Mercer Event for World Usability Day
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Name Marjorie T. Davis, Ph.D.
Organization Mercer University
Phone number 478.301.2356
Email address davis_mt@mercer.edu
Mercer Event for World Usability Day
Macon, GA, November 7, 2009: Visitors to Mercer University School of Engineering on Saturday, Nov. 7, saw what it means to make websites more usable. Mercer’s technical communication students demonstrated their state-of-the-art usability lab and showed high school students and their families how testing web portals improves usability. Interested visitors could participate to try out web portals themselves and provide feedback on ways to improve the user’s experience.
The World Usability Day event was just one of the lab experiences available to a large group of scholarship applicants to Mercer’s School of Engineering. The technical communication program is one of the premier programs in the country because of its location within engineering and strong technical foundations. Several Mercer graduates have completed graduate study in usability and instructional design at such institutions as Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Illinois, and Bentley College.
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.
Seoul Semiconductor, NGL Make 1000 Free Light Bulbs Available Through the World Usability Day Project Website
For Immediate Release
Contact: Organization Contact:
Judith Eckles Elizabeth Rosenzweig
SageFrog Marketing Group World Usability Day
484-684-6717 617-244-6905
610-766-0053 (cell)
Going Green on price comparison sites
User Vision is challenging consumers to test just how easy it is to go green and switch to a more energy efficient provider using price comparison sites.
The study is being launched as part of the company’s preparations for World Usability Day 2009.
Emma Kirk User Vision’s Strategic Director explains: “We all know we need to go green but in reality how easy is it to do so? This is the vital question World Usability Day is asking this year. It is far more difficult to change consumer behaviour if we don’t make it easy for consumers to make green choices. Very often it can be the subtlest of changes to a website that can make the biggest difference.”
User Vision will conduct expert usability evaluations of six price comparison websites to see just how easy or difficult the user experience journey is for those wanting to switch to or compare green energy options.
On World Usability Day this analysis will be developed further by giving attendees the chance to test the usability of these websites. This will be done on the internet and on mobile phones using advanced eye tracking technology, to gather real insights from end users.
Results will be analysed and reported and the final results revealed after World Usability Day.
World Usability Day was founded to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use. Thursday 12 November is its fifth anniversary and this year its focus is on Designing for a Sustainable World.
Every year User Vision has taken part in World Usability Day, running an event for clients, consumers and usability experts that increases in popularity every year.
More than 40,000 people in 180 cities across 40 countries took part in last year’s World Usability Day. It is expected that this year’s will be bigger than ever.
User Vision is one of the UK’s leading independent user experience consultancies testing multiple platforms including websites, interactive TV, software and mobile phones for companies like BBC, HSBC, Nokia and the DTI.
World Usability Day Taps Sustainability Experts as Five-Year Event Co-Chairs
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Judith Eckles
SageFrog Marketing Group
484-684-6717
World Usability Day Taps Sustainability Experts
As Five-Year Anniversary Event Co-Chairs
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.
World Unites Around Global Transportation Challenge
43 countries host events to support transportation being easier and safer to use while more energy friendly for our
environment
Read the Press Release
4th Annual World Usability Day Launches The Global Transport Challenge
Boston MA – October 28, 2008 -- On November 13, 2008, towns and cities around the world will focus on a common global concern – transportation usability and its impact on our environment. World Usability Day 2008 will launch the Global Transport Challenge at www.worldusabilityday.org to help individuals measure their everyday travel usage; monitor their carbon travel footprint and compare it with others around the world; and minimize their energy usage through alternative travel choices, carbon offsets and simple travel changes. Additionally, with events in 40 countries and counting, World Usability Day is estimated to bring together 50,000 participants and volunteers from corporations, organizations, and universities to focus on transportation issues globally. World Usability Day was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use. (www.upassoc.org)
As it kicks off its fourth annual global series of events on the benefits of usability engineering and user-centered design, transportation will play center stage. Crossing cultural boundaries and bringing together people from major cities like New York and London to far-reaching regions such as Iceland, Hong Kong, Uruguay and first-time event hosts in Pakistan, Reunion Island, Estonia and Peru, the events the ground by thousands of volunteers.
According to World Usability Day founder and director Elizabeth Rosenzweig the first three World Usability Days have been a tremendous success, and the significance of the day continues to grow as a way to bring the world together towards a common goal of making life easier.
Opening Plenary is a Huge Success! Watch a Recording of the Session
A live webcast plenary session to open World Usability Day 2007 in Boston has just wrapped up. You can watch a recording here: http://tinyurl.com/37p5zv
At the login screen, enter your name. “Recording key” should be left blank.
For more highlights from World Usability Day 2007, check out the World Usability Day Community site!
Live Webcast Will Close World Usability Day 2007 Download Required in Advance
Please note: you must download the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Software prior to the webcast. We recommend that you download the software well in advance of the webcast. These instructions (.doc) will guide you through the process.
Our closing session, which will be webcast live on November 8th at 6:00 pm United States Eastern Standard Time (11:0 pm GMT!), will feature an address from Redmond, WA, entitled “Learnings from the Healthcare Industry: Trends, challenges and directions for best principles”. Microsoft’s Andrew Kirby and Linda Walmer talk about challenges and progress in this area, including what we can all do in the effort to create and apply best practices in this domain. Andrew Kirby is Director of the National Health Service Common User Interface project in Microsoft’s Solutions Development team in the UK. Linda Walmer is User Experience Director in the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft, located in Redmond, WA. (And Bill Gates even chimes in with a taped closing statement!)
To read and post more event highlights, go to the World Usability Day Community site!
Less Than A Month Before World Usability Day 2007!
With less than a month to go until World Usability Day 2007, now is the time to:
- Register your event today at www.worldusabilityday.org. You may register anytime up to November 8th and we will promote your event. Registering by October 29th guarantees timely delivery of your World Usability Day backpacks, calendars, posters and other materials.
Please note: University, Student and Webcast-only events can register for free. If your location can not pay the registration fee, please email us to receive a World Usability Day scholarship. We want EVERYONE included in and registered for World Usability Day 2007. Email: caryn@worldusabilityday.org for help with registration or call 617.905.5691.
- Contribute to our NEW World Usability Day Community. Go to www.worldusabilityday.org and click on Community. You can post blogs, articles, white papers, photos, podcasts, contribute to our World Usability Day Passport and more. Share your stories on Healthcare and Usability challenges and solutions. Let us hear your voice.
- View the 2007 global events and make plans to attend an event in your city.
- Volunteer at an event near you or for our global webcasts. Email: events@worldusabilityday.org for more details.
- Photograph or video an event. We will have a news desk working round-the-clock on World Usability Day to upload the latest news and views from global events. Work with our team to provide a lens into your event and share it worldwide in real-time.
- Support our worldwide PR team with your stories. Before, during and after World Usability Day, let us know what's happening. Send your stories to: events@worldusabilityday.org.
- Share this email with your colleagues, friends and family and encourage them to get involved. This year's focus is Healthcare. Everyone is affected by healthcare and usability everyday!
World Usability Day 2007 wants to thank our sponsors for their support.
Detail of Annie's Presentation
by CarynSaitz
| Comments
This year's WUD event in Shanghai, Annie is going to talk about the 'Benefit from having persona in product development' and share stories with the audience.
Personas are fictional people based on real data. It is a vehicle for bring our users alive; and a practical tool to prioritize features and maintain focus on target users. In the session, we will learn how to create a Persona that represents real data of the target users, how to let the product team aware of its importance, and willing to apply it throughout product development, and the benefits and dangers of using the Persona along with a few stories sharing from you and me.
