Archive for the 'Usability' Category

Supa! Social UPA

Published
by
scenariogirl
on May 27, 2009
in Events and Usability
. 2 Comments

Psssssst! Pass it on!

There’s another Social UPA planned for next Thursday, June 4th. And in case you’re wondering, you don’t have to be a UPA member to attend, if you’re working in the area of UX or interested in it, come along. It’s all about catching up, meeting, mixing and talking shop.

We’ll be holding it in the same place, upstairs at the Art House Hotel, on Pitt street, Sydney, from 5:30pm.

One thing I’d really like to mention is that Raymond Van Der Zalm, the current President of the Sydney UPA chapter will be there.

Elections for the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer are being held for Sydney UPA in June, so if you’re at all interested in taking a more active role, come along to Supa next Thursday and ask Raymond all the tough questions! He *loves* it!

See you at Supa!

Supa! Social UPA

Published
by
scenariogirl
on April 1, 2009
in Events and Usability
. 26 Comments

I was talking recently with the gorgeous Penny Hagen wondering about what had happened to the Sydney UPA chapter. Things have been quiet there for a long while and we haven’t had an official meeting for ages.

It got me thinking that it would be great to have a purely social usability gathering, where we could all catch up and get back in touch offline.

We came up with the event name, Underground Usability Professionals Association, or UUPA. But unfortunately, as Erietta was quick to point out, the acronym has already been assumed by another organisation :( [if you're wondering, it's worth a look!]

We then came up with the Blackmarket Usability Meetup, which Pat considered for half a second, until he realised BUM probably wasn’t appropriate.

So here we are, two days out, without a name. Not to worry.

Social UPA!

This is simply a casual after work get together for User Experience people and friends… No microphones, no projectors, no slideshows.

And you don’t need to be a member of the UPA, but interest in User Experience would be good.

Where and when?

Friday April 3rd, 5:00pm onwards
Art House Hotel
275 Pitt Street, Sydney
Upstairs

Come and catch up with some old and new friends!

Can you make it? Let us know and spread the word! I’m really looking forward to it ;)

Lisa

World Usability Day Program

Published
by
scenariogirl
on November 5, 2007
in Events and Usability
. 3 Comments

Just a reminder that World Usability day is this Thursday, November 8th. Pick a presentation you’d like to see and then hang around for a look at Telstra’s new usability lab… I can’t wait to see that one. I’ve worked with Sensis in their usability lab, which I thought was great, so this one should be really state of the art… let’s see!

Come for one session or come for them all, it’s going to be an interesting day:

Where:

Telstra’s Experience Centre

Level 4, 400 George Street, Sydney

I’m on at 12:45 and will be giving a presentation similar to the one I gave at Web Directions, Usability: More than skin deep, which looks at the need to incorporate accessibility into all user experience research and design projects as a core component.

Presentation Sessions:
9:00am The importance of customer experience to a large corporate

Holly Kramer, Group Managing Director, Telstra Product Management, Telstra

9:15am Customer experience at Telstra

Cyrus Allen, Director of Customer Experience and Cecilia Hill, Customer Experience Lead, Data IP and Enterprise Solutions

10:00am User experience design of a hospital-based managed healthcare service

Fiona Meighan, User Experience Specialist, Telstra

10:45am The risks of medical equipment failing and why usability is important

Paul Hynes, Special Counsel, Moray & Agnew

12:00pm The impact of poor usability on people’s lives

James Breeze, Chief Experience Officer, Objective Digital

12:45pm Usability and accessibility

Lisa Herrod, Principal Usability Consultant, Scenario Seven

1:30pm Web usability for those with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties – NSW Guardianship Tribunal case study

Roger Hudson, Principal, Web Usability

2:15pm Trustworthy technology – Privacy and identity in the healthcare industry

Kevin Cox, Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Edentiti

3:00pm Advanced telemedicine – Accessing health services remotely

Laurie Wilson, CSIRO

4:00pm Design thinking and usability

Melis Senova-Tapp, Chief Technology Office, Emerging Technology, Telstra

More information can be found on the Sydney UPA’s World Usability Day event page.

See you there!

Ethics, Gambling and Usability

Published
by
scenariogirl
on October 20, 2007
in Usability and User Experience
. 8 Comments

I’m doing some research at the moment for a blog post I’m writing for Sitepoint on ethics in user experience design. One of the areas I’m looking at is the ethics of incorporating user experience design principles in the design and development of online gambling sites and applications. It’s a massive can of worms and one that I find offensive from a moral perspective.

Don’t make me do it

There are specific industries for which I will never work, and the gambling industry is on the top of that list. I know this because I’ve said no in the past and it felt GOOD.

While working for my last employer, a reasonably large piece of work came in from a very well known gambling company (I am choosing not to link to either as neither deserve a single click of recognition). At the time it was thought that all areas of the business would be involved in the project, including: technical testing, performance and load testing and usability. I was absolutely appalled that the company I worked for was excited by the prospect of ‘winning’ this job. It disgusted me to see that they were prepared to throw experts in performance and usability at a project that would, if successful, increase the opportunity for people to lose their money.

My position was made clear to both my group and the company that I would not work on the project, and that I was disappointed that the company was not prepared to take a moral stand and decline the work. Had I been forced to work on it, I would have resigned, without a doubt. There are numerous web agencies that decline work from industries deemed to be harmful, including gambling and tobacco, but sadly for my past employer the money was too enticing.

The ethics of judgement

This is a challenging topic for me as it highlights an area of my life in which I am judgemental of others. Not of those that gamble, but of those that promote, encourage and enhance the experience. It literally sickens me and I find no way of understanding why a professional, user experience consultant would ever choose to work on such a job.

So I’ll leave you with this, something I found during my research and the motivation for this post today. A conference session at the Mobile Gambling Summit, Asia 2005:

Ensure user needs are answered at every link in the mobile gambling value chain
Driving ARPU* means creating an engaging and glitch-free user experience that will leave your customers hungry for more. How to adopt a user centred approach throughout the mobile gambling value chain.

Roland Keller, Global Innovation Manager, Siemens
pdf source

*ARPU is an acronym for Average Revenue Per User

I really don’t know how people find themselves in these jobs, but I’m sure glad it isn’t me…

WD07 Podcast: More than skin deep

Published
by
scenariogirl
on October 18, 2007
in Accessibility, Events, Speaking, Usability and User Experience
. 3 Comments

Yeah I might be crazy. I haven’t even finished listening to this myself.

In fact, I haven’t even got as far as the bit where I wake up Cameron Adams (see the final bullet point!), who so politely fell asleep in the middle of my preso…!

But I’m a brave girl and am willing to take the risk.

So here it is, my second podcast in two days, Usability: More than skin deep.

I’ll be creating a Slidecast of this in the next few days and will let you know when that’s been uploaded…