Mediabarn Delivers at USPTO!

United States Patent and Trademark Office taps Mediabarn’s User Experience Group for its usability and user interface design expertise.  Read more in the press release here:

http://www.mediabarninc.com/about/pressrelease-patent1/

Posted in Press Releases, What's New

DC Week Event!

Mediabarn is partnering with DC Design Babes once again for a great event coming up next week! As part of the Digital Capital Week here in DC, Mediabarn will be sponsoring “The Wonder Emporium”! With a great location just north of Dupont Circle, the warehouse will most certainly be packed with a ton of fellow creatives to network and party with! It promises to be a great night filled with live music, great events including digital art demonstrations, interactive painting and a live graphic design contest!

Mark your calendars for this can’t miss event on June 18th @ 9pm. Registration is quick and easy! Hurry and get your tickets now before it books up!

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

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Designing User Experiences for Children

Mediabarn’s Director of Usability Research, Heather Nam, just published an article on UXmatters, an online magazine providing insights and inspiration for the user experience community. The article, called “Designing User Experiences for Children,” addresses potential pitfalls web designers can encounter when creating a user experience for children, suggests following design conventions that would be applicable for any user whether adult or child, and details specific findings from four recent web site usability studies conducted in the Mediabarn UX Lab with 85 children ages 3 to 9 years old. Click here to read the article on the UXmatters site.

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Mediabarn’s UX Lab sponsors UPA-DC event!

We would love to see everyone tomorrow night at La Tasca for Sangria and Tapas!

Date and time:
March 25, 2010 (Thursday) 6 – 8PM
La Tasca
Spanish Tapas Restaurant and Bar
722 7th St. NW
Washington, DC 20001
202.347.9190

More information at the DC Chapter event page!

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Happy Holidays

Another year has come and gone(almost) and we’re excited for 2010 because this year certainly seems to be ending on an upward and positive note! :)

We’d like to thank everyone that has helped play a part in Mediabarn’s growth this past year and look forward to continuing our success together next year.

We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to another successful year in 2010!

Also, if you haven’t already seen our Holiday Card you should hurry up and check it out for any last minute gift ideas, recipes and stress relievers! We’re hoping “The Cure” will help make an otherwise stressful Holiday Season go a little smoother for everyone this year! Or if you’ve been good and have already done all of your shopping, there are some yummy elixirs you can try!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Mediabarn!

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DC Design Babes Event Tomorrow Night!

Project Runway meets Halloween posterHalloween’s upon us again and it’s time to get out all of your spooky gear! Come join us and the DC Design Babes as we host their DCDB Halloween Party! The event is tomorrow night, October 29th, so hurry up and register!

We hope to see everyone there, should be a howling good time! :-)

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Uplifting Athletes is getting some great press coverage.

The Boston College Chapter of Uplifting Athletes got a mention during ESPN’s College Game Day this past week as they were spotlighting BC’s defensive star Mark Herzlich’s battle with cancer. They have also been mentioned in the USA Today and the Wall Street Journal in the last few weeks. (http://upliftingathletes.org/bostoncollege/)

Any press is good press, but good press is great press. We’re glad we can help Uplifting Athletes continue to make a difference.

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4-H National Science Experiment – Biofuel Blast: Get your results in!

Throughout the month of October, 4-H is collecting the user’s experiment data for their 4-H National Science ExperimentBiofuel Blast. In preparation for that, we’ve created a Flash ‘quiz’ to collect all the user data. A new database table handles the results and ties into the previously created registration table. It was a pretty straight forward assignment, but shows the great potential Flash has as a serious application Front-end.

(Ask us about our Flash Dash Board projects!)

We are proud that we could help support the 4-H organization.

Posted in 4-H.org, Flash, National Science Experimet - Biofuel Blast, dashboards, database | Leave a comment

Little UX Participants in the Office


This week our UX Lab hosted over a dozen kids for one-on-one usability testing. Recruiting and testing 3-5 year olds can be a challenge to the most seasoned researcher, but here are a couple tips that we have found reduce the risky aspects of testing kids.

  1. Don’t recruit children that don’t know how to use a computer, unless you want to see the right mouse dialog repeatedly throughout the session.
  2. Ask what the child uses at home for an input device, as laptops dominate sales, many kids have used trackpads, not mice. If you are testing using a desktop, you can purchase USB trackpads.
  3. Be prepared for bored siblings, young and old. Have distractions for other children that might be coming along, if you don’t have something for them to do, they will certainly try to “help” their siblings.
  4. Recommend to Mommy or Daddy that it might be a good idea to potty break right before going in.
  5. If you need to test over lunch hours, remind parents that they might want to schedule lunch early, or a late morning snack to help avoid meltdowns.
  6. Keep the sessions short. 30 minutes max for under 6.
  7. Balloons for good listeners.

Sure, even with these guidelines we had tantrums, potty emergencies, a couple tumbles, but we had a blast. (and so did our client!)

Testing children requires patience, sure. But to be good at it, it requires a sense of humor and more importantly a sense of adventure.

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A silver lining on the current job market?

I recently came across an article on The Work Buzz that provided some interesting figures on current trends happening in today’s job market. It shows that half of the workers who were laid off in the last three months have already found new jobs! And, more than half were able to either maintain or even make gains with their new salaries! This seems to be in line with what we’re currently seeing here as well, which only reinforces their statistics. This should definitely be great news to the many still out their looking to find their next great thing! Hang in there folks, it looks like we’re slowly turning things around!

Here are some of the other interesting facts at a glance:

Changes in Pay
Looking at workers who were laid off in the last 12 months and found new jobs, more than half (56 percent) reported they were able to negotiate comparable or higher pay for their new positions. Forty-four percent of workers took a pay cut, down from 49 percent in March.

Transferring Skills to Other Industries and Fields
Workers reported they are applying their skills to new areas. Similar to the last survey, 38 percent of workers who were laid off in the last 12 months and landed new jobs said they found work in a different field than where they were previously employed. Of those workers, the majority said they really enjoy their new positions.

Relocation
Workers are no longer just looking for positions in their own backyards. One-in-five workers (20 percent) who were laid off in the last 12 months and found jobs relocated to a new city or state; up from 13 percent in March. Of those who are still looking for employment, 44 percent reported they would consider relocating for a job opportunity; up from 39 percent in March.

Starting a Business

An increased number of job seekers have adopted an “if you can’t find a job, create one” way of thinking. Nearly three-in-ten workers (29 percent) who have not found jobs are considering starting their own business; up from 25 percent in March.

Altering Appearance
The competition for a smaller number of jobs is driving some workers to alter their everyday appearances in hopes of making a stronger impression. More than a quarter (28 percent) of workers who were laid off in the last 12 months said they have changed their appearance to make themselves more attractive to potential employers. Fourteen percent said they have lost weight, 8 percent have changed their hair color or hairstyle and 5 percent are dressing to appear younger. Teeth whitening, enhanced makeup and cosmetic procedures were also cited.

Posted in mbps, placement, trends | Leave a comment