Josie Downey is an Information Architect and User Experience Consultant at HeathWallace. Having studied Psychology and Computing at university, she learnt that if you can understand the basics of cognitive psychology (how people perceive, remember, feel, solve problems), you can create more effective and enjoyable computer systems. She has since gained several years experience applying eye tracking technologies (and many other techniques) to commercial projects, helping companies create more effective online experiences for their customers.

In her talk Josie will Ibe exploring the uses of eye tracking and how it allows us to glimpse into some of the decisions people make, with real examples followed by a live demo of the kit.

Jeroen will be talking about fluent interfaces. Based on some research that SIG funded, he will introduce the basics, and discuss designing, implementing and using an API based on 'fluent interface' principles.

Haptic interfaces allow users to interact with a computer through the sense of touch. Haptics can be combined with other modalities, such as visual or auditory to provide useful applications in many fields. This talk will briefly look at a few of these cutting edge applications and in particular focus on the use of haptics for scientific visualisation for visually impaired users.

Daniel Soltis is a physical interface and user experience designer with an interest in where the physical and digital meet. He has made Twitter-controlled kinetic sculptures, collective gestural typefaces, toolkits for DIY home automation, and a variety of games including synchronized pinball and competitive picnicking.

Daniel will talk about designing for unfamiliar interfaces from a user experience perspective. How do people learn and understand digital systems when the controls are gestural, or the screen is a strange size, or there is no screen at all? He'll draw on bad and good examples (from his own and others' work), and look to fields such as journalism, maths, and board game design for hints and ways forward.

Daniel will introduce Python's language, tools, libraries and community, to help explain why Python is fun to program, and how it taught him more about the art of programming than most other languages could have done.

One such project has involved IPTV streaming of Freeview, during which he has learned far more about Freeview than most people ever cared to imagine. As a coping mechanism, he will be imparting some of this knowledge at Reading Geek Night, so that he won't be the only person in Berkshire who knows so much about what some consider a "last generation" technology.

Bluevia are kindly sponsoring some drinks for our 2nd Birthday event - cheers!