Proceedings of the International Workshop (Reykjavik, Iceland June 18th 2008) – “The workshop VUUM brings together a group of experienced HCI researchers and practitioners to explore a long-standing research problem – the meaningfulness of measurable constructs and the measurability of nonmeasurable ones. One may argue that basically everything can be measured, but some things may be more ‘measurable’ than the others; how to estimate the threshold of measurability remains unclear. The sixteen interesting submissions in this volume touch upon the basic issue of the formal-empirical dichotomy. Many arguments can be boiled down to the fundamental problem that our understanding of how people think and feel is still rather limited, which is essentially inferred from people’s behaviours. Psycho-physiological and neuro-psychological data seem promising, but the issue of calibration and integration is a big hurdle to overcome. Nonetheless, we are convinced about the value, meaningfulness and usefulness of this research endeavour.” (Effie Law et al. – MAUSE COST Action 294)

“If the user experience practice in your company was weak before Agile, Agile development isn’t going to help things. If your user experience practice was strong before Agile, it’ll remain strong after Agile, and evolve to adapt.” (Jeff Patton – Agile Product Design) – courtesy of thehotstrudel

“Here’s my new quest: To dramatically increase the focus on customer experience within companies by getting everyone to understand that great customer experience is really good business.” (Bruce D. Temkin – Customer Experience Matters)

“How do you redesign the website for a venerable news brand with a distinct identity and a loyal readership? What’s more, how do you face challenges like the commoditization of online news, the rise of user-generated content, and other emerging technology trends, while still upholding journalistic standards? In this seminar, we will discuss the process we followed during the recent redesign of The New York Times, including research we conducted, forward-looking concepts we developed, and prototypes we created and refined.” (Karen McGrane and Kevin Kearney – Businesstobuttons)

“As the business value of design becomes clearer, creative managers building the next generation of products and services are confronted with an increasingly demanding set of challenges. MX brings thought leaders from IDEO, Google, The Mayo Clinic, Cisco, and many others, to show you what it takes to get great experiences out into the world. MX goes beyond typical design management discussions that remain focused on traditional concerns of print and brand, toward a new frontier of innovative products and service-oriented experiences.” (Adaptive Path)

“Over the past three decades of computer/human interaction, we’ve seen digital technology evolve from a curiosity to a convenience to an integral part of our everyday lives. For UX professionals, the demand for our skill sets and the opportunities to practice seem only to grow, whether we be designers or developers, usability specialists or information architects, working in fields as diverse as Web, mobile, desktop, and embedded software systems. The UX professions are at a stage that could very well be a tipping point—where the rapid rise of digital devices, services, and connectivity converge to create a massive need for UX professionals. The mobile space alone could generate demand that we can only begin to imagine.” (Jonathan Follett – UXmatters)

“Designers rationalize their choices just as much as everyone else. But we also play a unique role in shaping the human world by creating the expressive and functional tools many people use in their daily lives. Our decisions about what is and is not ethical directly impact the lives of a tremendous number of people we will never know. Better understanding of the choices we make as designers can help us create more ethical user experiences for ourselves and for everyone.” (Joe Lamantia – UXmatters)