Photos from World Usability Day

The photos are here! The photos are here!

Job Opening: Sr. GUI Engineer

The candidate for this position will work with engineering management and marketing to understand customer requirements and translate these into User Interface specifications and prototypes as well as implement User Interface in C#. He or she will also be responsible for mentoring other engineers on GUI design, encouraging and developing usability-oriented methodologies within the group

To apply, email Laura Hunter.

Job Opening: UI Designer @ Red Hat

Red Hat is seeking a UI Designer to help drive a world class web user experience for our customers and partners. You will be responsible for the look-and-feel, information flow, and visual design of our customer
and partner portals, including related areas such as the web store and product marketing web pages. Responsibilities include human factors analysis, heuristic evaluations, and usability testing.

Apply Online »

UX/IA Meetup on 11/16

We’re meeting tomorrow night at the Cheesecake Factory @ Southpoint (Get Directions ») from 6:00 – 7:30. We’re trying a new night this month–Wednesday instead of our typical Tuesday night. Hope to see you there!

Post World Usability Day update

It’s been a week (okay, a week and a few days) since we celebrated World Usability Day here in the Triangle.
We’re putting the finishing touches on the photo gallery and hope to have it published by the end of this week. (Though, it might not be until next week.) Thanks, again, to everyone who participated: our sponsors, our judges, the teams, and our great audience! Keep checking back here for more information about user experience in the triangle and next year’s World Usability Day!

Job Opening: Usability Specialist

* Determine appropriate test methodologies and procedures and design primary research instruments to measure internet and intranet user experience and identify potential usability issues.
* Conduct heuristic reviews and recommend modifications to optimize user experience.
* Define requirements for testing design aides and prototypes, and coordinate and facilitate usability testing.
* Perform analysis of usability test findings, interpret results and recommend improvements.
* Determine industry user experience standards, trends, and best practices.

If you are interested, contact Mary Bailey of Sapphire Technologies.

Happy World Usability Day!

It’s finally here. Some last minute notes about tonight’s events:

* The event is tonight from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. @ MCNC Building #1; Get Directions »
* It is free and open to the public, so come one, come all!
* Without our sponsors help, we wouldn’t be here. Thank you Blue Cross Blue Shield, Motricity, and hesketh.com!
* Here’s the agenda for the festivities.
* Our great line-up of panelists/judges!
* And, last but certainly not least, our interactionary teams.

Update: Usability Ticket

Some people have reported problems getting their usability ticket to post to the tag “uticket” in flickr. If you don’t see your ticket under the tag, email your picture and a description of the violation or commendation to rick@triux.org.

World Usability Day in USA Today

Some interesting quotes:

> But some tech engineers and designers assume too much: that since they understand how the gadget works, everyone should. Bias quips: “A whole lot of companies went out of business because their users were too stupid.”

…and…

>”The feature-list wars were not good for software,” consultant Quesenbery says. “People threw a function in because it gave them a check-box on a list, not because it met the needs of the marketplace.”

> Microsoft is redesigning the user interface for the next version of Office, due next fall. Microsoft will display only the tools you’ll likely use most frequently. The goal: to cut the number of clicks to complete a task. In Office 2003, it took 26 clicks to insert a text box into a document; with the new version, four.

Read the entire article:

* http://tinyurl.com/99af6

World Usability Day continuing to make headlines

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald about World Usability Day starts off absolutely hilarious:

> The managers of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport faced a difficult problem a few years ago. They were having to spend a fortune cleaning the men’s toilets because the aim of Dutch men was so poor.

> “They hired some guys who sat in the urinals for several weeks, just observing,” says Ash Donaldson. “They noticed that if there was a cigarette butt or a fly in the urinal men would aim at it. So they etched the shape of a fly into each urinal – and that reduced the cleaning bill by 80 per cent.”

I bet the conducting that ethnographic study was a lot of fun! 😉

Read the full article:

* http://tinyurl.com/acglm