Blog posts by Ruth
Ruth is passionate about all things UX and has worked in the public and private sector in a number of UX roles. She is an experienced user experience practitioner who has been working in the web industry for over nine years. She specialises in Human Computer Interaction, user experience and accessibility and has worked with intranets, websites and web applications. Ruth doesn’t understand the meaning of spare time but can occasionally be found baking or taking photos.
By: Ruth Ellison
Christmas shopping can be an overwhelming and stressful experience. It involves stalking the carpark looking for that elusive empty spot, fighting the masses for that right gift, followed by lines and more lines at the checkout. Is it any wonder that Australians are turning to online shopping in droves?
By offering a stress free end-to-end experience, you can help to build brand loyalty with existing customers and increase revenue by reaching out to a broader range of customers who cannot access your physical store. But what happens when a retailer doesn’t get the end-to-end Christmas shopping experience right?
Read full story »
By: Ruth Ellison
One of my earliest recollections of TED was watching the video of the futuristic Sixth Sense demo. Sixth Sense is a wearable device with a projection screen that paves the way for profound, data-rich interaction with our environment.
Ever since then, I’ve been hooked on TED. TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. They run two annual conferences, as well as being associated with a number of events such as the independently run TEDx program. The TEDx program “gives communities, organisations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.”
One of these events is TEDxCanberra, to be held at the National Library of Australia on 24 September 2011. To warm up for TEDxCanberra, Stamford will be holding a TEDxCanberra Salon where we will be showing some of our favourite TED videos based around the theme: Design: Reflections. Happenings. Predictions.
The details are
Hope to see you there!
By: Ruth Ellison
I was having dinner at a friend’s house a few weeks ago when I noticed her measuring cup; check it out.
This simple kitchen device is a great example of the importance of user research. The users were never aware that there was a problem to be solved! The innovation came through direct observation of users. You can read more about it here.
By: Ruth Ellison
I’ve been a bit behind in posting about the fantastic Web Directions South 08 conference, which was held in Sydney in September 2008. I first started attending the conference back in 2004 where I experienced a great sense of ‘home’ and community. This year, I was given the opportunity to present about something I’m very passionate about – accessibility and the user experience.
The basis of the presentation is how we can develop accessible web products by takinga holistic approach to web accessibility. This means moving beyond the principles of web standards, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines andother accessibility guideline and looking at differentways of incorporating accessibility into the design process to produceaccessible and useful user experiences. My three key themes for the presentation were:
- Consider accessibility and usability right from the start
- Involve users throughout the process
- Accessibility is more than checklists and standards – it’s about the people
It’s about achieving a better understanding of how people interact with your products in the context of their day to day environments, which can be done via a range of user research techniques and testing/evaluation techniques.
You can check out the full presentation below.
