We recognize that practitioners at all levels may have specific areas of interest.

We have grouped most of our sessions into one of several curricula focusing on specific areas of our profession. These include:

Usability for Special Audiences (People with Disabilities, the Elderly, Children)

With maturing awareness by corporations of people with disabilities and of their unique needs, more of us are able to engage this user group, along with children and the elderly, in our design and user feedback activities throughout the project development life cycle. The tutorials, presentations, panels, and posters in this curriculum range from understanding how to design for accessibility, to usability testing for people with disabilities, to implementing and managing corporate-wide accessibility programs. In addition, we’ll learn how to involve children and the elderly in our usability sessions.

• Tutorial 21: Evaluating for Accessibility, Usability Testing in Diverse Situations
• Filling in the Gaps of UI Accessibility Management and Research
• Assessing the Usability of Speech Applications: Optimizing Techniques for Voice User Interfaces
• Lower Literacy Populations: Implications for Usability Inspections and Usability Testing
• Beyond Video: Accessibility Profiles, Personas, and Scenarios Up Close and Personal
• Session Logistics for Usability Testing of Users with Disabilities
• Another –ability: Accessibility Primer for Usability Specialists
• Accessibility Compliance v. Reality of Use – Failings of the “Tick Box” Approach to Universality
• Contextual Inquiry Into Children’s Recreational Reading Using Children as Research Partners
  

Not only are we broadening our horizons with the types of users we seek input and feedback from, but also with what we design and evaluate, and how we solicit user feedback. The WRAP sessions will build our skill base in designing and evaluating wearable computers, PDAs, cell phones, and other handheld devices. We’ll learn the ins and outs of some emerging usability testing methods including unassisted as well as moderated remote usability testing. And, we’ll gain a better understanding of what we can learn from using instrumented, automated tools to evaluate Web sites.

• Assessing the Usability of Speech Applications: Optimizing Techniques for Voice User Interfaces
• Building Blocks for a Digital Solution to Usability Testing
• Designing and Testing Cancer Information on Portable Digital Assistants (PDAs)
• Intro to Moderated Remote Usability Testing
• Tape-Journal Methodology for Remote Testing
• The Age Factor in the Design Equation of Cell Phones
• Wearable Computer in a Production Automation Environment:New Metaphors and Approaches for the Usage and Usability
• Use of Automated Web Site Evaluation Tools
• Should Users Be Driving? A Comparison of Remote Testing Methods
• Observation Methodologies for Usability Testing Involving Handheld Devices
  

As our profession grows more and more ubiquitous and pervasive, we are continually adapting our methodologies and skills to embrace new domains, user groups, and technologies. Come to presentations, panels, tutorials, workshops, and poster sessions in this curriculum to learn such diverse things as the differences between web sites and web application design, the research behind Internet advertising standards, how to solve some of the ever-present problems in recruiting participants, and using movies to make complex software more approachable.

• Tutorial 2: Setting Usability Performance Requirements
• Tutorial 3: Discovering User Needs: Field Techniques You can Use
• Tutorial 5: Crafting Personas: How to Bring the User Alive in User-Centered Design
• Tutorial 8: Model-Driven Usage-Centered Design: Using Abstract Models for Better Visual and Interaction Design
• Tutorial 12: Get Real! Techniques for Gathering and Analyzing User Requirements in the “Real World”
• Tutorial 13: Beyond Usability: Bringing Brand Alive in the
  Design of Software and Websites
• Tutorial 16: Forms That Work: Understanding Forms to Improve Their Design
• Tutorial 17: Everything You Wanted to Know About Your Users, but Never Thought to Ask
• Tutorial 18: Conducting a Hands-on Usability Assessment
• Tutorial 20: Differences in Website and Web Application Design: Implications for Usability Standards, Guidelines, and Testing
• Tutorial 23: Collecting and Using Customer Stories for UI Design: Blending Users, Tasks, and Environments
• The User Research Behind the Internet Advertising Standards
• Panel: Design Patterns: a Bridge Between Usability and Design
• Tailoring Search Interfaces for Specialized Uses
• Is This What You Expected? The Use of Expectation Measures in Usability Testing
• That Old Black Magic – Identifying and Dealing with Superstitious Users
• Why Not Flash? What Usability Professionals Need to Know About the Benefits of Flash for Interactive Applications
• Gathering Usability Data for Mission Critical Projects: One Method is Not Enough
• Field Research in Commercial Product Development
• Panel: Adventures in Participant Recruiting: From Screening with Rigor to Dealing with No-Shows
• Gathering ROI and Visitor Success Rate Directly from Site Visitors
• Using Movies to Make Complex Software More Approachable
• Building a Case for a Redesign

Our 60ish year old profession has stretched its parameters dramatically since its inception. We’ve expanded the face of usability from cockpits, to computers, and most recently to the total user experience of all touch points users have around a product, solution, or application. To a large extent, due to the type of forward thinking and assertiveness we’ll hear about in the presentations, tutorials, panels, posters, and advanced topics in this curriculum, we’ve shifted our efforts from focusing on massive formal lab studies at the tail end of the project life cycle to driving the process itself through requirements identification via contextual inquiry, and early iterative conceptual prototyping and evaluation, and to integrating usability and user-centered design throughout the project life cycle. We’ve come a long way! Sessions in this curriculum run the gamut from managing the politics around our field all the way to building usability labs on the cheap.

• Tutorial 6: Managing Design Politics


• Tutorial 9: Ulabs on the Cheap: Usability Labs for Under $1000...


• Tutorial 14: Promoting Usability Within an Organization


• Tutorial 15: An Iterative Approach to Better Working Relationships


• Tutorial 22: Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process


• “Management Will Never Go For It...” Make It Happen Anyway!


• Panel: The State of Web Site Usability for June 2003


• Panel: Idea Market: Dynamic Discussion About Ideas on Methodology, Data Gathering, Roles, and More


• Usability Support: A Critical Part of the Development Team


• Fixing What Matters: Accounting for Organizational Priorities
When Communicating Usability Problems

• Dimensions of Usability: Defining the Conversation, Driving the Process

Whether you read from left to right or right to left, one of the most challenging opportunities we face in our profession is enabling users’ understanding of us, when they don’t speak our language. The sessions in this curriculum will expand our skills and knowledge in such areas as use patterns of Korean mobile phone users, intercultural usability testing in China, and Japanese web user interface design. Join us as we span the globe learning how to better attend to cross-cultural design and evaluation!

• Tutorial 4: Cross-Cultural User-Interface Design for Work, Home, Play, and On the Way
• Cross-Cultural Usability: An International Study on Driver Information Systems
• Cultural Issues in Handheld Usability: Are Cultural Models Effective for Interpreting Unique Use Patterns of Korean Mobile Phone Users?
• Reading/Writing Guidelines for Japanese Web UI
• Intercultural Testing: Experiences From Studies in Mainland China