It's World Usability Day!

World Usability Day was founded in 2005 with a mission to increase the public's awareness of the need to make the services and products important to human life easier to access and simpler to use. Global issues such as healthcare, education and government are addressed through expert forums, exhibits, events and initiatives in numerous locations throughout the world.

A kick-off for 2007 took place at the UPA International Conference in Austin Texas on June 13th with a program entitled “Healthcare Usability in the Trenches.” The program featured Jason Rossback, Zoll Data Systems, Theo Mandel, Ph.D, Interface Design and Development, LLC, Janine Purcell from the Veterans Health Administration and Ed Israelski from Abbott.

“The importance of user-centered design in healthcare is truly about life and death” noted Elizabeth Rosenzweig, Founder and Director of World Usability Day. “Whether it’s new medical devices or technologies; drug research, approval or delivery; patient forms or medical record sharing; emergency disaster planning or increasing the functionality of hospitals and everyday healthcare delivery, everyone is effected in some way by the intersection of usability and healthcare. There are many commonalities, yet each region of the world faces its own set of unique challenges. We believe that focusing World Usability Day 2007 on healthcare will create a stronger awareness of these issues and lead to initiatives that have long term impact on the quality of everyone’s life.

World Usability Day 2006 was a tremendous success. UPA, along with its allied organizations coordinated 225 events in 175 cities in 35 countries that attracted over 40,000 attendees and volunteers at worldwide site locations, as well as through webcasts online at the World Usability Day website, www.worldusabilityday.org.

The goals for 2007 include growing the number, size and types of the events worldwide. This includes: adding more events that not only provide education about usability, but work to effect change by taking the message to the average citizen, offering additional webcasting features that enable World Usability Day to be even more accessible and increasing the volunteers, supporters and sponsors for the event. In order to accomplish this, we need more event leaders and volunteers as part of the World Usability Day team.

Sponsors to date for World Usability 2007 include: Apogee, Axure Software Solutions, Constant Contact, Dell, Different, FatDUX, Google, Intuit, Microsoft User Research, Mitsui-Links, Ovo Studios, SirValuse, VKI Studios and Usability.ch.

Associated Link: World Usability Day 2007

Poor Shopping Basket Usability will hinder Christmas Rush
Source: UN, 20 November 2008
 
A new study from eDigitalResearch identifies customer service and online shopping basket usability as the two key areas where online retailers need to improve.

Future Phones to Read Your Voice, Gestures
Source: Wired, 19 November 2008
 
Five years from now, it is likely that the mobile phone you will be holding will be a smooth, sleek brick — a piece of metal and plastic with a few grooves in it and little more.

Why Digital Research is important in tough Financial Times
Source: Financial Times, 18 November 2008
 
With the banking sector moving towards consolidation, it is crucial that customers are understood, reacted to and rewarded for their loyalty.

Get Ready for 'Ergobamanomics'
Source: AssemblyBlog via ergonomics in the news , 17 November 2008
 
Is President Elect, Barack Obama, a secret ergonomics and usability enthusiast?

The Most Dreaded Keyword Phrase
Source: SearchEngineLand, 15 November 2008
 
In website usability, one of the hardest obstacles to overcome is the mentality of “This is what I would do.”

User Experience Standards Missing from Web 2.0 Designs
Source: UN, 14 November 2008
 
Usability professionals should be more involved with the development of Web 2.0 tools.

New technology showcased at World Usability Day
Source: User Vision, 13 November 2008
 
Today is World Usability Day!

Review: 16 User Interface Prototyping Tools
Source: Dexo Design, 12 November 2008
 
People constantly ask me what the best prototyping or mockup tool is, so I decided to do a review of all the tools I’m aware of.

Radio 4's PM show announces Winner of 'Show Us a Better Way'
Source: BBC, 11 November 2008
 
Ever been frustrated that you can't find out something that ought to be easy to find? Ever been baffled by league tables or 'performance indicators'?

Cisco Systems extends Product Usability Research
Source: Catalyst Resources, 10 November 2008
 
Cisco is conducting extensive usability research with Catalyst Resources, into complex new technologies.