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!

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

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.

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.

We’re spreading the word about all of the great ideas submitted by our members and have compiled a list that you can use to review, and hopefully vote for their panel ideas.

Remember, every vote is good. So even if you don’t find the topic applicable to what you do, voting one or two stars will support your fellow Refreshers.

Panel Submissions

• 200s, 304s, HTTP Compression, and You - Mark Phillip, RUWT? Sports
• Design for Disagreement - Paul Burke, thinktiv
• SXSW Year Round: Organize Groups, Maintain Your Buzz - Alex Jones, Refresh Austin
• Clients: Insane or Just out to Get Me? - Alex Jones, Refresh Austin
• The Rise of the Enterprise Tribe - Kevin Koym, Enterprise Teaming, llc
• Building Austin - Kevin Koym, Enterprise Teaming, llc
• Sex Ed Online: How Teens Self Savvy - Karen Kreps, Net Ingenuity Publishing
• Bridging Flash and HTML For Rich Web Experiences - Moderated by Mark Phillip, T3
• More Secrets of JavaScript Libraries - Andrew Dupont (panelist)
• Designing Experiences in an ADHD Culture - Susan Price, Firecat Studio
• Politics, Technology, and Pop Culture - Tom Serres, Piryx Inc.
• What Do You Do When the Traffic Starts Coming - Brian Massey, Conversion Sciences
• The Patterns of Web Marketing - Brian Massey, Conversion Sciences
• Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer - Sheila Scarborough, Writer

Did we miss one? Leave a comment with your panel so everyone will know about it!

August 12th at 7 p.m.

PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE CHANGE

This month only, we’ll meet at the Blue Fish Development Group Offices
701 Brazos, Suite 700
Austin Centre building (the business half of the Omni Hotel). Theirs is the first office on the left on the 7th floor.
The business elevators are on the West side of the building near the security desk (the hotel elevators are on the East side next to the hotel check-in).

Refresh Austin’s August meeting will include two presentations:

Find it on upcoming.org.

Writing for the Web Presented by Sheila Scarborough

• How to let your own voice come through your writing.
• How to use an editorial calendar to organize your blogging and avoid writer’s block.
• How to present material on the Web so that it’s easy to read and absorb.
• How to interact with commentators on your blog, and how to get more of them.
• Discussion topic - when is a blogger a journalist, and when is he/she not? Are there fundamental tenets of print journalism that we should bring online?

Notes from Sheila’s Presentation

Books on writing:

• Anne Lamott, “Bird by Bird - Some Instructions on Writing and Life“
• Stephen King, “On Writing“

Blogs about writing great Web content:

• www.skelliewag.org
• www.copyblogger.com
• www.successful-blog.com

Blogs with good conversational writing:

• Heather Armstrong’s dooce
• Penelope Trunk’s blog (separate from her Brazen Careerist site)
• Leif Pettersen’s Killing Batteries

I’m @SheilaS on Twitter and am always open to further questions….

Introduction to Django Presented by Jon Loyens

Django is one of the more recent crop of lightweight web frameworks designed to help people create dynamic web applications while avoiding the redundancy and tedium often associated with the task. The Python-based Django has recently gained a lot of momentum within the web community for it’s ease of use and clean, maintainable code and is currently the only framework supported by the Google AppEngine. Being born out of a newspaper publishing environment, Django is particularly well suited to creating content driven applications (though, as the co-creators are quick to point out, Django itself is not a CMS, though a very good platform to build a CMS on). Django is billed by it’s co-creators Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Adrian Holovaty as “the Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines”.

Notes from Jon’s Presentation

• Django Notes
• Django Presentation (PowerPoint)
• Code from the Django Presentation

Update: Links and files from each presentation are now included above.

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!

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.