December 2006 Contents

Translating the Web: Web Site Development for an Asian Audience
In all aspects of marketing, the Eastern world is breaking through to the West. More and more businesses are expanding product lines and services into a new market that involves countries in East Asia. Whether a business forms an alliance with a Chinese company to use its resources for a project, or it sells directly to Japanese consumers, it is clear that key media materials should be appropriate for Asian audiences.

By Jacqueline Sinex

Institute for International Research (IIR) and the UPA Connection: The Market Research Event 2006
I had the honor of chairing the usability track at The Market Research Event 2006 in Los Angeles, California. For several years, IIR (Institute for International Research), the organizer of this conference, and UPA have been engaged in developing synergy between market researchers and usability professionals. IIR provides UPA members a discount to attend this conference, and UPA assists IIR in providing speakers from the usability profession. I find this to be a most welcome collaboration, particularly as one of UPA’s objectives is outreach to other related disciplines and organizations.

By Thyra Rauch

Thumbnail: Rolf Molich
Rolf Molich is “curious.” He cites that curiosity as the impetus behind his CUE, or Comparative Usability Evaluation, studies (www.DialogDesign.dk/cue.html). These now-world-famous studies look at how usability tests and expert reviews are actually carried out in practice – and about how reproducible they really are. There’s a lot more to Rolf, though, than his CUE studies.

By Cliff Anderson

Help Wanted
Help Wanted: Managing Editor, Art Editor, Graphic Artists for User Experience, UPA's quarterly membership magazine.

World Usability Day Philadelphia: User Experience Beyond The Web
Because many of the local UPA members work in Internet-related fields, Philadelphia’s 2nd Annual World Usability Day looked to broaden horizons by focusing on “User Experience Beyond the Web.” Although the speakers, Hal Rosenbluth, co-founder of Take Care Health Systems; James Mitchell, Associate Professor and Director of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at Drexel University; and Stephen Wilcox, Principal of Design Science, spoke extensively about the differences between their work and that of web professionals, the pervasive theme throughout each presentation was that we actually have a lot in common.

By Mike Madaio

Making Mortals into Super Users at Boston’s World Usability Day
Disaster is in the air! A stuffed cat dangles precipitously from a fake palm tree frond, a scant sixty seconds away from falling to the earth. A few feet away, unbeknownst to its hypothetical passengers, a cardboard train is about to encounter an enormous boulder lying in its path. Who could avert one, let alone both, of these impending catastrophes?

By Chris Hass