Refresh Austin

Howdy everyone!

It’s time for the Second Annual Refresh Austin / Austin on Rails party and this time the fine folks of WordPress Austin will join us as co-hosts. Even better, the first 100 people to join us at the party will get a free drink thanks to our neighbor Rackspace (they’re right down the road in San Antonio).

There’s a lot of overlap between our groups, so this is a great opportunity to catch up with friends you may not have seen in a while as well as meet new people as passionate about the Web and technology as we are.

This is a great chance to reflect on what we’ve accomplished in 2009 and to hatch plans for the year to come.

Food Drive

To give back to the Austin community, please bring at least one non-perishable food item to the Austin on Rails/Refresh Austin/Wordpress Austin Holiday party. Cash donations for CAFB will also be accepted.

While not required, it would be helpful if you could RSVP on Facebook so we know how many people are coming.

Event Details

7:00 – 10:00p.m. Tuesday, December 8th
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos
We’ll be upstairs at Buffalo Billiards (top of the stairs, take a right) and we’ll have a bartender, so it should be more convenient to snag a tasty beverage. That said, as we don’t raise money, you’ll have to cover your own tab (beyond the first free drink from Rackspace if you’re one of the first 100).

RSVP on Facebook

Tags: Austin on Rails, event, party, wordpress austin

Event Details

7:00 – 9:00p.m. July 14th
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos

An Overview of Usability

The newly restarted Austin chapter of the Usability Professionals Association will present on Usability and how it fits into business and development processes. There will be a brief overview of usability followed by an open discussion where we will take audience questions, share strategies, and learn from each other.

Demo Slots

We’re going to try a small experiment during this meeting – giving two members a chance to demo their product and gather feedback from other members. Each demo will last up to 5 minutes and will be followed by 10 minutes for questions and suggestions. The key here is that you’ll have a chance to gather the thoughts and ideas of your colleagues, this isn’t a pitch session.

Interested in presenting? E-mail me off list with the name of the product and the type of feedback you are seeking and we’ll set things up. If you can’t demo during this meeting, don’t worry, if we get a lot of responses we’ll use this format for a longer meeting.

Books

We will also have a couple of books to give away courtesy of O’Reilly and Peachpit.

RSVP on Facebook

Tags: event, meeting, usability, web design

Hello everyone, as I mentioned in our last meeting, we’ll be co-hosting the GeekAustin 8th anniversary party on Tuesday September 30th – an event that will be one to remember, and unlike some of the recently imported happy hours, this party is free.

A night of geeks, drinks, food and music – what more could we ask for?

The party will span the entirety of Union Park (612 W Sixth St – Next to Katz’s), and while we encourage Refreshers to mingle, we hope you’ll spend some time back in the Refresh Lounge, sometimes known as the BoomBoom room. We’ll have someone at the door to welcome you in, so make sure you say hi so we can give you a Refresh Austin name badge!

The Austin Electronic Music Grid will have different laptop musicians performing throughout the night all over the club to keep ya movin’.

You don’t have to RSVP, but if you’re on FaceBook, please let us know that you’re coming.

It’s going to be a helluva time, I hope to see you there!

Tags: Austin, austin music grid, electronic music, event, geek austin, music, party, refresh austin

Nate Aune will be the instructor for this three day session covering Plone 3, which has received a lot of interest amongst the Refresh Austin community of late.

Details

RSVP at Eventbrite
Date: September 29 – October 1
Cost: $750
Location: Austin, TX – MCC Building, 3925 West Braker Ln at MOPAC Highway

Agenda

The class will meet from 9:00AM to 5:00PM each day at the MCC Building, in the Alamo Room.

Day 1: Plone 3 Features, Development Tools and Data Types
Day 2: Plone 3 Buildout, Generic Setup and Theming
Day 3: Plone 3 Theming continued and Additional Topics

Tags: cms, event, plone, training, web development

Tuesday, September 9th, 7:00 p.m.
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos
View the Event on Upcoming.org

We have a great meeting set for September 9th (this Tuesday) with a focus on the future.

Google Chrome

First up is a group discussion about Google Chrome, and the implications it has for our industry. Google’s new browser has a lot of potential, but as it was just released, we thought it would be an exciting topic of discussion. Some of the questions that we’ll touch upon are:
– How will Chrome change the user experience of the Web?
– What work will it add to the day in and day out lives of designers and developers?
– Does it provide tools that you’re excited about?
– At what point will Chrome become important enough that you’ll officially support it?
– What tools does it need to tempt you to switch to it from your browser of choice?
– What excites you about the browser

Looking into the Future of Refresh Austin

This will be a mixture of topics related to Refresh Austin, including:
– Gathering feedback about our past meetings and ideas for future presentations that you would like to hear or would be willing to present.
– The topics that we’ll be covering over the next few months of meetings
– Discussion around the direction you think we should take with the group:
– Should we have more or less advanced topics?
– Do we strike the right balance of design, technical and business topics?
– Do we provide enough social opportunities?
- Our Plans for improving the way members post job opportunities
- Your thoughts on other groups in Austin that we should know about and work with.

Tags: chrome, event, google chrome, meeting, refresh austin

I wanted to let the group know about an event taking place on August 19th at County Line. Human Factors International is bringing in our Eye Tracking Specialist, Andrew Schall, to demo the latest hardware, software and analytics techniques. It’s fascinating to watch… and the food’s good! See details below and let us know if you can make it–we want to get an idea of how much food to order!

Official invite starts here…

You are warmly invited to a complimentary dinner reception in Austin hosted by Human Factors International (HFI). HFI’s Andrew Schall will speak on:

“Gazing into a more usable design”

Complimentary dinner provided by HFI

Date: Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 from 6:00-8:00 pm

Location: The County Line Smokehouse & Grill, 6500 Bee Caves Road, Austin, TX 78746

Contact:Sheryll Ryan, 512.433.5916

Attendance is by advance reservation only and space is limited. Please register online:

http://www.humanfactors.com/austinBQ.asp

User experience designers have an array of tools and techniques to help them understand how users interact with websites. Eye tracking complements these tools and offers objective insight into what people actually see — and what they don’t. Eye tracking shows how people move visually through a page and how long they linger on various spots. It’s a powerful tool for developing an effective design that will engage your customers.

Used properly, advanced eye tracking methodology and analysis help you uncover specific usability issues in a highly targeted manner. You can see clearly why prominently featured product links can be overlooked, why flash banners are not always effective, and how other usability issues inhibit website performance. Eye tracking is also a key part of HFI’s new approach to designing for Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust (PET).

In Andrew’s presentation, you’ll learn how eye tracking can help you:

• Get real-time design feedback
• Test visual hierarchy
• Compare different versions of a design
• Understand what attracts (or distracts) users
• Watch as users learn to use your interface

Special offer!

Be one of 5 companies selected to have free eye tracking analysis done at the event! If you wish to have your home page evaluated, please contact us by Friday, August 8th at hfi@humanfactors.com.

Hope to see you there!

Noel Holmes

VP Central Region

noel.holmes@humanfactors.com

940-230-1288

Sheryll Ryan

Director ofBusiness Development

Central Region and Mexico

sryan@humanfactors.com

512-433-9148

Human Factors International, Inc.

www.humanfactors.com

Usable. Experience. Design.

Tags: event, hfi, usability

Ruby on Rails has been a popular topic at past meetings, both as a topic and within post-meeting discussions, and while we have had some great coverage we don’t get to dive too deeply into the subject. Well, if you’re interested in learning about Ruby on Rails, here’s your chance to learn from some rock solid professional developers, who are strong supporters of our local tech scene (Austin on Rails is an awesome group). They have set up Rails Bootup, which looks like an amazing opportunity for someone to jump in and learn from the pros.

They’re planning to cover the basics of Ruby on Rails, which could be very useful for designers who work with Rails developers or who have used other frameworks, but want to gain more experience. In addition to all of the knowledge you gain, they’re giving back to the community by donating at least 25% of the profits to the Austin Children’s Shelter.

The event will be held downtown on August 2nd. If you’re interested or want to know more, visit Rails Bootup.

If you attend, I know a lot of us love to hear a recap!

Tags: Austin, Austin on Rails, event, ruby on rails

Tuesday, July 8th, 7:00 p.m.
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos

For this month’s meeting, Refreshers will discuss actual challenges they have faced and then show how they solved it. The discussions may revolve around an accessibility issue, a logo design, a coding problem, a web site redesign, general scaling issues or business problems As we all know there are usually numerous ways to solve a problem, so it will be interesting to hear why people make certain choices during a project.

Want to Share Your Solution?

This will be an open format, but if you have an idea you’d like to share, please add it as a comment below. This will help us gauge how much time is available to each solution. Don’t worry if you don’t add it ahead of time, we’ll keep some slots open for last minute solutions.

Tags: event, meeting

Refresh Austin is teaming up with Geek Austin and the Austin WordPress Meetup Group for WordPress Fest at Union Park on May 21^st. This is another great opportunity to meet other Web folks here in Austin and have a great time, so c’mon out if you can! People will begin gathering around 6:00, and if past events are any indication, many people will stay into the night, enjoying the roof top deck or the comfortable lounge areas, catching up with old friends and making new ones.

There are entries for the event on Facebook and Upcoming.

Tags: Austin, event, geek austin, happy hour, informal, party

Access U, Knowbility’s annual IT accessibility training institute kicks off this coming Tuesday May 6th. St. Edward’s University hosts two days of classes, many of them hands-on, offered by world-renowned accessibility experts. From the basics to the bleeding edge, Access U will provide the resources you need.

Among this year’s highlights:

• Step by step guide through new WCAG 2.0 guidelines and emerging 508 standards
• Acsessibility
• Multi media accessibility
• and dozens more accessibility classes for technologists, content providers, and policy makers

Plus, there’s an optional post-conference session in AJAX Accessibility by Derek Featherstone.

Networking events include the opening dedication to Dr. John Slatin, presentation to Jim Thatcher of the annual “Making A Difference Award” from ACM, the leading international association of computer science professionals, and an audio described movie and dinner at the Alamo Drafthouse.

Registration is online at www.knowbility.org/conference
For more information, contact Teenya Franklin
Office: 512 305-0310 or teenya [at] knowbility.org

Tags: accessibility, event, web development