Most of the UX design focus for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s mobile website was about navigating to content, revealing details and acting on it. But, there was one trickier bit of interaction that we wanted to include: an ability to filter the list of concerts by conductor, featured artist or principal instrument. Unlike large retailers [...]
One of the essentials of mobile design is getting local. For the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s mobile website, local means things like: Where is the concert? How do I get there by transit, car or on foot? If driving, where can I park? Where can I go for dinner or drinks before or after the concert? [...]
As outlined in the first post in this series, the vision for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s mobile website was tightly task-focused. With that vision in hand, we proposed an information architecture that was neither too broad, nor too deep: 6 main categories and a depth of 3 or 4 levels felt comfortable. Trickier however was [...]
Recognizing that an increasing number of visitors were coming to their website using mobile devices, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) was keen to create a mobile website to better meet concert goers’ needs – and so were we. While the website is currently under development, Usability Matters and the TSO are excited to share some [...]
Zerofootprint, an organization that seeks to achieve massive reductions in carbon emissions, and a client of Usability Matters, has launched the Zerofootprint Challenge for students and schools. “Is your school green? Prove it.” A few months ago, students from Simcoe County came to Zerofootprint to learn about climate change. Zerofootprint gave them a hands-on assignment [...]
Lately, we’ve been talking a lot about the iPad and how it might fit in with our practice. We have also been exploring ways we might invigorate the activities and deliverables in the planning and discovery phases of our projects. And then something like this comes along and hits these two themes smack in the [...]
We’ll go to just about any length to improve a user experience, but Dubai in the heat of summer? That’s crazy! Working with a client to launch a new business in the Middle East was a great opportunity to explore cross cultural design and rapid prototype testing in a completely different cultural climate. Dubai is [...]
We’ve never really been all-out gadget geeks here at UM but here I am smitten by the possibilities of the iPad. All predictions suggest this will be the year of the slate computer with a number of devices already announced and no doubt more in the works. The iPad is of course the one getting [...]
Is there an ‘Accessibility for Dummies’ document you could share with me? As usability experts, we are occasionally asked about accessibility. Sometimes, we’re asked to help define and identify what accessibility means, and how it relates to a particular web site. This is tricky, because the degree and the kinds of accessibility that are appropriate [...]