February 2004 Contents:

Articles:

Using email to promote usability
One of the most effective and inexpensive tools for educating your market is email. Here's how to use email to keep your visibility high and keep in touch with everyone in your network -- because you never know where the work is going to come from. By Ilise Benun.

This Is Broken - a compilation of bad experiences
Contribute to ThisIsBroken.com, a compilation of bad experiences: products, services, places, and Web designs that don't put the user first. By Mark Hurst.

Update on the status of the Common Industry Format (CIF)
Plans and activities of the Industry Usability Reporting (IUSR) project and the Common Industry Format (CIF). By Mary Theofanos.

Trends towards greater usability in voting technology
UPA's Voting and Usability project is tracking several important trends toward greater usability in voting technology across the globe: Verified voting, The NIST Voting Symposium, FEC Brochures, Voting Developments in the UK and in the Republic of Ireland. By Josephine Scott.

Joint Association Event
An exciting event took place recently in Boston that drew over 100 people from local chapters UPA, HFES and SIGCH put on a joint event to kick off a new community service project. There were two takeaways from the meeting. The first was that the three chapters wanted to raise public to the importance of human factors and usability engineering in developing products. The second takeaway from the meeting was the community service project; its ability to give the three chapters a project to work together for a common goal it was wonderful to be part of such an energizing collaboration.

Does UPA need a Code of Conduct?
Many professional societies have developed their own Code of Conduct. Given the high profile lapses in professional conduct and the evolving of the usability profession is it time for us to adopt a code?

Event:

15% discount to UPA members for GEL 2004 conference
GEL (Good Experience Live), 30th April 2004, read about the conference here and find out how to get the discount.

UPA Stuff:

Growing and Connecting in 2004
The new UPA president explains the goals and plans for the UPA, namely activities and initiatives to benefit individual members, strengthen the organization and help us meet our primary goal: promoting usability worldwide. By Whitney Quesenbery.

UPA volunteers list 2003
A list of those that gave their time and energy to UPA last year - many thanks.

Results of the UPA Members' Conference Preference Survey
As usability professionals, we like to make decisions based on good user research, so last month we conducted a survey of member preferences about the conference location. We asked about what factors influence your decision, how you make travel plans, and tested a few locations in the western United States. Read a summary of the results. By Whitney Quesenbery.

Editors' bit

The Voice will now be published on even months to tie in more closely with UPA events and activities - so watch out for the next one in mid April.

As ever we rely on your input for articles and ideas, so please contribute. In particular we would like to hear from those involved with the UPA chapters throughout the world.