WUD 2006: Catalyzing usability and design in Bangalore

Visit http://www.wudbangalore2006.com event write-ups, photographs and more.  

On Nov 14, 2006,
Oracle Corporation hosted World Usability Day in Bangalore with
participation from other product and service companies, design houses,
Indian design academia, usability professionals, and enthusiasts.

The
forum covered cutting edge research topics and field experiences
through keynote speakers. Idea boards and speed meeting sessions helped
connect participants with other usability enthusiasts. A special panel
discussion was organised on the evolution of usability in Bangalore.
Overall, WUD Bangalore achieved the goal to connect different people
working on usability to learn and share new approaches.

Amit Pande and Patanjali Venkatacharya from Oracle welcomed the audience to the Bangalore World Usability Day event.

Jeremy
Ashley, VP of User Experience at Oracle kicked off the event live from
Redwood Shores, California and spoke about the increasing acceptance of
user experience in the business of technology and the role that India
is playing in catalyzing the field. Following this, there were four
presentations from practitioners and researchers in the field. The
speakers presented diverse perspectives to both inform the audience
about how they are working on making things easy in their domains.

Dr.
Joe Goldberg from Oracle gave the first presentation on ‘Interaction
Design Challenges for Wideband Displays’. In his talk, Joe spoke about
current trends in the design of software products for large screen
displays. He showed results from preliminary recent studies on the
usage of wideband displays and design implications of these studies.

Following
this, Param from GE Healthcare presented unique perspectives on
designing usable software products from the healthcare industry. Among
the highlights of his talk was a quote by an American nurse ‘I already
have five full patients, I don’t want to use your software and get a
sixth one”.

The
third presentation of the day by Udai Pawar provided an engaging
account of Microsoft Research India’s work on ‘Computing for
Development’. Udai covered examples from digital photography and
technology interventions in rural education and the implications for
rural computing at large.

Ending
this diverse series of presentations was Pankaj Jhunja’s presentation
on ‘Revisiting Usability from an Industrial Design perspective’. Using
examples from the consumer products and automotive sectors, Pankaj
provided an excellent overview of related user experience and sensory
considerations and the need to design holistically.

When and Where ?

Date: Tuesday, 14 November, 2006
Time: 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm

Post event party started at 8:00 pm

Venue: Oracle India, Oracle Technology Park,
#3, Bannerghata Road, (Near Dairy Circle)
Bangalore, KA - 560 029

What happened at WUD Bangalore?

WUD
Bangalore brought together the perspectives on usability from a
community of Indian and international peers. The event included speaker
presentations, a panel discussion, and community networking forums.
Presentation details are described below:

Speaker Presentations
The
key note speakers gave presentations on how technologies as diverse as
wideband displays and rural computers are redefining the experience of
‘computing’

Specific questions for the panel discussion were:

Community Networking Forums
Community events included the high octane Speed Meeting event (http://people.interaction-ivrea.it/j.tester/speedmeeting,
concept broadcast boards to share project ideas, and group
events/forums to share thoughts on the usability of everyday products.