Mike Elledge of MSU’s Usability & Accessibility Center joins Tim for a freewheeling, after-dinner discussion about accessibility in product designs. What is it, why should we care, and how do we achieve it? This episode explores the fundamental concepts of accessibility.

You can reach Mike at
ELLEDGE (followed by the at sign) MSU dot EDU

The MSU Usability & Accessibility Center is at
http://usability.msu.edu/

The W3C Web Accessibility initiative is at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Web Accessibility In Mind is at
http://webaim.org/

Section 508 guidelines are at
http://www.section508.gov/

CSUN Conference is at
http://www.csunconference.org/index.cfm?EID=80000144

Accessing Higher Ground Conference is at
http://www.colorado.edu/atconference/

The Blind Webbers listserv is at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/blindwebbers/

The Web Axe podcast on accessibility is at
http://webaxe.blogspot.com/

Tim Keirnan interviews Jim Jacoby of Manifest Digital about “big picture” UX  and our ideal place inside companies. Jim’s presentation  was called “Interaction Designers As The Next Generation of Business Leaders”. Recorded at Internet User Experience 2009 on April 1st, Jim told us the following points:

* Why interaction designers should be the next generation of business leaders inside our companies.

* How traditional “business players” in companies have become commodities.

* Why “the creatives” in companies should step forward and help their companies innovate at the highest levels, not passively remain in the background.

* The danger of being an introvert while “empty megaphones” from other areas may lead your company in non-customer, unauthentic, non-innovative directions.

As a provocatively sincere and friendly revolutionary, Jim tells us about all this and more, including the importance of being “in the moment” with our end users/customers and coworkers.

Manifest Digital is found at
http://manifestdigital.com

Jim’s blog, Everlasting Now, is at
http://www.everlastingnow.com

The “mindful walking” exercise Tim mentioned came from his experience at Peaceful Dragon School in Ann Arbor:
http://www.peacefuldragonschool.com/ConsciousWalking.cfm

At Internet User Experience 2009, Tim Keirnan interviews Dr. Susan Weinschenk about her new book, Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click. How does the human brain process website use, and what can Web design teams do to better design websites for the subconscious as well as conscious mind? Recorded on April 1st, 2009, Dr. Weinschenk provides a brief overview of her book’s themes and answers Tim’s questions from her presentation earlier that day.

Dr. Weinschenk’s website for the book is
www.neurowebbook.com

Make sure you visit the Fun Stuff tab to find her podcast and blog!

Susan works at Human Factors International, which you can find at
www.humanfactors.com

Finally, Deanna wrote to tell listeners about Zero Ink, an innovation for printing full color without the need for ink because the paper contains the colors. There’s a contest ongoing for all you print design professionals at
www.Zink.com

This is the first episode in a series wherein host Tim and listener/volunteer Colin redesign the blog page for the show at www.DesignCritique.net.  Our process for this “case study in the making” is:
1. Colin designs a new look and feel using only his impressions as a long-time listener of the show, with no input from “the client” (Tim). Tim wants to see what Colin would do without any input from “the client”.

2. Colin interviews Tim to ask questions he normally would ask a new client (this here episode, in fact) regarding branding opportunities for and background of Design Critique.

3. Colin iterates his “client-free” design based on what he learns in this interview.

4. Tim, still not having seen Colin’s first two designs, tells Colin his own goals for the new blog page, including both big picture concept and nitpicking details.

5. Colin creates a design based only on Tim’s (the client’s) needs.

6. Tim views all three designs, which will be shared with the listeners.

7. Colin and Tim debate the merits of the three designs and invite listeners to help evaluate their strengths and weaknesses through several UX methods.

8. A final design is iterated and put into production.

You can find Colin’s website at
www.finkle.ca

Tim interviews Sam Ng from New Zealand’s own Optimal Usability about the design and development of Optimal Workshop. This UX design suite combines three applications, including OptimalSort which we talked about in DC42, and we hear how a UX research and design consultancy becomes a product developer. What’s it like to walk the UX talk we tell our clients when they create products? Listen up and find out!

Optimal Workshop is at
www.optimalworkshop.com

Optimal Usability is at
www.optimalusability.com

New Zealand isn’t just about cool accents, great UX practitioners, and beautiful sights, though. No sirree. There’s a whole tradition of innovative and very top-quality music from this small country at the bottom of the world.
Hear ye! We close this episode with a full song from a great New Zealand musician, Phil Judd. His self-published “Novelty Act” album in 2006 is still the best album Tim has heard in a very long time. Phil Judd co-founded Split Enz in the mid-70s with Tim Finn, was the driving force behind later bands The Swingers and Schnell Fenster, and has done terrific soundtracks as well. “Falling Off A Cloud” is one of Phil’s more upbeat numbers, but the amazing “Novelty Act” album is full of classic Judd variety: fun poppy weirdness, hard-rockin’ weirdness, sensitive and tragic ukelele weirdness… just catchy, infectiously complex pop genius.

http://profile.myspace.com/philjuddmrphudd

www.PhilJudd.com

Recorded live at the poster session of Michigan Tech’s first World Usability Day event! Tim Keirnan interviewed the student teams about their posters, the projects behind the posters, and the processes they followed to ensure that project deliverables were useful and usable for end users.

The date was November 13, 2008. The place was Michigan Technological University’s Memorial Union. Listen to this episode with headphones and feel like you’re really there…yep, this episode’s in stereo.

Thanks to the students who talked to Design Critique about their projects. Thanks also to Karla Kitalong and the WUD-U.P. volunteers, Bob & Evie Johnson, Chad Esselink, and the Ford Motor Company.

Finally, here’s the Wikipedia entry on Yogi Berra, whom listener Brian in Colorado mentioned in his email.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra

Brian Matt, founder and CEO of product innovation firm Altitude, Inc., joins Timothy Keirnan for a discussion of how Altitude designed the award-winning Worksite Radio for DeWalt.

You can find Altitude here:

www.altitudeinc.com

DeWalt DW911 Worksite Radio/Charger links include the following:

http://www.idsa.org/catalyst/case_studies/2004/index.aspx

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/06/idea2005/source/152.htm

Recorded October 14th, 2008.

Tim Keirnan interviews Jeff Patton at User Interface 13 in Cambridge, MA, on October 15th, 2008, after Jeff’s full-day seminar “Bringing User-Centered Design Practices Into Agile Development Projects”.

You can find Jeff at
http://agileproductdesign.com

We conclude with email from Jan in Germany, Francisco in Portugal, and Andy from England. You can learn about UXLondon at
http://uxlondon.com

Finally, Jan’s video blog, IA Television, is here:
http://iatelevision.blogspot.com

Thanks to User Interface Engineering for sponsoring this particular episode.

Tim Keirnan interviews Dana Chisnell at User Interface 13 on October 14th, 2008, regarding her presentation “The Quick, the Cheap, and the Insightful: Conducting Usability Tests in the Wild”.

Dana is coauthor of “The Handbook of Usability Testing 2nd Edition” with Jeff Rubin.

Plus we have email from Aydincan in Turkey, from Cecil about shaving and the Twinplex Stropper, and from Jorg on Amazon’s new frustration-free packaging:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200285450

http://www.amazon.com/frustration

Thanks to User Interface Engineering for sponsoring this particular episode.