mzourek.org

Prague World Usability Day 2009

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:16:52 +0000

This post is a copy from Design at Sun blog.

Just a few words about 5th Prague World Usability Day. This year, we have almost filled the capacity of the cinema, we had 290 registered visitors! We didn’t use the official theme of the event (sustainability), we put together topics focused mainly on case studies.

Jakub Franc was the conference MC. During the intro, I’ve presented highlights from the first year of Prague ACM SIGCHI operating as an official non-profit organization: we have 45 paying members, more than 300 people in our mailing list, we organized 8 talks and 4 trainings, and we evangelized UX on major local conferences (for example WebExpo). The second short talk was from Michal Horava, who presented the first local HCI book, which consists from several articles from different authors (including myself and Jakub).

The keynote was given by Tjeerd Hoek from FrogDesign, focused on innovations, design processes and convergence of hardware and software.

After that, there was a presentation from Adam Fendrych and Tomas Blaha about their experience of using eyetracking device during redesign of local finance website www.mesec.cz.

The third talk was from the local Czech Technical University in Prague. They’ve presented first outcomes from Sun Center of Excellence focused on accessibility of RIA.

The last two talks were from Peter Korn and Theofanis OIkonomou focused on EU funded accessibility projects AEGIS and Accessible.

Slides, audio and more information about the conference (in Czech) is on our website www.wud.cz.

See you in Prague again on November 11, 2010!

Photos:

Autodesk Design Museum

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:21:50 +0000

I had a chance to visit Autodesk Design Museum located at One Market Street in San Francisco. Here are pictures I took there: http://picasaweb.google.com/mzourek/AutodeskDesignMuseum#/a>

Opening of Center of Excellence Focused on Accessibility and Usability in Prague

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:52:30 +0000

This post is a copy from Design at Sun blog.

xDesign cooperates with Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) for more than 5 years. For example in 2004, we have opened first local usability lab, from 2005 we organize every year local World Usability Day and also recently we cooperate together on local chapter of Prague ACM SIGCHI.

Czech Technical University is one from the oldest technical universities in the world, established in 1707. Computer science department was established in 1964. The department has long term experience in the field of accessibility and cooperation on European Union projects. Recently, since the part of the department dedicated to computer graphics, HCI and accessibility is still growing, was a new department established: Department of computer graphics and interaction.

Sun Center of Excellence is an official framework for cooperation with universities. There is an official contract signed with description of work and deliverables, usually for 3 years. This one, with CTU, is for accessibility and usability in the area of development of applications (web, desktop, mobile). All results will be open sourced.

The official opening was on December 9th done by Peter Korn and Pavel Suk (director of Sun Prague Engineering Center) and the dean of the faculty Prof. Frantisek Vejrazka.

More pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mzourek/CTUCoE#

We closed the day in the atmosphere of accessibility in the restaurant "Pod kridlem noci", where you eat in complete darkness and you are served by blind waiters. Definitely interesting experience!

Prague World Usability Day 2008

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:41:36 +0000

This post is a copy from Design at Sun blog.
As every year, we were co-organizers of Prague World Usability Day. Theme for this year was “transportation”. We had about 130 registered attendees.

In the beginning, we have introduced new form of local SIGCHI chapter: non-profit organization Prague ACM SIGCHI.

There were 3 talks in the morning: first one from Jan Kleindienst (IBM Research) about Voice User Interfaces, second one from Roman Schubert (Skoda Auto) about usage of Virtual Reality during process of car design and from Jakub Franc (Sun Microsystems) and Jan Vystrcil (Czech Technical University) about project focused on navigation of blind people in interiors.

In the afternoon there were 3 excursions: in the Virtual Reality Lab of Czech Technical University, Cave of Czech Technical University and Usability Lab in Sun Microsystems. After the excursions, who registered soon enough, could attend one from 3 trainings: UI Bloopers, Interviews & Surveys and Usability testing of webs.

More pictures: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mzourek/WUD2008#

It was definitely great day!

CTU Center of Excellence

admin — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:55:44 +0000

We have signed 3 years contract with Czech Technical University in Prague in the area of accessibility and usability. More info is in this official press release. Pictures from the opening are here.

Prague ACM SIGCHI

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 11:22:53 +0000

So it’s official! We have transfered our local chapter of ACM SIGCHI to an official non-profit organization, registered by the local government. It’ll allow us to have own budget (don’t rely just on sponsors and to have membership fees) and also to expand our activities: build our own library (there are almost no books about HCI available in the Czech Republic) and conduct trainings. Looking forward to it! And, BTW, we have a new website!

Prague World Usability Day 2008

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:33:23 +0000

Prague ACM SIGCHI organizes local World Usability Day again! This one is aligned with the global one, so it’s focused on transportation. More information (in Czech) and registration is on: http://praguewud2008.eventbrite.com/

Haunted

admin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:13:22 +0000

I’ve finished reading of the latest Chuck Palahniuk book, which was released in Czech: Haunted. For some reason, I didn’t like it. I enjoyed reading of all his previous books, which were published here (Fight Club, Survivor, Choke), I love his book Stranger Than Fiction (collection of novels, probably not released in Czech language yet), but the last one I really couldn’t digest. There are too many themes and cliches from his previous books or from common “urban legends” that I got “cheap” feeling from this book. It’s like to be written in a hurry, mixing together everything what was immediately available.

Let’s hope this one was just an exception.

Back from Venice

admin — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:44:48 +0000

Back from our short vacation in Venice! Spent there two nights. Just a few highlights:

As always, we booked our hotel through www.hotels.com. We can just recommend the four stars Boscolo Bellini hotel! Great rooms, great location, great staff and reasonable price!
We took a bus #5 from and back to the airport (Marco Polo). One way ticket is 2,50 Euros. The ticket machine at the airport refused to communicate with us in English, so we had to ask for help. On the way back we bought their new model of tickets with RFID chip. They look very fancy, but they had small issue – they didn’t work (for anyone in the bus) – but noone cared…
The navigation signs to the main points in the city work absolutely great, it’s impossible to get lost there!

Pictures.

Whiskey tasting

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:29:17 +0000

I’ve attended whiskey tasting few days ago—focused on “special” single malts. It was a private testing organized by our friends from a local importer of whiskeys Kratochvilovci. Here are my notes:

ABERFELDY 1989, 43 %
Strong, oily, almost no smoky
TAMNAVULIN, 16 years, BLACKADDER, 60,2 %
This is something special. Tamnavulin distillery was closed in 1996 and this is in addition Blackadder version—bottled without chill or heavy filtration and without the addition of any caramel coloring. Probably one from the last bottles on the market! The taste is full of aroma, but it doesn’t feel to be 60 % strong; you can feel the smoke after swallowing.
MACALLAN, 10 years, cask strength, 58,6 %
Very dark! Very smooth. You can taste honey and a lot of cherry. Also, despite the fact it’s almost 60 %, doesn’t feel that way.
BENRIACH, 12 years 46 %
Smell of hospital or burning tire… Definitely not for everyone…
SECRET STILLS, 18 years, 45 %
Mix of smoke and vanilla. Very drinkable, “light” taste.
CAOL ILA, 11 years, 59 %
oily, sweet, full body, peaty. I’ve bought this one!
BOWMORE ENIGMA, 12 years, 40 %
You can feel wood from this one. Gentle taste, very easy drinkable.
LAGAVULIN—Distillers Edition, 16 years, 43 %
Very balanced and smoky.
ARDBEG—AIRIGH NAM BEIST, 1990, 46 %
Straightforward, peaty, strong.

I’ve marked for my self a future reference: Macallan, Secret Stills, Caol Ila and Ardbeg. So if anyone wants to give me a gift…