World Usability Day Taps Sustainability Experts as Five-Year Event Co-Chairs

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Judith Eckles

SageFrog Marketing Group

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Chicago, Illinois, August 11, 2009:  Elizabeth Rosenzweig, founder and president of World Usability Day, announced today that Nathan Shedroff, chair of the ground-breaking MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, CA, and Brian Sullivan, the Usability Principal at the Sabre Human Factors Center, are the 2009 co-chairs. Held annually, the second Thursday in November (November 12), World Usability Day is a worldwide conglomeration of events and educational forums emphasizing the increasing importance of simplicity of use in all of the products we use. “A cell phone should be as easy to use as a doorknob,” Rosenzweig cited as an example.  The 2009 theme is “Designing for a Sustainable World.”

World Usability is about making our world work better. It's about "Making Life Easy" and user friendly. Technology today is too hard to use. In order to humanize a world that uses technology as an infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, government, communication, entertainment, work and other areas, we must develop these technologies in a way that serves people first.

 “I am honored to co-chair World Usability Day,” said Shedroff. “Design makes a tremendous impact on the produced world in terms of usability, resources, understanding, sustainability, and priorities. What we produce, how we serve customers and other stakeholders, and even how we understand how the world works is all affected by the design of models and solutions. Designers have an unprecedented opportunity to use their skills to make meaningful, sustainable change in the world,” he said.

Shedroff is one of the pioneers in Experience Design, an approach to design that encompasses multiple senses and requirements and explores common characteristics in all media that make experiences successful, as well as related fields, Interaction Design and Information Design.

 “Nathan and Brian have been invaluable in helping develop this year’s theme, ‘Designing for a Sustainable World’,” said Rosenzweig.

Sullivan has been involved in the IT industry for over 20 years. He has participated on panels at the Usability Professionals Association (UPS) Conferences in 2008 and 2009. A welcomed speaker, he presented at the Big (D)esign Conference, and presented at the Poster Revolution at UPA 2007.

 

Sullivan has held numerous positions including Content Management, Training Development, QA, Customer Support, and Usability. He holds an MA in English Literature, MBA in Management Information Systems, and a Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) from Human Factors International.

 

“We decided for 2009 we wanted to add sustainability to our theme. 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. This holistic approach to sustainable design shows how usability can apply to all of what we do and build,” said Sullivan. “I couldn’t be more pleased to have been invited to co-chair of this year’s World Usability Day.

World Usability Day was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals' Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, on the second Thursday of November, events are organized in over 43 countries around the world to raise the public’s awareness, and to train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.  For World Usability Day details go to:  http://www.worldusabilityday.org/sites/worldusabilityday.org/files/about_wud_2009.pdf