Author: Michigan UXPA

Usability Knowledge-Sharing Camp

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Tec-Ed, Ann Arbor, MI

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The UPA‘s Usability Body of Knowledge (BoK) project is the subject of a day-long interactive session. The Body of Knowledge can become a valuable web resource for usability and design, but only with your help!

At this event, you will get the inside story on the UPA’s initiative to create a living reference for the usability profession, and participate in making it happen. The Usability BoK needs your help to:

  • edit and review existing information topics
  • create new entries
  • contribute your favorite useful links
  • help design a usability reference site for the future

These things are easier and more fun when we do it together, and we all learn new things at the same time.

The Michigan UPA invites you to help move the Usability BoK forward. Together, in just a few hours we can make 20-30 really useful topics available to usability practitioners worldwide! We all benefit.

We provide the space and the food. You provide your good ideas, experience, and camaraderie. You don’t have to be an “expert” in any particular aspect of usability (although that’s good, too!) – bring your enthusiasm and interests, and we’ll work together to make things happen.

The day will include:

  • An overview of the Usability BoK project, the topics, and the current web site
  • Identifying what areas you are most interested in, and what experience you can share
  • Small group activities focused on your interests, such as:
    • contribute/review valuable web references
    • final editing and publishing current “draft” topics
    • focus on a single larger topic area, to draft its related sub-topics
    • feedback and refining the design for the future Usability BoK web site

Contact the events coordinator for events-related issues – Carol Smith 773-218-6568 or carol@mw-research.com

Date and Time

Saturday, March 26, 2011
10:00am to 4:00pm
This is a free event and you can stay for all or even just part of the time. Food will be provided. To ensure that we have enough seats and food, please register online and let us know when you can make it and when you will leave.

Please bring a laptop computer if you are able to. This will make it easier for you to do research or look around the Body of Knowledge website.

Cost

Free

Location

Tec-Ed, Inc.
4300 Varsity Drive, Suite A
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
map

Live Social Networking 2010

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Thursday, December 9, 2010, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Corner Brewery

The Michigan UPA invites you to another evening of networking and fun on Thursday, December 9th at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. Enjoy the networking aspect of our meetings? Feel like the speaker or panel gets in the way of the good stuff? This is your chance to skip the speaker and enjoy the company of fellow usability professionals. This will be the fourth year we have done this event, and it has been a great experience each time.

The Corner Brewery is located in Ypsilanti, near historic Depot Town. There is abundant parking, great drinks, and great atmosphere. This is a free event and a great opportunity to catch up with other people in the field and meet new people. We hope to see you there!

When

Thursday, December 9, 6:30PM to 8:30PM

Location

Corner Brewery
720 Norris St
Ypsilanti, MI 48198

Map

Cost

Free admission! (except for any drinks or additional food that you choose to order)

Election Results for the 2011 Board

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The elections for the Michigan Usability Professionals’ Association board is complete, and we are pleased to introduce the 2011 officers! We have new faces on this year’s board:

  • Mike Elledge, Vice President
  • Kelly Sattler, Director of Events
  • Jean Schiller, Treasurer

And returning officers:

  • Mike Beasley, President
  • Deborah Edwards-Onoro, Secretary

Thank you to everyone that voted. We had an incredible amount of participation this year. If you were unable to vote this year, and would like to in future elections, the way to do that is to become a member of the international Usability Professionals Association (UPA). Membership will get you the opportunity to vote for our chapter officers and discounts to our meetings (as well as some excellent benefits like UPA publications).

In addition to a new board, we are very excited to announce three ways that you can get involved as a volunteer and help shape the direction of this chapter, network, and gain valuable experience in visible roles. We are organizing three committees:

Events planning

As a part of this committee, you can help plan Michigan UPA events. Have a topic you’re interested in? You can make sure we do a meeting on it!

Outreach

This committee will help us reach out to people who don’t know much about MI UPA and tell them about it, and maybe even find ways for us to work together. You may reach out to usability-related professionals that haven’t heard about the chapter, students, and even other professional organizations

Development

Want to think far ahead about what the chapter will look like and what it’ll be doing? This is the committee for you. This committee also focuses on strategies for developing funding for the chapter.

Participating in one of these committees would be a valuable experience. If you are interested or would just like to know more, please contact president@miupa.org. We are also open to ideas! If you have an interest in being involved in another area, such as helping us form and education committee, also get in touch.

World Usability Day 2010 in Michigan

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Michigan State University’s Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting (UARC) will host Michigan’s 6th annual World Usability Day event on November 11th at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center in East Lansing (map).

This year’s theme is Mobile Communication and will focus on the usability of websites on cell phones, tablets, PDAs, and other portable devices.

Register (it’s free!) online at the MSU website.

Buy a boxed lunch or bring your own to see great presentations by:

  • Mark Newman, School of Information, University of Michigan
  • Kris Mihalic, Nokia
  • Frank Bentley, Motorola
  • Chuck Baird, State of Michigan
  • Jason Withrow, Washtenaw Community College

Nick Kwiatkowski, Michigan State University, will give a workshop after lunch on using Adobe Flash to design mobile applications.

See you there!

User-Centered Design Seminar

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October 19th – 20th, 2010

Ann Arbor, MI

Humantech is partnering with System Concepts to present this new course which will provide your organization with everything needed to put users at the heart of your design process. Whether your priority is human-computer interaction, industrial design, or the user experience you’ll learn how to understand your users better and design products which are effective, efficient, and satisfying to use. User-centered design techniques will help you complete projects to time and budget, getting the maximum return from your investment.

Humantech and System Concepts are extending a special offer to the members of the Usability Professionals Association and it’s friends to either:

  1. Save $200 off the registration fee by using the discount code DESIGN when registering online, or
  2. Register one get one free by contacting Humantech directly (contact krobertson at humantech.com)