Breakfast seminar @ Restaurant Mauno, User Experience driven design.

Picture from: http://on.fb.me/1cpsJSZ

I took part in breakfast seminar held by Turku Technology Properties.
It was a feast consisting of multiple type of bread, fruit, eggs. Oh, and BACON for days! Herbal avocado butter, mint and mango smoothies and different kind of cheeses were also supplied. Coffee, apple-, and orange juice were the choice for beverages. And all of this completely free of charge! I'm already liking this. Easy going music sets the mood in the space.



A mix of people fills the room filled with portable, lime colored workstations with an individual movable desks and a little space for your bag underneath the bench. Already liking the design concepts presented.

The first speaker began with the topic:

The Designing of usable and visually proficient Business Intelligence Solutions. 

(Matti Helenius, Adage Oy)

Picture from: http://on.fb.me/1cpsJSZ

He gave several pointers for why and how to design the BI solution. Below I tell some of them.

- Reports inefficient in companies for some of the branches. One BI solution is not enough for whole of the company.
- Compare a cars user interface to one found in space shuttles, complexity. Which one needs hours of training before efficient use
- User should be in center of the design
- Old dashboards with tacky meters are not self explanatory.
- Customer usually wants multiple capabilities on the dash, and it makes things difficult for end user.
- Adage uses mainly bar graphs to illustrate comparable data.
- Define user, and the main actions software is used for.
- Wire frame, and concept design -> iterative process with users
- Visual Design 5-10 from what to choose from.
- Tips for layout, Simplicity! Who uses in center? Tamed use of color 2 main colors + few from same pallet also lighter shades. Layout consistent.
- Guidelines for future use and consistency in navigation and design in general.
- Mobile, what data to show in limited space and how?
- Tablet, use of icons, icons relevant to data.
- Data more and more in lower tier leading and decision making.

User centered design, mobile user interfaces 

Picture from: http://on.fb.me/1cpsJSZ 

(Mikko Kämäräinen, CEO, Infinity)

Mikko talked with ferocious speed but to the point and without wasteful words. A couple of curse words were a welcome Finnish way to give his presentation a little flare and personality. Very entertaining speech with very good graphical presentation infused with clever ideas all around.

- Markets from B2B & B2C -> H2H, Human to Human is the only viable market.
- Why? What? Where? How? Serve the needs of the end user.
- User testing -> GooB (Get out of the Building) Go to your customer and see for yourself.
- Observe -> Design, test (iterate) -> implement (make decisions and iterate)
- Before knowing are you doing the things right, you should figure if you are doing the right things.
- Check -> Think -> Make -> Iterate. Make sure your conclusions are right. Ask your customers humbly.
- Minimal minimal minimal solutions.
- First design mobile then make them adaptable to bigger screens.
- Best interface is no interface at all. All that can be automated, should be.
- Lean -> how to test and create something new efficiently.
- Be as adaptable as possible. Everything should be up to be changed.
- Working prototype -> better than documentation. Prototype is best for testing, design, and time saving.

Contextual considerations for mobile situations - Insights from academic explorations.

(Eyal Eshet)

Picrure from: http://on.fb.me/1cpsJSZ

Israeli talker cracked a joke about Finns not being able to pronounce his name. "Total Hebrew" to some of us. Get it? Because he's from Israel. Also made a joke from demise of the all powerful Nokia. And it not being a reason for coming here anymore.

- Context matters:
- Convert an undesired situation into a desired one. Define problem, and for whom it is a problem.
- Design is about creating a fit between form and context

• Form: the solution, part of the world over which we have control over, and can decide the shape. 
• Context: the problem, anything in the world that puts demands on the form.
• Fit: mutual acceptability between the two.

- Better-informed design decisions -> more likely to meet user expectations
- Mobile shift: Elimination of time and space restrictions.
- Mobile is first mobile mass media

• Always carried
• Always connected
• Built-in payment system
• Available at the point of creative inspiration
• Most accurate audience measurement

- Moving towards wearable, everywhere computing.

All of the pictures were taken with permission from Turku Technology Properties Facebook-page.
All Of the days presentation can be found @ Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/YritystaKehiin 
 Do you have any questions about what was talked about? Ask! :)