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A month of gathering ideas

September 2010 flew by:

  • the excitement of announcing this book;
  • off to HCI2010 at the University of Abertay in Dundee, where I led a workshop on survey design
  • back to England and right down to Cornwall for a few days holiday (I know we’re a small island here, but that’s more than 500 miles)
  • a quick visit to CX Partners in Bristol for a fascinating informal chat about surveys
  • analysing the data and writing the first draft of a report on a survey about how different groups use a camp site for people with physical disabilities
  • back home – where, amazingly, the ‘work while you’re away’ fairies had failed to deal with my in-tray
  • a great telephone meeting with my development editor
  • and a visit to the UK UPA evening about books, where I picked up some tips about writing and some contact details from UX professionals who are willing to talk with me about surveys.

I’ve also had some great email conversations offline, especially with Inge De Bleecker.

Lots of ideas buzzing around in my head, but not a second to tell you about it here and get your opinions. Frustrating!

But please keep those ideas coming, either here or directly to me. I’ll start discussing them here soon, I promise.

Reading is Fundamental

…and the UX Bookmobile is fun. We had a blast trotting it out at the IDEA conference in Philadelphia last week, and are hoping to ride it over to Colorado for those two UXish events this winter. Hmm… Wonder if we can retrofit it with skis?

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Leah Buley to write “UX Team of One”

We’ve just signed Adaptive Path’s Leah Buley to write a new Rosenfeld Media book, The UX Team of One. We’re quite excited to work with Leah, who has already delivered some hit presentations on the subject at SXSW, UX Week, and the IA Summit.
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Ferrara walks the walk

This just in: a video game designed by Rosenfeld Media author John Ferrara was awarded second place in a contest organized by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative. John led a small team to develop Fitter Critters, a virtual pet game designed to teach 9- to 12-year olds healthier eating habits and change the way they think about nutrition. It was selected as runner up from a field of 63 entries by a panel of judges that included Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, and White House CTO Aneesh Chopra. John is the author of the upcoming book Playful Design: Creating Game Experiences in Everyday Interfaces, which explores how game-based interfaces can be used to achieve real world objectives. You can read more about the contest and game here.

Downloading digital books to your favorite device

Given how many devices there are out there, as well as a plethora of formats and channels, it’s understandably confusing to get a digital book into your favorite reader. Worse, it seems that the digital publishing landscape changes every fifteen minutes or so.
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New advisors: Harry Max and Kristian Simsarian

We’re pleased to add some great new perspectives to turn to for great advice! Executive coach and Internet pioneer Harry Max will join our strategic board, and IDEO associate partner/CCA faculty member Kristian Simsarian will join our editorial board. If you want to know more about who is guiding us, check out our list of advisors.

A new addition to the Rosenfeld Media family

No, it’s not another book signing, though news of at least one of those will be coming soon. Nor is it an incredible new library of UX-related content, though one of those is about to launch.

No, we’re proud to announce that Rosenfeld Media has given birth to a strapping, healthy, 34″, 200lb capacity UX Bookmobile! (And don’t act surprised; we’ve been showing for months!)

From conception to birth in 20 minutes. We’ll pretty it up with books and signage.

We’re going to try it out for the first time at next month’s IDEA conference in Philadelphia, of which we’re a proud sponsor. Our goals are to go where the people are, rather than hiding away in an airless, depressing exhibition hall. And avoid relying on conference bookstores. Oh, and selling some books would be nice. We’ll load up the UX Bookmobile with lots of our own paperbacks, and our iPad will be there too to show off our digital versions (in ePub and PDF). All will be heavily discounted.

If you’re at IDEA, please stop by, check it out, let us know what you think. And, of course, consider buying something—don’t make us feel like we’ve got an ugly baby! Many thanks to Michael Leis and Russ Unger for letting us test the idea out at IDEA.

The winning Canucks

Our contest for Canuck comrades is concluded and closed.

Newly-minted Torontonian Kate Simpson, fresh off the boat from the UK, submitted our favorite photo. As you can see, Kate has lovingly adorned Donna Spencer’s Card Sorting with the CN Tower:

Congrats to our other winners, Theresa Putkey of Vancouver and Jess McMullin of Edmonton. All received a copy of Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design.

The goal of the contest, aside from generating some wonderful photos, was to test out a Canadian fulfillment house. Good news: it worked out quite well! We’re not quite ready to commit to shipping from there, as there are a bunch more moving parts involved, but we’re optimistic that we will.

Web Form Design now available in ePub format

With the completion of Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design, we’ve just finished converting all of our titles to ePub format, so you can now read our entire library on your iPad, iPhone, or Android phone. (Of course, all future Rosenfeld Media books will be available in ePub as well.)

Heartfelt thanks to the wonderful and generous volunteers who combed through and tested each of our titles in ePub format: Dennis Breen, Ian Fenn, Kenny Chen, Maya Venkatraman, Russ Unger, Tony Collen, and Shirley Man. And to Ron Bilodeau and Liza Daly for creating the ePubs.

Irene Au, Kim Goodwin, and Jared Spool join our editorial board

Our editorial advisors help us determine which books to publish, and by critiquing book proposals, how to make them better. We’ve already got a group of superstars helping shape our editorial agenda. Adding Google UX director Irene Au, Cooper alumna and acclaimed author Kim Goodwin, and usability god/part-time magician Jared Spool to the mix makes it seem almost unfair. Welcome aboard, new board members; we’re thrilled to have you!