The first sponsor for Service Design 2012 is one of our great supporters: Optimal usability (from NZ) and Optimal experience (from Australia). Thanks for supporting Service Design 2012.

We're very happy to welcome Apogee Usability Asia as the first sponsor for UX Australia 2012.

Service Design 2012 is a single day, single track conference all about designing services for people and organisations. It will be on 4 May, in Melbourne. We are collecting presentation proposals from now until 6 January 2012.

We’re very excited to announce the first sponsor for Agile UX 2012: Thoughtworks: leaders in Agile design and development. Thanks for getting involved and supporting the conference!

Agile UX 2012 is a single day, single track conference about designing great user experiences within an agile development process. It will be on 2 March, in Sydney. We are putting the program together over the next few weeks. We’ll be contacting some potential speakers and are interested in hearing your presentation ideas. We are [...]

This year at UX Australia Apogee, one of our Gold sponsors, is running a poster competition. The topic is ‘Understanding culture’ and the winner will receive a ticket to UXHK 2012 (plus flights). How cool is that! The competition is open to all attendees at the main conference. Poster topic: Understanding culture The topic of [...]

Last month, I spent many hours reading proposals for UX Australia 2011 – well over a hundred of them. The eighty-or-so proposals that weren’t selected were submitted by good people, were most likely good ideas, and may have turned out to be fabulous talks. But they had some common attributes – some were too short, some were [...]

For the last two conferences, we’ve scheduled the after-lunch timeslot with 4 x 10-minute talks (x 2 rooms x 2 days = 16 talks). They’ve been a great way to keep the after-lunch energy high and introduce interesting ideas that can be covered in a shote timeframe. This year we’ve decided to offer 10-minute talks [...]

Register now for UX Australia 2011

Registration for UX Australia 2011 is now open Check out the program, and register now. Early-bird pricing is available for the first 150 tickets or until 30 June 2011, whichever comes first. Prices are: Main conference, full price: $700 ($800 after this) Main conference, full-time students: $300 Hands-on workshops, full day: $600 Hands-on workshops, half [...]

I promised I’d post the list of cocktails people ordered at the closing party of the conference, just as an insight into what a crowd of UX people drink when they get together. So here it is, as they appeared on the receipt… 55 x Bombay Sapphire 5x French Martini 1 x Tanqueray 3 x [...]

hi there i'm trying to track down the link to the prototype and annotations (for dev) templates in Matt, joe or Shanes it was a longer uRl arg and thanks pete

Oops, I discovered the primary conference networking site *after* the conference was over. Oh well. Thought I'd post a link to the sketchnotes that I took of many of the sessions, in case anyone hadn't seen them yet. http://bit.ly/c7MjHe and http://bit.ly/b7y2Nl Enjoy!

The Tim Burton exhibition will be running in Melbourne until 10 October. I was planning on visiting the exhibition on Saturday 28th August (late?) morning. Interested in coming along? Tickets are from $19. Entry is at set times. We're likely to be looking at the 10.30-11am entry or 11-11.30am (Caronne - can you confirm?). More info at http://www.acmi.net.au/timburton.aspx

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Ruth Ellison: Ok - my ticket has been booked for the 28th August 10.30am session!

Caronne Carruthers-Taylor: I've booked Tim Burton for 28th August, 10:30am session!

Vicky Teinaki: Btw, there's an audio/video accompaniment for free at http://www.acmi.net.au/burton_audio_tour.htm (it's also at iTunes).

Hi All I have just discovered that the Melbourne Writer's Festival starts Friday 27th August. I'm going to attend what I can in the limited time I have on Friday night to Sunday morning. http://www.mwf.com.au/2010 I thought some of you might be interested as well. Cheers Natalie

I don't think I've been clear about how Thursday night dinner groups work, so let me fix that :) We arrange people to book restaurants - to make a booking for around 12 people, at around 7pm. I print sign-up sheets and will put them up on the walls on Thursday at morning tea (it's awfully low-tech). You can go see what restaurants are booked and put your name on a sheet. At the end of Thursday, the person leading the group will gather their group... [read more]

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MJ Broadbent: I've booked a party of 12 at Curry Vault Indian Restaurant & Wine Bar (18-20 Bank Place, http://www.curryvault.com.au) Our group will have a $33 prix fixe banquet menu that includes many Indian favorites. If you are vegetarian (as I am) you will be h... [read more]

Donna Spencer: I'll definitely do this on the sign-up sheets

Patti Hunt: Looking forward to it :-)

We're planning on having a 'working session' as the first session on Friday morning. Given the recent interest in sketching, drawing and sketchnoting, we thought this might be fun and useful. If you can draw or sketch and can facilitate a session, please get in touch with me. The idea is that this will be an active session - you can give some instruction of course, but most is active. You will not have a projector or slides of any type. We can su... [read more]

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Donna Spencer: Fab. Will email you soon (I'm a couple of to-do items away from this one)

Bryn Price: Cool idea for a session. Of course everyone can draw... its just depends on how well ;) I'd suggest flipcharts rather than white boards, as it is hard with whiteboard markers to change the weight of lines.

Donna Spencer: You bet...

Seeing as I'm in Melbourne all week for the conference, I would really like to checkout some of the local climbing gyms, will not have time to get to the real rock. So I'm looking for a partner who can help with falling off some slabs and suggestions of cool gyms to go to.

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Gary Barber: The issue now folks becomes - When!! Tuesday Night - UX Melbourne. Wednesday Night - Pre Drinks. Thursday Night - Drunken Dinners. Friday Night - Post Conf Drinks. This just leaves the daytime!! too many events getting in the way of climbing. I'm fre... [read more]

Ceredwyn Ealanta: Hello folks! UX Melbourne Movie night starts showing the film at 6:30. I can't get to the climbing gym before 4:00pm at the earliest (working, foo!), but am happy enough to climb from then (or, perhaps, 5ish) onwards. So, I will be there on Tuesday n... [read more]

Gary Barber: Tuesday 4pm at hardrock works for me..anyone else in.

Hi, Anton Sher and myself are presenting on "Creating mobile experiences that matter" at UX Australia this year. Here's an overview: http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2010/creating-mobile-experiences-that-matter I'm keen to make sure we have 10 minutes of solid and engaging Q&A around mobile in our presentation. Therefore, I'd love to hear from everyone about their experienes/challenges, and what they want/need to know about mobile (device... [read more]

Hi Folks! Have just bought my UXA tix and about to book some accommodation. Can anyone recommend accommodation close by. Or, are there any females who'd like to share a room? Cheers Natalie

Gary Barber: try the travellodge opposite, the mantra apartments around the corner, lots of good hotels in the CBD. Melbourne is great for that.

It might sound silly, but are there any sites that you go to just because they're fun, or lovely, or sweet? What about sites where you find you've spent a lot of time -- happily -- but didn't notice the time passing? What sites? What were you doing? What do you think holds you there? Are there places where you get meaning on the Web? Where you get that I-am-part-of-something-bigger-than-myself? Would love to hear from you!

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Dana Chisnell: No problem. I appreciate the help! (And I know the risk I'm putting you at, considering this is a favorite site of yours.)

Gary Barber: Interestingly I have come full circle with the web now. I used to be involved with a lot of online communities and really got that part of something bigger feeling. Like you where making a difference. Now that has waned. Over the last few years those... [read more]

Dana Chisnell: Gary, I'm curious - what do you see as the trade-offs between openness and privacy? Dana

With two weeks to go, the conference is almost sold out, so please register soon if you want to attend. As at 5 Aug, we only have 12 tickets left. I’ll update this every day so you can put pressure on your boss [Update: The main conference is SOLD OUT. You can still sign up [...]

I'll be in Melbourne all week for the conference and intend on going to yoga at some point. Any recommendations for a good class/teacher. I'm intermediate and like a reasonably hard class (but not Bikram or hot yoga). Walking distance of the hotel would be awesome...

Patti Hunt: Hey Donna, A friend of mine highly recommended the Yoga Arts Academy in Little Collins St, Melbourne CBD. I had planned to give them a go next week, will let you know how I go. http://www.yogaartsacademy.com/ Cheers, Patti

Donna Spencer: Looks interesting - I've never heard of that style of yoga. Let me know how you go :)

(UX Australia 2010 only has 300 tickets – graph updated 4 August)

Hi there UX Australia folks. We've set up crowdvine as the conference online social network system. Please use it for whatever will make your conference experience better - plan accommodation, arrange meet-ups, ask questions of the organisers & chat before the conference starts. Right now it is open and anyone can register (we'll only change that if it gets spammy & too hard to manage registrations). Donna

At UX Australia 2009, we found ourselves with spare timeslots due to cancellations. We brainstormed what to do with them and decided to try 10-minute talks – 4 short talks in 40 minutes, directly after lunch. They were a hit! The talks were fantastic and attendees loved the pace and change of energy. So naturally, [...]

Conference registration and pricing Registration for UX Australia 2010 is now open. Check out the program, and register now. Early-bird pricing is available until 30 June 2010. Prices are: Main conference, full price: $700 Main conference, full-time students: $300 Hands-on workshops, full day: $550 Hands-on workshops, half day: $300 If you sign up (and pay) [...]

We have two new gold sponsors. Thank you to both of you for helping us create a great conference: Westpac customer experience Different

The UX Australia conference program is now available. We’re very excited about it – it has a a good mix of practical tools you can use for day-to-day work, plus talks on designing for environments other than the web and computers. We also have a great mix of Australian and international speakers, practitioners and academics. [...]

Apogee Usability Asia will be providing one UX Australia attendee with a return trip to Hong Kong for a cross-cultural (user) experience. The winner will be drawn randomly at UX Australia 2010 and everyone registered and paid by 30 June will be eligible. UX Australia conference registration opens 1 May 2010.

We’re very excited to announce three new sponsors: Five senses coffee: The finest coffee from around the world, delivered fresh to your door Meld studios: Creating meaningful interactions between people and products, systems, services, processes and spaces Maadmob: User experience consulting and training Thanks to all our sponsors – your support means a lot and [...]