion
11:30-11:45am: Break
11:45am-1:15pm: Facilitation
Statistics suggest that 37% of our time is spent in meetings—and it isn’t exactly spent productively, much less enjoyably. Effective facilitation changes the equation by making groups work—functionally and culturally—by squaring individuals’ needs with organizational dynamics and goals. What does it take to facilitate in ways that transform our meetings—and our organizations?
- 11:45am-12:30pm: David Sibbet, President and Founder, The Grove Consultants International
- 12:30-1:00: Kevin M. Hoffman, author of Meeting Design (forthcoming)
- 1:00-1:15 Discussion
1:15-2:15 pm: Lunch break
2:15-3:45 pm: Listening
Listening is one of the most critically important—and misunderstood—human skills. As a matter of course, we listen—but few us know how to really listen. We regularly miss out on opportunities to challenge our own assumptions about the people around us and to learn what makes them tick. How can we listen more effectively to our colleagues and customers, better understand their motivations and environments, and align our work with their goals?
- 2:15-3:00pm: Julian Treasure, author of Sound Business and TED speaker
- 3:-3:30pm: Steve Portigal, author of Interviewing Users
3:30-3:45pm: Discussion
3:30-3:45pm: Break
4:00-5:30 pm: Leadership
Leadership is in flux. Organizations, their business models and their cultures are changing dramatically, and traditional command/control models are increasingly irrelevant. Leaders must rely on new approaches: modeling productive behaviors, working alongside their teams, inspiring possible futures, encouraging independence, and even celebrating mistakes.
- 4-4:45pm: Jennifer Pahlka, Founder and Executive Director, Code for America
- 4:45-5:15pm: Kim Goodwin, author of Designing for the Digital Age and VP of UX, PatientsLikeMe
5:15-5:30pm: Discussion
After the last session we will be raffling off some terrific UX-related prizes, including the Grand Prize: the entire Rosenfeld UX library in digital format to one lucky winner!
Your cost to join us at Gather is just $25. On your own, this event would cost $179—with no discussions, door prizes, or networking. To attend an event of this caliber outside Richmond would be an even greater investment of time and money. Seating is limited…get your ticket today!
Thank you to our sponsors:
RUX April: Content First Design w/Stephanie Hay
Posted: March 31, 2015 Filed under: events, presentations | Tags: content strategy, design, methodology, UX Comments Off on RUX April: Content First Design w/Stephanie Hay
On April 29, RichmondUX—along with RVA Content Strategy—is proud to welcome Stephanie Hay, Instructor of “Writing for Web and Mobile: a Lean Approach,” to Richmond to talk about Content-First Design. Registration is free but required, and closes at 4 PM on April 28. Reserve your seat via Eventbrite.
We spend a lot of time trying to solve communication problems through design. We design first, write later, and end up iterating endlessly, only to start the process over again — design first, words last. What would happen if we wrote the words first—agnostic of technology or channel—and then designed an experience to bring those words to life? That’s what Steph Hay and her content strategy team are doing at Capital One. She’ll show us content-first techniques—like content prototypes, language boards, and conversation maps—that result in faster learning, fewer iterations, a more cohesive voice and tone, and higher engagement.
Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM (EST) Location: Capital One Town Center, 15075 Capital One Drive, Room C1, Richmond Schedule
- 5:00-5:30pm – Networking
- 5:30-6:15 – Steph’s presentation
- 6:15-6:30 – Q&A
- 6:30-7:00 – Socialize/Networking
How do I get tickets? This event is free to attend, but we have limited seating available. RSVPs on our Meetup site will not guarantee you a seat. Please register using Eventbrite to save your place. Who should attend? Anybody who researches, manages, designs, or builds user experiences, especially if you think about creating interaction architecture or writing for digital. OK, so who is Steph? Steph Hay is a pioneer of content-first design and Lean Content testing, two low-risk methods for proving traction before building a product. She leads Capital One’s Content Strategy team, which designs experiences “to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time,” and she also runs their weekly design shares (across 11 locations and 150 design team members). Steph’s a two-time startup founder, former consultant (working with Ben & Jerry’s and Coldwell Banker), international speaker, and mentor (500 Startups, The Lean Startup Conference, and CV Labs). Ask her anytime about Ohio, CrossFit, or ramen noodles—three things she loves. Thank you to our sponsor!: Capital One 
Richmond UX 