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Workshop 4: Certifying Usability Professionals: How Can Competence be Assessed?Tuesday, July 9th, 8:30AM - 5:00 PMKeywords:Certification, Professional development, Strategic usabilityAudience:Advanced, Managers/Usability Advocates (Note: While the submission requirements asked for only two selections here, and we have selected the most important audience, we would also like to include a cross-section of beginner and intermediate practitioners.)Contact:JNowicki@optavia.comAbstract:The workshop will review the scheme for certifying usability professionals proposed by an international working group that is setting up a certification consortium. The intended scope is user centered design as described in ISO 13407. The certification scheme should benefit not only practitioners, but also employers, trainers and educators.DurationOne dayTopic Category:Issues and strategies for experienced usability professionalsSystem, Product, or Project Focus:No specific system, product, or project orientationParticipant selection criteriaParticipants will be selected based on:
Position Paper Required for AcceptanceWorkshop registration is closed. If you are interested in participating please contact the workshop coordinator immediately. (Previous registration information: You must submit a position paper for this workshop before your workshop registration will be accepted and processed. Send your position paper to JNowicki@optavia.com. Please include the following information in your position paper:)
Pre-workshop participant activitiesIn advance of the workshop, participants will be provided with the current versions of documents produced by the working group, including a draft of the competency definition for usability professionals, as well as the current proposed certification methods and process. They will be asked to review these materials thoroughly before the workshop. In addition, participants must be prepared to present a verbal 2-3 minute story (scenario), regarding certification, based on their stakeholder role. For example, a participant who has identified himself or herself as an entry-level practitioner might prepare a story about a trying to find training to prepare for certification.One participant volunteer will be identified to make a submission for a simulated certification to be done later in the workshop. Pre-workshop facilitator activitiesMembers of the international working group, which originally convened in November 2001, will facilitate the workshop. Prior to the workshop, the facilitators will assemble the latest documents available from the working group, and disseminate to participants as described above. The facilitators will prepare cards from the certification issues defined by participants in their position papers. They will create nametags that include the stakeholder designation of each individual (e.g., employer, new practitioner…).Detailed description of content with session timelineThe workshop will focus on two main types of activities: those designed to collect general issues and concerns about certification, and activities that gather specific feedback and analysis of the proposed certification criteria. The workshop will begin and end with general issues.
Background: Description of work done so far by the working group, presented by facilitators (30 mins)Because the workshop is based on work-in-progress, the facilitators will give participants a concise history of the working group's activities and deliverables so far. They will also review the current details of the proposed certification criteria and methods. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions and at least 10 minutes will be devoted to Q&A.Storytelling: Scenarios about certification from participants (60 mins)In preparation for the workshop, participants will have prepared a story about certification to deliver verbally during this portion of the workshop. Each participant will have 2-3 minutes to tell his or her story, playing the designated stakeholder role. Stories will be recorded using a digital audio recorder, so that scenarios can be created and re-used later for certification scheme analysis. The facilitators will record key issues on flipcharts as each participant tells a story.Mock certification: Volunteer interview with audience participation (105 mins)The proposed certification process includes submission of written material and an interview. This section will allow the participants to create specific feedback and suggestions on the criteria during a simulated certification. The volunteer will be questioned on each item in the definition of competency. Other participants can then make brief comments about the appropriateness of the competency item from their own experience. Issues and suggested changes will be written on post-it notes. Workshop participants who are potential candidates for certification will be asked to vote on whether they would expect to be judged competent on the item. The profile of percentage of potential candidates competent in each item will support discussion in the afternoon about whether the scheme is using the right items, has adopted the appropriate level of competency, and whether and how candidates could supplement their existing expertise in order to pass.Review of morning activities: are there major issues of principle, or minor points of detail? (30 mins)The morning activities will be reviewed to add to the list of issues and recommended changes. Develop list of changes, discuss and prioritize (75 mins)The goal of this section will be to come to as much consensus as possible on the recommended need for changes. The recommended changes will be posted around the room. Facilitators will direct participants to circulate and read all proposals. Each person will then be given an allocated number of points (as small stickers) to vote on the few changes they think are most crucial. Facilitators will tally the results and lead a discussion of the top changes.Card-based SWOT analysis from issues uncovered during the session (30 mins)Emphasis will now move back to the big-picture or general issues identified during the workshop. Facilitators will have prepared issue cards from participants' position papers and storytelling. Participants can add to the card pile if general issues are uncovered at any time during the day. During this section, facilitators will read the issues and ask the group to classify them in a SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat).Risk analysis: Develop strategies for weaknesses and threats from SWOT (45 mins)Participants will take 15 minutes to work individually on potential risk-reducing strategies for the weaknesses and threats identified in the SWOT. The remaining 30 minutes will be spent in a facilitated discussion of participants' ideas. Participants will also be encouraged to submit ideas off-line to facilitators at the end of the workshop.Dissemination of ResultsWe will publish the results in the Voice and Web site if UPA determines that these options are feasible. In addition, the results will be given to the certification working group.BACKGROUND OF PRESENTERSJulie NowickiPresident Optavia Corporation Voice: 608-260-9000, ext. 301 Fax: 608-260-9909 Email: Jnowicki@optavia.com Julie is the President of Optavia Corporation, a consulting firm that specializes in creating usable technology. She has 17 years of experience in the computer industry as a project manager, senior analyst, and usability consultant. Julie has consulted with Fortune 500 organizations nationwide, and is a highly-rated educator who frequently speaks at local, regional and national conferences. She takes a special interest in professional development for usability practitioners: she is chair of the UPA professional development committee, and has built several national usability teams by mentoring new practitioners as well as working with experienced professionals. Julie represents the UPA as part of an international working group that is attempting to develop a usability certification consortium. She has an M.S. in Industrial Engineering/Human Factors from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nigel Bevan Research Manager Serco Usability Services Voice: +44 20 74 21 64 74 Fax: +44 20 74 21 64 77 Email: nbevan@usability.serco.com Dr Nigel Bevan is Research Manager at Serco Usability Services. He has first degrees in physics and psychology, and a PhD in man-machine interaction. Nigel provides consultancy in usability and user centered design. He was technical coordinator of the EU MUSiC (Measurement of Usability in Context) project that produced methods for usability measurement. These methods have since been widely applied commercially. He was manager of the TRUMP project that incorporated user centered design into the development processes of two large organizations and the PRUE project that trialed use of the Common Industry format for usability test reports. He currently manages the UsabilityNet project that is establishing a web site of usability resources for use in Europe. He is participating in the usability certification working group with the support of UsabilityNet. Nigel contributed to the development of the ISO 13407 and ISO 18529 standards that underlie the certification process. Nigel is a Board member of the UPA. Whitney Quesenbery Usability and Design Consultant/Senior VP for Design Cognetics Corporation Voice: 609-799-5005, ext. 224 Fax: 609-799-8555 Email: whitneyq@cognetics.com Whitney Quesenbery is the Senior Vice-President for Design for Cognetics Corporation, a company dedicated to the creation of user-centered software. She has created user interfaces for software applications, web sites, and hyper-media, for clients including Lucent, IBM, ADP, Siemens, Novartis, Eli Lilly, and more. She is one of the developers of the LUCID Framework, which is both a user-centered philosophy and a management strategy that augments existing software development processes. LUCID models the user interface on the user's conception of their work, not the technical implementation. Whitney is a frequent presenter and author on user-centered design topics. She is the author of a chapter on "Dimensions of Usability" in a forthcoming book, Content and Complexity (Albers and Mazur, ed.) for Erlbaum. In 1999, she was a co-leader of a UPA Workshop, Crossing the Chasm: Using Methodology to Sell Usability. She is active in professional organizations as the Manager of the STC Usability SIG and a member of the Board of Directors of the UPA. |
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