Dr. Susan M. Dray, President of Dray & Associates, Inc., has been awarded a Fulbright  Scholar grant to teach and do research at the Technological University of Panama during  the 2013-2014 academic year, the United States Department of State and the J. William  Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced recently.

Dray will lecture, do research and build bridges between academia, industry and  government in Panama, as well as  throughout the Latin and South American human-­centered design  community.

Dray is a consultant specialized in doing field research for her clients. She played a huge  early role in the development of the discipline of human-­‐ entered design, particularly  adapting field research methods for use in product development, from shaping  fundamental product concepts and strategies to interaction design. She has taught  thousands of people about field research, has worked in 25 countries and has a long list of  publications, honors and awards.

She is one of approximately 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad  through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2013-­2014.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program  sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding  between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary  source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S.  Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.  Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign  countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of  Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as  well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 155  countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J.  William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 310,000  students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and  conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared  international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business,  philanthropy, education, and athletics. Forty-­‐four Fulbright alumni from 12 countries have  been awarded the Nobel Prize, and 81 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes. Prominent  Fulbright alumni include: Muhammad Yunus, Founder,  Grameen Bank, and 2006 Nobel  Peace Prize recipient; Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia; Lee Evans, Olympic  Gold Medalist; Rita Dove, former U.S. Poet Laureate and 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry  recipient; Riccardo Giacconi, Physicist and 2002 Nobel Laureate; Amar Gopal Bose,  Chairman and  Founder, Bose Corporation; Renee Fleming, soprano; Jonathan Franzen,  Writer; and Daniel Libeskind, Architect.

Fulbright recipients are among more than 40,000 individuals participating in U.S.  Department of State exchange programs each year. For more than sixty years, the  Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has funded and supported programs that seek  to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and  the people of other countries. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is administered by the  Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International   Education.

For further information about  the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State’s  Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit our website at  http://fulbright.state.gov or contact James A. Lawrence, Office of Academic Exchange  Programs, telephone 202-­‐632-­‐3241 or e-­‐mail fulbright@state.gov.

Are you making your travel plans for UXPA 2013 in Washington, DC?  I know I am, and I registered with one of the precious few Early Bird special rates left .  This will be my fourteenth (consecutive) UXPA conference, dating back to 2000 in Asheville, NC, and I can’t think of a year when I’ve been more excited to go.  The theme, Collaboration, is so integral to everything that UX is about.  Every day we collaborate with our users, with developers, with product management, and with our UX colleagues.  UX professionals have truly become the conduit that product and service development projects center around.  Our ability to move fluidly through all of the phases of the development lifecycle, and to collaborate with every type of stakeholder, has been noticed by leaders in nearly every industry.  We are making inroads in medical devices and informatics, in mobile development, in gaming and playtesting, and in the design of end-to-end customer experiences.

While I’m of course excited about all of the great learning experiences that the conference will bring, I’m most excited about the networking opportunities.  I’ve met so many awesome UX practitioners over the years, and I’m able to call on that network of peers for professional development, for advice on a design, or just to go grab a drink and talk about UX.  I think that what makes UXPA better than any other professional conference in our field is that it gives so many opportunities for our community to get to know each other, to work on things of common interest, and to build our personal and professional networks.

I’m also looking forward to being in Washington, D.C., and inviting our international peers to our Nation’s Capital.  The conference is right on the heels of July 4th, so I’m sure the city will be in a very festive mood.  The conference hotel puts us in Dupont Circle, which is easy walking distance to some of the best restaurants in the World, from every locale in the World!  A few Metro stops away are the Smithsonian museums, the National Mall, the Capitol Building, the White House, and the Washington Monument.  For sight-seeing enthusiasts, Washington, D.C. is a great place to visit.

Finally, I’m looking forward to sharing all of the great things that UXPA is working on.  Our new website will be going live.  Our online version of UX Magazine HAS gone live (as of this week!).  We are planning for our other 2013 conference in Shanghai in collaboration with UXPA China in November.  We will be rolling out our mentoring program, announcing a number of strategic partnerships, debuting a number of Special Interest Groups, and finally, introducing our new membership model and dues structure.  This will offer a set of compelling, comprehensive, and meaningful benefits that make sense for UXPA members worldwide.

I hope to see you all at UXPA 2013.  Please come up and introduce yourself!

Rich Gunther
President, UXPA International
rich.gunther@uxpa.org

I’m delighted to be writing about a project that opens up a fine collection of user experience articles to a wider audience.

User Experience has been a quarterly magazine in print since 2002, delivered by mail to members of UXPA (formerly UPA).

From now on, each new issue will also be available online.

The online format means that readers all around the world will have instant access to each new issue. The responsive design means that you can read it on the desktop, tablet or handheld device with equal facility. Accessibility has also been a key consideration.

Language is another consideration for an international organization. Abstracts for all articles will translated into Chinese (simplified), Korean, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

User Experience has published many excellent articles over the past ten years. The editors are excited to be able to make them more readily accessible, and look forward to welcoming many more authors and articles to the collection in coming years.

The latest issue (13.1 – “UX Careers”) is being made freely available, along with each of the four issues from 2012. New issues will be “members-only” for an initial period, and then will become open-access as the next issue is published. The archives are being brought into the new format and will also be open-access.

Please share your reaction to the new medium. User Experience will continue to be a valuable resource for members, and for the UX community at large.

Thanks

Readers will appreciate that a project like this involves many people, most of whom are volunteers.

Special thanks are due to Whitney Quesenbery who, in a moment she may have had reason to regret, said to Susan Dray (then Director of Publications): “How hard can it be?”

Whitney, with strong support from Susan, set up the project and managed it with a passion and conviction that was infectious.

The Managing Editors, Aga Bojko and J.O. Bugental, with Associate Managers Chelsey Glasson and Mindy Maxwell, provided their active support and assistance, and smoothed the path.

Ann Walter and Anne Kostick helped to migrate content, and to set up guidelines that will be invaluable as we move forward. There are many interesting differences between print publishing and online publishing.

Alice Preston, ably assisted by Claudia Gutierrez, took on the huge job migrating the existing translations, and setting up the additional languages. Alice has assembled a team of volunteers who help ensure that the translated abstracts are both linguistically and technically accurate. They all patiently accepted the fact that it made sense to rewrite some of the abstracts for the online medium, even though this involved late nights, looming deadlines and shifting sands.

Tom Biby cheerfully revisited the banners from the print versions, helping deliver new versions that were consistent but optimized for the online medium.

A whole host of others rolled up their sleeves and did whatever was needed. At the risk of omitting someone, they included Paul Linton, Christine Danko, Frank Tagader, Andrew Rivera, Katie Derthick, Aaron Marcus, Pascal Rettig, Cynthia Kamishlian and Nicole Tafoya.

Finally, special thanks are due to our developer, Milenko Subotic, who patiently dealt with a difficult client and delivered a site that we feel represents an excellent beginning.