Join the World Usability Day Design Challenge!

Would you like improve the sustainability of our world?

 Are you passionate about user centered design, graphic design, industrial/product design, engineering, human factors and/or psychology?

 If so, then you should participate in our TriUPA World Usability Day design competition!

 Participants will tackle a design issue where user centered design and usability is central to the success of a solution that drives sustainability.

 Sounds great! What do I need to do?

 1) Sign up to participate by September 23, 2009. 

 2) Attend an Information Session.

 You don’t have to attend this session to participate in the challenge, but if you have questions or would like more information, please join us on September 17th (Thursday) at 6pm at Capstrat (1201 Edwards Mill Road, First Floor Raleigh, NC 27607).   

 3) Pick a topic from our list of suggestions, or create your own! 

 4) Present your design ideas, findings and solutions.  

 Participants are invited to share their solutions during our World Usability Day event to be held November 12th from 6:00 – 9:00PM, at the SAS Auditorium. Presentations need not be formal and can be a poster, informal oral presentation or PowerPoint format. All participants should plan a presentation around 7 – 10 minutes.

 For more information or questions about this year’s event contact:

Rebekah Sedaca,  rebatilley@yahoo.com

Laura Blanchard, laura.blanchard@mac.com

World Usability Day celebration in RTP — register now!

What: World Usability Day celebration

When: 6pm – 9pm – Thursday, November 13th 2008

Where: Ruvane Auditorium at GSK

Cost: Free to all! Food and drink will be served! Please sign up so we have an idea of how big the crowd will be.

How: Register now: http://triupa.org/2008WorldUsability
(if you’re a TriUPA member, be sure to click “Login to Register” once you get to the RSVP page)

About our event:
TriUPA will celebrate World Usability Day this year on Thursday, November 13th, at GSK. We have created a program that centers around UPA’s theme of transportation. We are fortunate to have three speakers who have worked in the transportation field and can enlighten us about the usablity challenges in products and services in that area. We have organized a Design Challenge, in which three teams are applying user-centered design to transportation problems. The teams will be presenting their results at WUD. You cannot afford to miss this year’s WUD, so please sign up now!

6 pm – 6:45 pm: Dinner and socializing. Make sure to check out our UX trading card game. Everyone who builds a complete set of cards will be eligible for a raffle!

6:45 pm – 7:45 pm: Transportation and Usability:

* Talk by Graham James, Professional Transportation Planner
* Talk by Beth Mcgough, Human Factors Engineer, JCI, Michigan
* Talk by Alex Hussain, Design Engineer, HumanCentric

7:45 pm – 8 pm: Break and dessert.

8 pm – 9 pm: Presentations by teams competing in the Design Challenge:

* Modular design system for bus stops
* Wayfinding and information displays for bus travel
* And one more… (topic TBD)

Presentation of prizes for UX Card game winner and Design Challenge winners.

Thanks to TriUPA’s sponsors for making our World Usability Day celebration possible:

* Lulu
* GSK
* BlueCross BlueShield
* Insight
* Lenovo
* Hesketh.com
* Capstrat
* User-View
* SAS

Recap: World Usability Day 2006 Interactionary

GSK
The GlaxoSmithKline team exhibited enthusiasm and great team spirit on their “home court.”  After hearing the problem description, the team divided into user researchers and designers, with two members interviewing members of the audience while two began design.  GSK was also the only team to bring an audience member into the end of the process for evaluation.

Their final design was focused on simplicity and addressing the problem of motivation—how to get children to pick up after themselves.  The proposed storage was designed to be child-friendly, and to make a fun sound when an item was dropped into it.  The limitation of this design was that it didn’t solve the entire problem—in particular, it didn’t address the organization and retrieval needs of parents, or the specific characteristics of computer games and books.

 

IBM
The IBM team was well-organized and communicated effectively, with dry humor and good use of the whiteboard.  They took a “blue sky” approach to the design brief, arguing that all content will soon be available digitally.  Based on this assumption, they designed a set-top device that could provide unified access to this digital living room.  The drawback of this approach is that it might be very difficult to create an interface for 3 – 5 year-old children.

 

N.C. State
The N. C. State team came out strong with good teamwork, and managed their time effectively.  The team solicited design ideas from parents in the audience, and focused on organization of physical materials.  They developed a combination of color-coded shelves and wheeled organizing bin.  This design was both practical and realistic.  Its major limitation is that it does not address the need to organize and retrieve materials based on specific characteristics, such as title or author.

 

UNC
The UNC team also came out with a strong focus on teamwork and audience interaction, with two team members interviewing audience members while two others clarified assumptions.  Similar to IBM, the UNC team pushed the limits of living-room technology.  Their design integrated a personal library kiosk (with a touch-screen interface) into shelving.  The shelves supported both adults (high height, lockable cabinets) and children (low height, open shelves and bins).  The limitations of this approach included cost and implementation, and the usability of the kiosk for children.

 

The audience speaks…

Here are the results of the audience voting:

            1^st   2^nd    3^rd   4^th

GSK         48%   16%   16%   20%

IBM          0%   32%   20%   48%

UNC         20%   16%   44%   20%

NC State    32%   36%   16%   16%

GSK Interactionary Team Profile #5 (alternate) – Gina Rumley

How did you get involved in user experience design?
Was a software trainer for many years & Tech Writer then was UAT (User Acceptance Testing) Analyst which was somewhat similar to this field- easy transition.

What’s your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
User research- but I enjoy working with wireframes and mockups.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a user experience designer?
Analyzing data and applying it to a new design.

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?
Try to have a life.

GSK Interactionary Team Profile #4 – Lori Hawkins

How did you get involved in user experience design?
I was working as a trainer / tech writer for an over-engineered (unnecessarily so) application. The team brought in a Usability expert who not only suggested a larger study, but also suggested our team learn about Usability. I became one of the first members of our team to start using the techniques (with the guidance of a great mentor, and the fact that I had spent many years evaluating software for schools.)

What’s your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
My specialty is research and analysis. However, I like doing many aspects of the job, including some design. My favorite part is the users expressing their appreciation of being asked for input. It makes the job seem worthwhile.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a user experience designer?
As I am sure all in the field have – balancing user needs against business needs.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
Can’t say. It’s top secret and I’d have to eliminate you if I told. 🙂

What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
Knitting needles – how simple can it get. (see below). Least favorite – wow that could be a long list – I especially hate doors that have lack of affordance so I look like a dork trying to push a door that should be pulled.

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?
Knitting – lots and lots of knitting, and I read voraciously.

GSK Interactionary Team Profile #3 – Cheryl Moehlenbrock

How did you get involved in user experience design?
Mainly through my internship here at GSK.

What’s your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
I’m still learning but currently, my specialty is creating the visual design for web pages and applications.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a user experience designer?
Finding the best compromise between the client’s goals, ease of use, and what looks good.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
The project I’m most proud of so far is a computer mouse design that adjusts to accommodate a range of hand sizes. It also encourages the user’s wrist and forearm to be in a neutral posture.

What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
favorite design: the OXO Good Grips kitchen tools line.
least favorite: Hummers – They may be well designed, but they’re not meant for the road. They’re overkill.

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?
When I’m not at school or work, I’m painting, playing guitar, spending time with friends, or reading.

GSK Interactionary Team Profile #2 – Jean Wright

How did you get involved in user experience design?
Working collaboratively with our multifunctional UCD team members here at GSK

What’s your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
Specialties and favorite parts – Contextual Inquiry, Usability Testing, Personas and Scenarios, High-level Navigation Design

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a user experience designer?
Managing shortened timelines and shifting goals / strategies by clients.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
Current project – high interest with so many different services – redesigning Brand site through interviews, cardsorts, usability testing, IA design and iterative design services.

What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
Favorite? In terms of functional design that’s usable – Southwest.com (sooo easy to book a flight) Least Favorite? Automated check-out kiosks at grocery stores – argghh – still a bit of user research left to do on those.

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products? Spending time w/ family & friends, traveling, swimming in the ocean, dancing, cooking, yoga, walking, reading

GSK Interactionary Team Profile #1 – Lora Fairbanks

How did you get involved in user experience design?
I went to college for Industrial Design and Graphic design. In the curriculum at NC State University’s College of Design, I gained a lot of exposure to Human Factors. Designing with specific people and needs in mind really interested me and I chose to explore this further when choosing my career after college.

What’s your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
I am an interaction designer – the problem solving inherent in this role is definitely my favorite part of user experience design. I would say that I am most happy when there is also a graphical element involved.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a user experience designer?
Being a User Experience Designer is a challenge in itself – you see allllllll the things around you that could be better and deliberate on how you could fix them, given the opportunity.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
Palscommunity.com was a really rewarding project. I liked that it had a philanthropic goal – empowering patient advocates. Additionally, it was a “from scratch” website and was rewarding to see the process work from start to finish.

What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)?
I love gmail!

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?
I have an amazing dog named Able who runs the remainder of my life. I am an avid painter, enjoy travelling, and have recently taken up cycling.

IBM Interactionary Team Profile

Nicole S. Robbins is a User Experience Designer for IBM WebSphere. “I’m currently working on IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory. With all projects, I strive to simplify the user experience and consider the user, then the technology. I joined team IBM to rally around our common initiative and meet more designers in the field.”

David Kovach is a Senior User Experience Designer at IBM. “I am a user experience multidisciplinarian currently working in the IBM developerWorks organization. My background is in the enterprise software arena having been raised in the wonderful world of SAP. Much of my formal experience was in Silicon Valley – a hotbed for UE, UCD, UI, HF, Ux, HCI, and home to the 13 acronyms that were created in the last 2 minutes. I work hard to shed personal views, challenge executive beliefs and take a strong stand everyday for what users want and need. Currently, I am working on a 14 part mini-series called, “UE Blog”, which will hit http://www.ibm.com/developerworks in the coming weeks.”

Lisa M. Salcedo Eichorn works in the IBM Software Group, WPLC for the Lotus Product Design. “Working with a multidisciplinary team, I strive to create software products and information deliverables that are simple, useful and effective. Prior to joining the Lotus team, I designed IBM products for the Networking, Retail Store Solutions and Pervasive Computing divisions.”

Ryan L. Urquhart is part of the IBM Software Group, Tivoli and is a Tivoli User Experience Engineer. “I am a User Xperience Engineer working with the ITCAM portfolio of products. I have a background in Industrial & Systems Engineering, with a concentration in Human Factors Engineering. In my current position, I use Copper’s Outside-In-Design methodology to make the product more consumable for our customers. Additionally, I assist with mentoring other product families inside Tivoli. I decided to join this team of professionals to learn what others are doing to incorporate usability into their process, meet new people with similar backgrounds, and bring home the GOLD for IBM :-).”

UNC Interactionary Team Profile #4 — Noel Fiser

How did you become interested in user experience design?
My family encouraged artistic and intellectual expression. Though my brother’s the certified artist in the family, I always enjoyed thecreativity involved–even if I never have time for it. Web site design gave me the opportunity to apply structure to creativity through HTML and later CSS. There’s so much opportunity for self-expression, as well as rigorous analytical skills, I was hooked.      

What’s your favorite aspect of user experience design?
That’s easy. When someone tells me that my work is “cool” I know I’ve done a good job, because they’re no longer thinking about the drudgery of the task they’re working on but they’ve been immered in the whole user experience.

What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)?  One of your least favorite?
I don’t tend to have favorites because I see interesting designs every day (digg,baby!). Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to make a bad user interface, so I try not to keep those designs in my mind for very long either. Plus, if you get too attached or repulsed by one thing, you automatically limit your own creativity.

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?
Who has time for anything but dreaming these days? There’s a lot of work out there and I try to keep myself busy–constant improvement. That said, the occasional night out, trip to the gym, or nature walk can be energizing.