World Usability Day – Three Events in Michigan!

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November 13, 2008World Usability Day Events: 9-5 MSU, 3-5:15 Michigan Tech, 6-9:30 Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor, East Lansing, & Houghton, MI

World Usability Day is blossoming here in Michigan! We’ve grown from one event in 2007 to three events in 2008, spanning 555 miles within Michigan! Local events can be found in Ann Arbor, East Lansing, and Houghton. While it might be challenging to get to all three, please do join in the festivities, wherever you are located in Michigan!

Michigan Usability Professionals’ Association

The Michigan UPA chapter is offering Usability in Your Life and the Products You Use 6:00-9:30 p.m. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Speakers from the University of Michigan, Ford Motor Company, Menlo Innovations, Tec-Ed, Ansys, and the getDowntown program of the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce will highlight usability in transportation.

Michigan State University’s Usability and Accessibility Center

MSU is celebrating World Usability Day with their sixth annual usability and accessibility event. The event is 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at the MSU Union, in East Lansing, Michigan. A distinguished speaker line-up will address usability and accessibility issues.

Michigan Technological University

Michigan Tech is hosting WUD-UP! World Usability Day in the Upper Peninsula at Michigan Tech featuring a poster session 3:00-4:00 p.m. and a panel discussion 4:00-5:15 p.m. in Houghton, Michigan. Take the Global Transport Challenge! World Usability Day

Learn More About Your Users with Less Time and Money: Remote User Testing and Research

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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.

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Introduction to Usability: An Interactive Discussion

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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!

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UXnet @ The Henry Ford’s “Out of this World”

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Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Henry Ford, Dearborn, MI

Host: The User eXperience network (UXnet)

Date: Saturday, December 6, 2008

Time: 9:30am – 5:00pm

Location: The Henry Ford

Street: 20900 Oakwood Blvd

City/Town: Dearborn, MI

Visit to The Henry Ford with your User Experience colleagues. See the special exhibit “Out of this World” and other parts of the museum (and Greenfield Village if the weather is good). There MIGHT be a special time/place to meet your UX colleagues, but there might not. If we all go on the same day, we will run into each other as we visit the museum, and that may be enough.

Acrobat: Features, accessibility, and version 9

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Ann Arbor, MI

The next Refresh Detroit meeting will be 6:30pm, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at Ann Arbor SPARK in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. We are fortunate to have Adobe representative Doug Halliday lead the presentation.

Doug will highlight features in Acrobat, including creating PDFs, sharing, forms and usability. He’ll also discuss the new features in the upcoming Acrobat 9 version, due for release in mid-summer 2008. Adobe expert Greg Pisocky will join our meeting remotely to explain the accessibility features in Acrobat.
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