Blog

     Today more than ever, mental health is taking the front position in the conversation about well-being within companies. In a recent poll conducted by KFF, nearly half (45%) of adults in the United States reported that their mental health has been negatively affected by COVID-19. Some of the main causes of stress mentioned were the health and the economic impact of the virus. However, some alarming data regarding mental health in the workplace emerged also before COVID-19, indicating that this is not a new issue. 

      The IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR) is the world’s most prestigious academic conference on the broad topic of Virtual Reality (VR). Every year, the conference sees hundreds of attendees and presenters from all over the world both from academia and the industry. However, this year, due to the unprecedented spread of COVID-19, the conference organizers had a mere 3 weeks to make a decision to cancel the conference or turn it into a true VR conference. A decision was made to move it to an online only format with the capability of attending the conference in VR. From celebrations to presentations with light sabers to chit chat around a virtual campfire, it was a milestone for the VR industry. Yes, there were glitches and problems that came up, but first - I would like to acknowledge and congratulate the organizing committee for the amazing job they did putting it together in such a short time!

       The autonomous vehicle is more than just a blurred dream that is still off in the distant future; it’s already happening. Recently, the first self-driving taxi service has been launched in Singapore. It is predicted that it’s only a matter of a couple of years before fully automated driving vehicles will be available for purchase on the consumer’s market (Tesla is already taking incremental steps to make semi-autonomous driving vehicles available to the public). However, only a few companies like Google and Volvo have been testing fully automated driving cars on public roads. 

      The best way to ensure a successful partnership with a consultancy is to have a solid shared understanding of what the goals of the project are, what work will be done, how it will be done, and when it will be done. The Statement of Work (SOW) governing project work is the foundation for a successful outcome. This article explores how to take a high-level SOW from an accepted proposal and turn it into a robust and effective contract.

   The theme of this years’ World Usability Day: “Design for the Future We Want”. The theme is inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.  Design can help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. Design has the opportunity to create a better world for all by creating products that cause no harm, make the world a better place to live and support our humanity: For example, design could persuade people to consume more sustainably or it could potentially help prevent the spread of fake news.

      AnxietyTech is a conference started by Kari & Jamund Ferguson, a husband and wife team that aims to “explore how technologists can better contribute to the growing mental health challenges in the world”. They brought together researchers, technologists, and mental health professionals to discuss the intersection of mental health and technology. It is a conference for programmers, researchers, technology developers, and health providers in order to expand the conversation surrounding how technology is changing the way in which we understand and approach mental health challenges.

       Being a full-service UX research agency, Key Lime employs researchers take pride in wearing many hats. The versatility of our researchers is what allows our staff to be nimble and adaptable in tailoring our services to every client. Part of training at Key Lime includes brushing up on skills that haven’t been flexed in a while or might benefit from being strengthened.  Last week, our researcher Mindy Eng spoke withJess Gamble, a client relationship management expert, about her pro-tips as an account director working with clients around the world.

Every 6 months the Key Lime team releases competitive reports in various industries. These reports level set top players and identify the many included features a given mobile app or site have available, but also detail the importance how important each feature is and which are best from a usability perspective.

          It is impossible to celebrate ten years of Key Lime without recognizing our amazing and hardworking CEO, Ania Rodriguez. Under her leadership and direction, Key Lime Interactive LLC. has successfully achieved double-digit growth over the past 9 years and as a result, has emerged as one of the leading user experience research firms in the United States. Without Ania, we could not celebrate Key Lime's tenth birthday.

     The UX Game Summit by Epic Games, first launched in 2016 as the very first gaming summit with a focus on UX. It is important to put players first in the design process of gaming in order to ensure better player engagement and more time played. The UX Game Summit helps bring together professionals that are passionate about the current state of UX in our industry and ways to continually improve and innovate the user experience.The Game UX Summit is hosted by different companies each year, this year was hosted by EA. Also this year, Key Lime Interactive, was one of the speakers at the 2018 UX Game Summit. Here is a recap of our presentation and some of the takeaways from the conference by our UX rockstar, Shao-Yu Chen.

Experts can be very helpful during initial design efforts for a product, sharing their wealth of knowledge and experience with a development team to guide their understanding of user requirements. After all, they understand everything in the domain so well and know a ton of skills, some of which they can perform without breaking a sweat. But what if we told you that expert influence on early design decisions can also introduce biases if not adequately checked?

“Creativity Is allowing yourself to make mistakes, design is knowing which ones to keep”
– Scott Adams