It’s almost here!

World Usability Day is this Thursday. 🙂 That’s right four days away. We’re nearly finished with the preparations–just a few minor things to wrap up.

In the meantime, don’t forget:

* Start ticketing! If you haven’t already, get out there and get ticketing. That’s an order. Well, as close to an order as it comes from someone who has no authority over you whatsoever. Even if you can’t post your ticket to flickr, ticket something!
* Ticketing awards. If you do post it to flickr, you’ll be in the running for one of two $50 awards.
* Help promote World Usability Day. Whether you’re one person on a large company or a lone pioneer in your own company, you can help spread the word.
* And come on out on Thursday. We’ve got a great event lined up with an amazing line-up of panelists and a UNC/NC State square-off that’s sure to be a lot of fun!

More cool stuff: Color Survey

Human Factors International is conducting a color survey on World Usability Day. What colors would you associate with different types of Web sites, such as banking, healthcare, and news?

On November 3, 2005, go to this page on the Human Factors International site and complete the brief survey. After the survey is complete, the results will be analyzed and discussed in Human Factors International’s monthly eNewsletter.

Should be some interesting results. 🙂

Corporate ticketing events

Do you have co-workers or a boss who just doesn’t understand why usability matters? Consider having that person post ticket a usability violation. That’ll get them thinking about how usability affects their lives–and who knows, maybe you’ll get that testing budget you’ve been vying for all these years, and then you’ll get promoted because of all the amazing product improvements you initiated due to the testing…a guy can dream, can’t he?

This shouldn’t take more than 15-30 minutes to execute, and it should be a lot of fun! And besides, I’m sure you could actually list several products that are completely unusable that you use every day–admit it, you’re always thinking about usability no matter what product you’re using. (Surely *I’m* not the only one!) This is just an opportunity to share your frustration and/or joy.

Two $50 awards for most interesting usability tickets

Need another reason to attend the World Usability Day? How about $50? We’re awarding two $50 cash prizes to two of the usablity tickets posted to flickr.

We’re awarding two $50 cash prizes to the most interesting usablity tickets posted to flickr. What do we mean by interesting? Anything that stands out as unusual–e.g. an unusual product, technology, or person(!?). Your description counts, too…unusual reasons for why you love or hate the product will certainly garner votes among the judges!

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**Update:** Instead of awarding a ticket for the most interesting usability ticket, we’re going to hold a random drawing; there will still be two $50 awards. For detailed information about the tickets and the event, visit:

* http://www.triux.org/usability-ticket/

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All you have to do is take a picture of something that annoys the fire out of you–or something that you works so well it puts most other products to shame–and post it to flickr under the tag “uticket”. And make sure you attach the ticket after you’ve posted it to flickr!

The deadline to be considered for the contest is Wednesday at 6pm Thursday at noon. We’ll announce the winners during the ticket review on Thursday. The only catch is that you must attend the event in order to receive the cash. If you don’t show, you don’t get the dough. (Yeah, definitely not one of my better attempts at a rhyme.)

Help promote World Usability Day

We’re heading into the final stretch for World Usability Day and are shifting gears from organization to promotion. I would love to see RTP have one of the best attended events, but we can’t do it without your help. Help us reach our goal of 100+ attendees by

* Posting the following description with a link to triux.org on your Web site and e-newsletters: Attend World Usability Day on Thursday, November 3 from 6:00pm – 9:00pm @ MCNC (Get Directions »). World Usability Day is for everyone who’s ever asked these questions: “Why doesn’t this work right? What am I supposed to do with this now?” Save the date and visit http://www.triux.org/ for more information about the event.
* Encouraging your co-workers, employees, and clients to attend; even folks who work peripherally to the usability discipline or user experience field–such as product managers, project managers, and developers–will find the event educational and fun. The interactionary will provide a great opportunity to see a user-centered design process in action; and the usability ticket review will demonstrate how usability affects our every day lives. For practitioners, the event will provide professional development and networking opportunities.
* And, lastly, posting the following description of the usability ticket on your web site or e-newsletter: “Is there a product that never works the way you expect? What about a product that always exceeds your expectations? Share your joys and frustrations
by tagging the product with the usability ticket. Come on out to the Triangle’s celebration of World Usability Day on Thursday, November 3 @ MCNC (Get Directions ») from 6pm to 9pm to discuss ticketed items from around the Triangle. For more information about World Usability Day in the Triangle, visit triux.org.

With your help, we can create a great event that will exceed everyone’s expectations.

Thank you!

Wanted to thank our local sponsors, once again.

* Gold sponsor: Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.
* Silver sponsor: hesketh.com
* Silver sponsor: Motricity

Thanks to them we have raised $1,000 for the event, which will help pay for the space, food, and some advertising. Thanks, all! We still need help, though. If you know someone who might be interested in sponsoring, pass on the sponsorship benefits.

The judges are in!

We’ve signed up five great folks for the panel!

* Dr. Barry Beith of HumanCentric Technologies
* Heather Hesketh of hesketh.com
* Beth Khalifa of Gamil Design
* Dr. Gary Marchionini of UNC’s information science program
* Dr. Chris Mayhorn of NC State’s human factors program

They’ll judge the interactionary design competition and review some of the usability tickets.

Ready, set, ticket!

The usability ticket is finished. 🙂 Check it out and pass it on! There are two tickets (both are in the above PDF):

* One is for **usability violations**. Ever come across something that just really bugged you? Here’s your chance to gripe to folks who will feel your pain.
* The other is for products whose **usability has just amazed you**. This might take a little thinking because we tend not to think about products that just work.

So, download the ticket and follow these steps to get started:

1. Find a product or object or…whatever. Just something that either works or doesn’t work.
1. Take a picture or screenshot.
1. Post the picture to flickr.com. (If you don’t already have an account, you will need to create one, but it is fast and free.)
1. Tag the item with “uticket” (without the quotes). This is extremely important as we won’t be able to review the item you’ve ticketed unless you tag it with uticket (short for usability ticket). Feel free to add other tags to the photo as well (eg “usability”, “design”, “broken”). Wikipedia has more information on tagging (aka folksonomies).
1. Explain yourself! Add a comment on the item that describes why you ticketed the item. Love it? Hate it? Let us know!
1. Complete the paper citation and attach it to the item so other people can discover it.
1. Repeat!

And, lastly, a big thanks to Todd Robert who designed the usability ticket for us. 🙂 Thanks, Todd!

Now print some tickets and get started!

The interactionary teams are ready to square off!

We’ve got the classic school rivalry: NC State versus UNC.

In UNC’s corner, we’ve got:

* Anuj Sharma
* Sam Kome
* Sayan Chakraborty
* Ric Simmons

In NC State’s corner, we’ve got:

* David Windell
* Becca Green
* Patrick Nyeste

You’ll definitely want to be there to root for your alma mater. And, if like me you didn’t attend either NC State or UNC, you’ll want to be there anyway–it’s going to be a great fight!

World Usability Day: The Agenda

The agenda has finally been determined. It’s amazing how everything is starting to fall into place!

* **6:00 – 6:30 Food!** We’re going to have pizza and drinks in the lobby of MCNC. This will be a great time for talking with old friends and getting to know new ones. Note: Please don’t take the food and drinks into the auditorium. We’ll be charged for any cleaning bills!
* **6:30 – 7:30 Interactionary.** We’ll migrate over to the auditorium starting around 6:25 for the interactionary. We’ll announce the teams and have the coin toss to see which team goes first…and then begins the competition. (Insert oohing and ahhing.) After each team designs and presents their solution, we’ll announce the winner, and then we’ll have a short question and answer session with the teams.
* **7:30 – 7:40 Break.** We’ll take a quick break. Please, eat more pizza.
* **7:40 – 9:00 Usability Ticketing review.** We’ll take as long or as short as we need to. We’ll have the panelists comment on some the items people ticketed and take comments and questions from the audience.

Hope to see you there!