Category: MiUXPA Events

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Soar Technology in Ann Arbor

How well does your product or website meet your customers’ needs and expectations? Does your product simplify or complicate your client’s workday?

This evening session, open to the general public, will explain this thing called “Usability”. Using a combination of presentations and demonstrations with products ranging from alarm clocks to speeding cars to the high tech hands free voice activated SYNC that was jointly developed by Ford and Microsoft, attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of the value of designing an excellent, compelling, and safe user experience into products. It will also drive home the point that usability is a rigorous design practice that is applied to much more than just web sites.

Usability in Your Life and in the Products You Use is one of many events around the world on World Usability Day, November 13, features speakers from the worlds of software development and technology integration. This event will equip you with an overview of how to listen to your users and find out what they need. It is perfect for people and companies interested in making products that really work for users.

Speakers

R. Jeffrey Benko, Lead Technical Service Engineer at ANSYS, Inc.

Multi-physics Simulation: More Fidelity, Less Effort
Jeff will speak on how Ansys streamlined the workflow for multi-physics simulation activities, replacing the human-powered, laborious, and error-prone linking of disparate software components within a common user environment.

Rich Sheridan, Menlo Innovations CEO

Widespread Adoption: The Key Metric for Design Success.

Richard will describe the focus and techniques of Menlo’s High-tech Anthropology® team. Sheridan will provide compelling industry examples as evidence of the power of an anthropological approach to design.

Brian Phelps, Tec-Ed

Can I hear you now? Designing the User Interface of a Product that Improves Cell Phone Reception.
A common problem in today’s wireless world is poor cell phone reception in one’s home. Tec-Ed’s client (Nextivity, Inc.) developed the technical solution and sought expertise to design the user interface and validate it with real users.

Paul Green, Research Professor, Human Factors Division, UMTRI; President, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Automotive Human Factors:
What is it, who does it, how do we do it, and what we are working on at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Tom Hodges, SYNC and Digital Marketing Manager, Customer Service Division, Ford Motor Company

Usability in the development of the Ford SYNC:
an in-car communications and entertainment system that allows drivers to bring nearly any mobile phone or digital media player into their vehicle and operate them using voice commands, the vehicle’s steering wheel, or radio controls.

Nancy Shore, getDowntown Program Director

The Commuter Challenge: Competition, Prizes, and Consciousness-Raising about Sustainable Transportation.
Nancy will discuss getDowntown’s Commuter Challenge, a month-long competition that encourages employees to use sustainable transportation. She’ll outline the key elements of success and how these could be used to encourage people to use your product or service.

Although this event is free, please RSVP to events@miupa.org to ensure that there are enough food and beverages for everyone.

The Michigan UPA is still seeking sponsors for this event.

Monday, October 27, 2008

At ProQuest in Ann Arbor, MI

Barb Hernandez, Josephine Scott, and Casey Wright, ProQuest

User Experience Practitioners at TechSmith, maker of Morae and UserVue, Hernandez, Scott, & Wright have attempted a variety of unique methods of getting feedback from varied users in diverse locations. In their presentation, they will talk about how the practice of remote testing and field research has evolved alongside network technologies and conferencing tools. Now, researchers can visit and observe users in their offices or homes from their own offices or homes. The variety of networking tools available makes it less expensive and time consuming to gather more feedback from more users. They will discuss their own experiences conducting a variety of research methods remotely, as well as the tools and methodologies used, and challenges and successes experienced.

Continue reading “Learn More About Your Users with Less Time and Money: Remote User Testing and Research” →

Wednesday October 22, 2008

Steelcase Learning Center in Grand Rapids

If you are interested in learning the basics and benefits of user centered design and how to introduce it into your organization, then Introduction to User Centered Design is your chance! Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus, Director of User Experience at Perficient, and Mike Beasley, the president of the Michigan UPA, will lead a
discussion that gives you the opportunity to pose your questions to a couple of user experience experts. You can learn about such things as:

• What IS Usability?  Can you touch it? Can you measure it?
• How can you incorporate it into your organization?
• “Usability,” “User Experience,” “Human Factors,” “Information Architecture?” What’s the deal with all these names?
• What can my website analytics tell me about the usability of my site?
• How you can use user tasks and goals to organize your website.

After an introduction to the basics of usability, they will open the floor to questions. You will set the agenda for this discussion through the questions you bring, so come prepared!

Continue reading “Introduction to Usability: An Interactive Discussion” →

Wednesday June 4, 2008

TechSmith, Okemos, MI

Joanna Markel and Serena Rosenhan, ProQuest

As members of the User Experience Design team at ProQuest, a company that produces information products for libraries, we wanted to know more about how our users approach research. While we routinely conduct usability tests and evaluations as part of our product development processes, we needed a new method to help us answer questions about the tasks and situations for which our products are designed. We turned to contextual inquiry and designed and conducted a series of field observations of college students doing library research. After conducting 13 rather time-consuming in-person observations, we modified our methods to remote online observations and quickly discovered that there were unexpected benefits to this approach in addition to time-savings.
Continue reading “How Remote Contextual Inquiry Got Us Up-Close with Users” →