World Usability Day happened on November 12, 2009 and a small squad of Vancouver user experience professionals got together at 8:00 a.m. at the Pine Street Community Garden to spend the day together, wondering how to best bring our professional expertise to bear on the issue of "sustainability"—the theme for WUD2009.
Cat, Ben, and Barb from Habanero, Chris from Optimal Interfaces, Gagan from DesignStamp, Theresa from Key Pointe, freelancer Katja, and myself (Gord from OpenRoad) met up with Eric from the Pine Street Community Garden and started our 12 hour user experience "design slam" with in-person interviews and observational research. We then moved onto the Network Hub for the afternoon, who graciously provided the space for free, where we marched through the ideation process.
Stickies were heavily used. Coffee was consumed. At at the end of the day we came up with a few design interventions that we thought might be able to help the garden.
Our presentation back to the Vancouver User Experience community happened on November 17 where we talked about the process, our findings, and encouraged other community members to participate in future design slams.
Vancouver User Experience Group: World Usability Day 2009 from Gordon Ross on Vimeo.
Thanks again to all participants, the Network Hub, and the Pine Street Community Garden for working with us.