I finally got round to digging out the notes of last month's Burm IxDA meeting, the following are some digested notes... 

There was some mild ranting about iphone 4 signal issues, and complaints, discussion of Flash on Mac products (or lack of). Thankfully, all corners were argued. 

We discussed phone demographics... apparently we don't like Blackberrys. 

There was some comparison of old and new iphone, discussing typing one handed on a table, and scuffing of iphones.

We observe signal dropping when Thomas takes off his iPhone 4 bumper.

Is there no manual to Iphones etc because we learned it all from the TV adverts and videos? And from watching others? 

Agreement, even though ipads can 't do what laptops can, in terms of typing, they were designed for a new world, a world where in a few years they wil be just another one of the choices in terms of buying a new machine.

I discovered the netbook I was using had touchscreen gubbins, hence my sketches, and yes that's 3 members of the meeting. Who knows, maybe I'll do a better one on the iPad next time

We're interested to hear from or have talks by people who might come from unusual design practies, to talk about how they make their products' usable', and what 'user experience' means to them. This is significant given Birmingham's strength in design areas such as jewellery, and the fact many disciplines of design / art are taught at BIAD. 

Considering doing design challenges in meetings again, maybe a challenge spanning several meetings? Maybe a field trip? Maybe including an invited speaker? Potentially  something on learning environments. e.g. What is it about Facebook that makes people interact there but not in Moodle for example. 

Location of next meetings 

Continue with BIAD? Back in term time? Unconference?

August 19th