TL;WR

Sep 17, 2018

What to do.

Running from today through Sunday, Fluxible is a week-long celebration of user experience right here in Waterloo Region. (No "the", just "Waterloo Region." - Ed.). There conference is on the weekend, but there are daily brown bag lunch sessions at the Communitech Hub that you can attend. Here's the rundown:

Monday, September 17 | 12 PM
Brown Bag Lunch: Optimizing design with behavourial economics with Danny Ho
In this talk, Danny will explain how the innovation lab at LCBO applied behavioural economics principles to optimize the design of a drink mixology application.

Tuesday, September 18 | 12 PM
Brown Bag Lunch: There's a map for that! Designer's guide to making useful maps
Why are designers making so many maps these days? Customer journey maps, empathy maps, experience maps, stakeholder maps and strategy roadmaps… We make maps to draw insight, catalyze ideas, get on the same page, and understand complex experiences and processes. How did we get here? What are all these different types of maps? How can you go about folding them into your practice? And what are some things to keep in mind when making design maps?

Wednesday, September 19 | 12 PM
Brown Bag Lunch: Intro to game thinking with Lennart Nacke
Game thinking is a problem-solving process that uses strategies from game design and gamification to help drive the design of user experiences in digital or non-digital applications. In this talk, Lennart will explain how game thinking works as a problem-solving strategy and provide practical takeaways for designers who are interested in using game thinking in their UX process.

Thursday, September 20 | 12 PM
Brown Bag Lunch: Ethical by design with Jennifer Boger
This workshop will explore ‘Ethical by Design’ principles – principles intended to support inherently ethical technology and systems design by discussion and collaboration between disparate stakeholders. We'll explore the principles and apply them in a real-world case study.

Friday, September 21 | 12 PM
Brown Bag Lunch: Refactoring UI with Steve Schoger
In UI design, little details go a long way. In this talk, Steve will take poorly designed UIs and will refactor them while explaining some of the crucial concepts of UI graphic design.Steve will be looking at some of the more common problems faced by designers, showing what difference a few small cosmetic changes can do to bring a design to the next level.

Today - Monday, September 17, celebrate the 25th anniversary of Kitchener City Hall. Art and architecture tours, live music and more - check the site for details.

This Tuesday, September 18, The Princess turns 33. To celebrate they are presenting the first film the Princess ever screened -- CASABLANCA -- and it's FREE for Members, Students & our weekly newsletter subscribers at 7 PM. (Princess Cinemas is a treasure. -Ed.)

Open Sesame presents Zaum / Firebreather Canadian Tour 2018 on Tuesday, September 18 at 7 PM. Supporting ZAUM on their Canadian tour is Swedish stoner doom trio, FIREBREATHER. (Swedish stoner doom music. That's a first for this newsletter. -Ed.)

Fluxible presents a concert at Open Sesame on Wednesday, September 19 from 7 to 9 PM to support the Open Ears Festival of Music & Sound. Ben Grossman joins Matt Brubeck for a duo performance and JoJo Worthington rocks the ukulele as usual. All ticket revenue goes to Open Ears. Tickets are PWYC and all are welcome.

Bluegrass band Northland Rail Service headlines the City of Waterloo's Campfire night on Wednesday, September 19 from 8-9:30 PM. The evening also features UW's S.A.I.L. (Student Art Innovation Lab) and free smores from the folks Mountain Equipment Co-op.

This Thursday, September 20 at 7 PM - Kitchener Public Library + Centre in the Square collab - 85 Queen: Songs & Stories with Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson is the best-selling author of Beautiful Scars as well as a three-time Juno winning Canadian musician with multiple gold records. He has written for and recorded songs with Sarah McLachlan, City and Colour, Jason Isbell, Colin James, Lucinda Williams, Billy Ray Cyrus, Mavis Staples and The Rankin Family to name a few. His band Junkhouse scored eleven top-ten hits, and his iconic, Americana-fuelled Blackie and the Rodeo Kings was widely publicized for its presence on George Bush’s iPod. Tom’s most recent incarnation, Lee Harvey Osmond, has received extensive praise and airplay throughout the United States.

Festivals in September!

Here's a couple events coming up in September that we think you need to know about.

LUMEN
September 29 | Uptown Waterloo
Lumen is a festival that showcases light based new media, media art, and projection based installations. This free event invites citizens to explore the city through a new lens -- one that illuminates Waterloo through art and technology. Lumen will take place in uptown Waterloo on September 29, 2018 from 6 - 11p.m. More details to be announced shortly.