• When: 12-1.30pm, Tuesday 3 June 2008
• Where: Ground-floor conference room, Statistics House, The Boulevard, Harbour Quays. Further details below.

• RSVP by Friday May 30 to upanz.wellington@upa.org.nz

Emotion and Design

Edgar Rodriguez, Victoria University

Edgar Rodriguez is an industrial designer, lecturer, and PhD candidate at the School of Design at Victoria University in Wellington.

“The emotion that products elicit is an increasingly important area of research for Design. While designers had long relied on intuition to attempt to understand users’ affective experiences, new methodologies allow us to address them more specifically. A more detailed understanding of emotional reactions can create more appropriate user experiences and allow design managers to make better informed decisions.

This talk will present some methodologies used in Industrial Design to assess users’ emotions. It will present some examples of design projects based on assessment of emotions for companies such as Philips, Samsung, and Studio Santachiara. Finally, the talk will present a framework that suggests a relationship between emotion and behaviour in Design.”

Directions to get to the venue

Access by road is from Aotea Quay at the traffic lights near the stadium. There is also a footpath beside the sheds and construction site on the harbour side of Aotea Quay, and a bridge walkway from the railway station and stadium. Get to the walkway from the north end of several rail platforms, and from the steps opposite East Day Spa on Thorndon Quay.

Parking is pay-and-display. You need to sign in at reception, then head left through the library. Tea, coffee, juice, and snacks will be provided.

Hope to see you there!

Designing Xero

Philip Fierlinger, Xero
Philip Fierlinger is the Lead Interaction Designer for Xero (xero.com), the online accounting software company that listed on the NZX earlier this year. He will describe the interaction design process used to create Xero, sharing his insights into the different design techniques used to build such a complex online application quickly yet effectively. He will also discuss how those techniques are evolving as the company and the software grows.

UPA 2008 Conference Brain Dump

Trent Mankelow, Optimal Usability
The recent UPA conference attracted around 800 of the brightest minds in our field to Austin, Texas for 5 days of workshops, tutorials and conference presentations. Trent was lucky enough to attend and will be giving a rambling download of what he learnt, including the conference highlights and what it was like to present a workshop.

Continue reading ‘UPANZ Wellington | August Meeting’

UPANZ Wellington branch - May usability meeting

Three 20-minute presentations about government websites with a wide range of users. This event will be of interest to all web professionals – from developers and designers, to information architects, content managers  and communicators.

Continue reading ‘User Needs (case studies from big sites)’