Centre for User Experience Research (CUO)
CUO | Social Spaces is a joint research group of KU Leuven, iMinds and MAD-faculty (KHLim, LUCA, PHL), consisting of the Centre for User Experience Research (CUO) (located in Leuven) and Social Spaces (located in Genk). Visit the CUO | Social Spaces website for more information about our projects.
The Centre for User Experience Research (CUO) is a research group within the Institute for Media Studies (IMS) of the faculty of Social Sciences at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and is part of iMinds.
CUO | Social Spaces' multidisciplinary team of 30 researchers and designers specializes in social design of interactive applications and artefacts. Our work is based on the principles of inclusion, participation, social interaction, sustainability, open design and experimentation. We research and design in the domains of Art & Culture, Future Health and Media & Entertainment. CUO | Social Spaces follows an iterative design process actively involving users and other stakeholders. We do this by participatory design, mapping the context, creating prototypes & artefacts and evaluating the user experience.
News
06/05 - Workshop on participatory design for persons with impairments at Interact 2013
Are you interested in participatory design and do you work with users with impairments? We organize a workshop on participatory design for persons with cognitive or sensory impairments at Interact 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa. This workshop will be held on Tuesday September 3rd.
Workshop on participatory design for users with impairments
Involving people with impairments in the design process is very challenging, especially when impairments affect cognitive functions or communication. People with such impairments may have substantial problems with thought processes and communication, including understanding abstractions, sequencing thoughts and actions, understanding symbols, and interpreting social cues. Many participatory design techniques are based on these processes and are therefore not usable, or need to be adjusted for people with impairments.
Workshop aims
This workshop aims to exchange experiences with participatory design techniques that were designed for, or adapted to people with impairments. Since many of these techniques are highly focused on specific target groups, a further aim is to extract general principles and to generate guidelines for involving users with impairments in the design process.
Who should attend?
Researchers and designers who have been involved in one or more design-oriented project(s) involving users with impairments are invited to participate. After this workshop, a call for papers will be launched for a special issue (on the topic of the workshop) of the journal CoDesign.
Important dates
- May 15: application deadline
- May 24: notification of acceptance
- September 3: workshop date
- September 4 to 6: Interact main conference
Further information & contact
Please visit our project website for the workshop’s programme and to apply for the workshop: http://interact2013impairmentsworkshop.wordpress.com/. For more information and questions, please contact Karin Slegers: karin.slegers@soc.kuleuven.be
We hope to see you in Cape Town in September!
23/10 - Kick-off Event CUO | Social Spaces on 27 November
As part of the integration of the KU Leuven and its university colleges, the Centre for User Experience Research (CUO, iMinds) and Social Spaces (MAD-Faculty) have merged into a joint research group called CUO | Social Spaces. In order to celebrate this new joint research group, we invite you to this first of two events on Tuesday 27 November in Leuven. A combination of interesting speakers and practical workshops will give you a glimpse of the topics our group is working on.
Registration is free but required via http://twikilist.com/CUO%7CSocialSpaces-27112012-LecturebyMarianneObrist
Detailed programme:
16:30-17:00
Welcome reception
17:00-17:15
Introduction by David Geerts
17:15-18:00
Keynote: Marianna Obrist
The Enigma of User Experiences:
How Memories Shape our Relationship with Technology
Interactive technologies have faded into our environment and have become an essential part of our everyday life (e.g., work, leisure, education, health, etc.). Our knowledge about how people really experience this invasion is still limited in order to steer design and development decisions. In particular the shift from pure usability towards user experience (UX) research challenges academia and industry practices. This talk will focus on the experiential aspects when interacting with technology, providing examples from different contexts and domains. In particular, the talk will bring to the fore the need for recognizing and exploring nuances of user experiences as a necessary step for designing for an overall positive experience. Although there is already a lot of knowledge on how to design for UX itself, Marianna Obrist will argue for the need to study memories of experiences in order to design better user experiences.
Marianna Obrist is a Marie Curie post-doc Fellow at the Culture Lab at the Newcastle University, UK. The focal point of her research is on user experience (UX), UX studies, methods and evaluation. Over the last years, Marianna was Assistant Professor in the HCI & Usability Unit of the ICT&S Center at the University of Salzburg, Austria. She holds a doctoral degree in Communication Science from the University of Salzburg. More information on her research can be found on her website http://obrist.info
18:00-19:00
Workshop UseWell: Roadmap to User-Centered Design
In the Usewell project CUO | SocialSpaces, together with project partners from industry, developed a Human-Centered Design toolkit for small companies or organizations. The toolkit contains an essential selection of techniques for creating innovative and usable products or services. In this workshop you will get to know our toolkit by applying it to your design questions.
19:00-...
Food and drinks
05/10 - Opleiding Human Centered Design voor intuïtieve mens-machine-interactie
Bent u op zoek naar bruikbare methodieken om uw ontwerpproces beter af te stemmen op de gebruikers? Verwerf dan een gestructureerd inzicht in het ontwerp van gebruiksvriendelijke interfaces (zowel soft- als hardware) en volg de opleiding:
Human Centered Design voor intuïtieve mens-machine-interactie
Kortrijk en Leuven (via videoconferentie)
14 sessies vanaf donderdag 21 februari t.e.m. 13 juni 2013, telkens van 18.00 tot 21.30 uur.
Schrijf in vóór 15 februari 2013.
· U verwerft inzicht in de manier waarop een gebruiker met een toepassing omgaat en u leert hoe u de behoeften van de gebruikers kan onderzoeken en analyseren.
· U krijgt een gestructureerd overzicht van praktische technieken voor het ontwerp van goede interfaces.
· U bent nadien in staat om deze technieken concreet zelf toe te passen, van gebruikersanalyse, over conceptueel ontwerp en prototype tot detailontwerp.
· U leert op een kritische manier gebruikersinterfaces evalueren.
Wanneer u actief participeert aan de praktijksessies en nadien hierover een beknopt individueel rapport schrijft met reflectie van het geleerde op de eigen werksituatie, kan u een getuigschrift van permanente vorming uitgereikt door de KU Leuven ontvangen.
Lees meer op de website of download de brochure.
Alle info & inschrijven:
Postuniversitair Centrum
KU Leuven Kulak
Tel. 056 246184 · Fax 056 246998
info.pav@kuleuven-kulak.be
http://pav.kuleuven-kulak.be