Monday, August 13, 2007

IxDA F2F in Bangalore held on Sat, 3pm, 11 Aug 2007

Hi all,
The IxDA F2F in Bangalore was held on the 11th of Aug 2007 at Koshy's, St Marks Road. It was an introductory session and was an informal event.

It was an enriching experience for all those attended and we carried with us more inspiring thoughts and ideas, a promise of holding this again and of course, more contact numbers.

People who attended were (in alphabetical order) :
Navneet Nair - Interaction Designer, Google
Sarit Arora – Group Lead – Human Factors
Sudhindra V – Centre of Excellence – Lead, Human Factors
Suman Paul – Interaction Designer, TCS
Suresh JV - Interaction Designer, eTrade
Vikram Rao – Sr. Interaction Designer, RSA
The topics of discussion ranged from the very definition of professionals in our field to the social causes that we can contribute as professionals and India specific usability issues.

The important topics that were discussed were :

1. Future Events
We agreed that all future F2Fs should be :
- periodic
- informal like a barcamp/unconference
- explore new restaurants as venues for the event
- focus on participants to present

2. To work towards getting usability/interaction design due recognition from NASSCOM
To increase awareness with the Government and people as a whole regarding the importance of usability and its relevance in day to day life, we all agreed to take up the matter with Nasscom, the IT governing body of the Government. Any ideas/help in this regard is welcome. We can also look at how usability and the field of human factors is viewed by other governments.

3. Interaction Design as a social contributor
We discussed ways to help the society we live in through our profession. For eg, increasing accessibility in public/private buildings, reduce traffic hazards and easing of the traffic flow.

These were some of the main topics we discussed. Additionally, everyone contributed their concerns in their working environments and the ways of improving them, the importance of training etc.