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 – November 12, 2009

Please save the date for our annual Triangle area World Usability Day celebration.

The theme this year is: Designing for a Sustainable World.

World Usability Day 2009 is approaching design from cradle to cradle. Coming from a user-centric perspective and looking beyond form and function, we are exploring the impact design has on our world. For this year’s event we’ve lined up a great speaker and planned a killer design competition. See below for more information.

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

World Usability Day 2007 Opens on November 8 With Live Webcast Plenary Session

Live Webcast Plenary Session — Download Required in Advance

Our opening plenary session, which will be webcast live on November 8th at 8:30 am United States Eastern Standard Time, will feature an address from World Usability Day’s founder and director, Elizabeth Rosenzweig, and a panel discussion with distinguished speakers supporting the 2007 theme – Healthcare!

The panel discussion focuses on novel strategies and integrating solutions to healthcare challenges from a user centered design perspective. Challenges range from drug delivery, technologies, and medical devices, to pediatric healthcare and personal healthcare records. The panelists use these examples to show how the application of user centered design principles benefit vital issues in human health and how this will continue throughout the upcoming year and beyond.

World Usability Day 2007

• Where: Ruvane Auditorium @ GSK
• When: November 8, 2007 — 6:00PM to 9:00PM
• RSVP for World Usability Day!

Join UX professionals from around the Triangle area for an Interactionary (a live design competition), keynote speech, food, drink, and fun!

Keynote Speaker:

Anthony D. Hall, Ph.D.
IBM Global Web Strategy and Enablement

Interactionary

Simply put, the Interactionary is a live team-based design competition. Teams are given a design problem and 10-20 minutes to design a solution to the problem. Teams then present their design to the audience, and the judges.

Click here to join the competition

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.