At last - our very own Social Network

Catalyze, a new networking community for user experience professionals, has been launched by the UPA in association with the International Institute of Business Analysts.

Catalyze is a member-driven community for all professionals involved in defining business systems, designing software applications and creating websites. If you are a business analyst, usability professional, UI designer, information architect, interaction designer, product manager, project manager or anyone else involved in the definition process of software applications, this community is for you and will be worth your time.

Professionals approach application definition from many different angles and this community will "catalyze" or gather strength from all points of view to heighten the importance of this space. The challenges, issues and topics are similar across all of these professional functions, and Catalyze is the first community to bridge these diverse disciplines.

Catalyze is a place to share, learn, find resources, offer opinions, get involved and make connections. Peer-based content is the most powerful force for change and learning in the world today - and for the first time, that power is now in the hands of the professionals that define and design the world’s software. The future direction of Catalyze will be driven by a group of community leaders who are experts in their fields and are committed to making Catalyze "the top destination" site for application definition and design professionals.

There is no cost to join the Catalyze community – and all members will be able to contribute content to the community via blogs, discussion forums, resource library and event calendar. Members can create extensive profiles and will be able to search and network with others who with similar interests. Catalyze also uses the latest in Web 2.0 technologies to enable the community experience.

Associated Link: Catalyze

Passwords that are Simple - and Safe
Source: MIT Technology Review, 29 July 2010
 
Researchers at Microsoft have come up with a way to create easy-to-remember passwords without making a system more vulnerable to hackers.

Coercing people into a Brave New digital World
Source: Spiked, 27 July 2010
 
Does a government-backed campaign to get the entire UK adult population online threaten to make cyber slaves of us all?

iPhone 4 one month on – A user experience and functionality success, despite antenna issues
Source: Webcredible, 26 July 2010
 
Webcredible Senior Consultant, Abid Warsi suggests that the impressive functionality and user experience of the iPhone 4 is enough to overcome the widely reported technical issues, thus proclaiming the device a big success.

Darwin City Council Website - Australia’s Most Usable!
Source: Loop11, 24 July 2010
 
Darwin City Council came out on top in a recent website usability study of Australia's capital city councils. The aim was to discover which of the six council websites was the most user friendly and usable.

Digital Design Jobs first to experience Growth
Source: UN, 23 July 2010
 
The marketing and design industry in the UK is seeing strong signs of renewed confidence, according to the new European Market Eye report from the industry’s specialist recruitment consultancy, Aquent.

Usability at a Glance
Source: usability-ed, 22 July 2010
 
Something interesting and useful to print out and stick on your wall.

Google may know your Desires before You do
Source: New Scientist, 21 July 2010
 
In future, your Google account may know your birthday and anniversaries, consumer gadget preferences, preferred hobbies and pastimes, even favourite foods. It will also know where you are.

Closing the Usability Gap between Enterprise Applications and Consumer Web Applications
Source: Integrated Solutions for Retailers, 20 July 2010
 
New White Paper on Workforce Management and the increasingly ancient software which controls it.

Collect Words, not just Numbers with Feedback Analytics
Source: CMS Wire, 19 July 2010
 
Tracking visitors’ behaviors online can help us understand how customers use a site - but what if you could actually ask each individual a question? That’s what Kampyle aims to do with its feedback analytics tools.

Back to the Future...
Source: ZDNet, 17 July 2010
 
Always a popular sport, comparing the PC with the motor industry is as relevant as ever.