Presentation Abstracts
Morning Sessions (Concurrent)
WORKSHOP: SESSION 1-A
9:00 - 11:00 a.m. | (Room Big Ten B)
Usability as a Tool for Capacity Building: Conducting Community-Based User Research
Jeff Grabill
This workshop helps participants move common and well-understood practices and methods
("usability") into a less common domain of application, "the community." The workshop
focuses on key contextual differences and resulting methodological decisions that
researchers must make. Significant focus is given to usability as a way to help
build capacity in communities.
WORKSHOP: SESSION 1-B
9:00 - 11:00 a.m. | (Room Big Ten C)
Live Web Site Evaluations: Usability and Marketing Message
Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus
Why is Web site usability important? In an informative and entertaining way, Mitropoulos-Rundus
will demonstrate how and why it matters by conducting live evaluations of Web sites
that have been submitted by attendees. The session provides a rare opportunity to
interact with stakeholders and designers, and, time and bandwidth permitting, discuss
your site. The interactive evaluations that occur in this session will
reveal areas of excellence as well as opportunities for improvement. Most important,
they will focus your attention on what's important for design and improvement of
your Web sites.
If you are interested in having a particular site evaluated during this session (Web
site must belong to you or the company you work for) send (1) address of Web site
of interest, (2) your name and contact information, and (3) your affiliation with
the site, in an E-mail to Liveweb@internetuserexperience.biz
Afternoon Sessions
SESSION 2
1:15 - 1:45 p.m. | (Auditorium)
New Communication Technology for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People
Christopher Hunter
Telecommunications and movie theatre access for deaf and hard of hearing people continue
to improve. This presentation demonstrates the "Big Three Hot Tech"-including video
relay/video remote interpreting, captioned telephone, and motion picture access
(MOPIX)-that are widely used in the U.S.
SESSION 3
1:45 - 2:45 p.m. | (Auditorium)
"Ford! Where's My Car?" -- The Story of Usability and Vehicle Order Management
Chad Esselink, Martin Rutyna,
Eric Schrage, and Mike Mistak
The Ford IT Creative Design and Usability team discusses its work on a large scale
project involving usability testing, multiple wireframe revisions, and incorporation
of accessible JavaScript components. While business confidentiality requirements
limit discussion of some aspects of the project, a detailed look at a few of our
efforts should provide insight on the integration of usability principles into a
large scale development project.
SESSION 4
3:15 - 3:45 p.m. | (Auditorium)
Podcasting About Usability: Behind the Sounds of "Design Critique: Products
for People"
Timothy Keirnan and
Tom Brinck
Tim Keirnan is co-founder of the Michigan chapter of the Usability Professionals'
Association and creator/co-host of Design Critique: Products for People,
one of the first podcasts devoted to user-centered design. Out of frustration with
the still-spotty adoption of user-centered design principles in consumer and professional
products, he created the podcast in 2005 with friend and peer Tom Brinck, co-author
of Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work.
Design Critique preaches the gospel of user-centered design through a variety
of episode types: (1) longitudinal reviews, in which Keirnan and Brinck discuss
design details of consumer hardware and software products they have both used for
several months to give their reviews "lived-in" credibility; (2) WordCasts, in which
Keirnan and Brinck discuss a user interface design principle or professionally related
concept; and (3) interviews, in which Keirnan and Brinck learn what their peers
are doing in user experience-related fields.
Episodes often feature guest contributors. Part Car Talk for user experience
professionals and part "Bob and Doug McKenzie with master's degrees," Design Critique
has been said to be hosted by the "odd couple" of usability. Tim/Felix and Tom/Oscar
hope their informal, occasionally humorous attempt to convey the importance of human-centered
design is helpful to businesses not yet acquainted with UCD practices, fun for students
who really should be doing their homework instead of listening to podcasts, and
worthwhile for their peers to learn what each other are up to. You can listen to
Design Critique: Products for People at www.designcritique.net or subscribe for free at Apple's
iTunes Music Store podcast listings (search on Design Critique).
SESSION 5
3:45 - 4:15 p.m. | (Auditorium)
Driver Distraction: What is the Problem and How can it be Solved?
Paul A. Green
In the last few years driving has changed, with drivers attempting to time-share
between driving and other personal tasks such as eating, grooming, and using cell
phones. This presentation discusses crash data, UMTRI and other data on the frequency
of occurrence of these tasks, legislative and technical solutions to reduce the
risk of distractions, and speculation about the future of in-vehicle technology.
Some goals of this presentation are to debunk myths about driver distraction (and
the use of cell phones) with scientific data, and to provide guidance for engineers
and product designers, legislators and law enforcement officials, and the general
public about how to make products safe and easy to use. Of particular importance
are lessons learned from the ongoing Safety Vehicles Using Adaptive Interface Technologies
(SAVE-IT) project on driver workload management.
SESSION 6
4:15 - 5:15 p.m. | (Auditorium)
The Expertise and Complexity of Citizen Knowledge Work; or, A Tale of How Information
Technologies Move from Being Good Collaborators to Poor Collaborations
Jeff Grabill
This talk is based on a study of an existing data democratization effort called CACVoices, and includes a public
Web site that hosts both a powerful set of databases and other types of public information.
It is an example of a common type of community network that aggregates information,
tools, and IT capacity for "the public." Citizen and community-based organizations
in nearly every community rely on networks like CACVoices to do their work.
In doing this research we have learned that the work of individuals and groups within
these organizations constitutes a type of "knowledge work." However, while complex
information technologies are readily available to such users, it is unclear how
well the tools support expert knowledge workers in these new contexts. This study
is one attempt to provide evidence about a common but largely invisible area of
human-computer interaction -- community-based knowledge work. In this talk we discuss
our results and report on our attempts to design new tools to support community-based
knowledge work.
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