I’ll be talking about how and why I built Cullect.com at the Feburary 12th UPA-MN event.

The agenda:

• Developing a product you will use and the way you will use it.
  Designing the API as the primary user interface.
• A tour of some of the innovative UI concepts behind Cullect.
• An activity in which you will be able to play the role of an information curator.

Hope to see you there.

A light meal and sodas will be provided. Beer and wine will be available at the cash bar.
$10 members, $30 non-members (only cash and check are able to be accepted at the door)
RSVP: By 5:00 p.m. on Monday, February 9, 2009, to rsvp@upamn.org

Jared Spool is in town this Monday and will have an informal meet-up with local UX people. These get-togethers have proven to be of great interest and are usually well attended. I look forward to joining fellow UPA members for this event as well as others in the local user experience community. Please feel free to forward this invite to others who might be interested. – John Neenan, President UPA MN

Update: Marc Rettig will also be joining us. Try again next time.

Location:
REI Bloomington – in their meeting room
(Note: the location has changed from what was originally announced)

Address:
750 W American Blvd, Bloomington, MN 55420

Agenda:
6:00 pm Networking, food and beverages
6:30 pm Welcome and brief Chapter meeting
7:00 pm Presentation
8:00 pm Adjourn / Optional after-meeting food, suds and networking

Join us for the August 11th UPA meeting when Gayna Williams of Microsoft will present on the User Research behind Windows Vista. (previously codenamed “Longhorn”) that will replace Windows XP….They built personas, benchmarked code, evaluated the emotional connection of the product, developed an instrumentation strategy, and did much more. This talk will share insights of the work and methodologies that has taken the Windows user research team from the planning to the release of Beta 1.

Gayna Williams is User Research Director in the Microsoft Windows Client organization. Her group comprises usability engineers, ethnographers, and data miners, and has pioneered a range of new usability approaches at Microsoft, including persona use, wide-scale real-time consumer data collection, and exploratory ethnography. In ten years at Microsoft, she has worked as usability engineer or manager for a range of products including Internet Explorer, MSN, NetMeeting, and consumer products. Her undergraduate training was in ergonomics at Loughborough University. She earned a MS at the University of Minnesota in human factors, conducting research on advance traffic information systems for use by general and aging driver populations.

Date/Time: August 11, 2005, 6:00 p.m.
Location: Microsoft Corporation, 8300 Norman Lake Drive, Suite 950 Bloomington, MN 55437
Speaker: Gayna Williams

Agenda:
• 6:00 pm Networking, food and beverages
• 6:30 pm Welcome and brief Chapter meeting
• 7:00 pm Presentation
• 8:00 pm Adjourn / Optional after-meeting food, suds and networking

RSVP by sending the names, company name, phone numbers and citizenship status of the people in your group who’ll be attending to:
events@upamn.org.

In the improv world, the goal is to ‘get out of your head’ – to silence the voice of your internal editor and make something interesting. In describing the redesign of Cargill.com, Lyle showed that companies have an ‘internal editor’ and if they can ‘get out of their head’, perhaps, just perhaps they can see their website through the eyes of their customers.

For this project Lyle hired separate design and usability vendors. The design vendor went through a Request for Proposal process, the usability vendor did not. Asked about this discrepancy, he responded, “the RFP process seemed a little heavy-handed.” Though I don’t agree with it, I can appreciate the objective third-party attitude for separating design and usability. In my experience, the separation indefinitely paints the usability evaluator as the “bad cop” constantly telling the design team what they’ve done wrong with no power to change it directly. Designers curious about how their work is being received by customers will want more direct contact with the customers. Designers that don’t care about the customers, see usability evaluation as a hassle. I don’t see either side interested in a third party handling the usability. In either case, I think there’s something to be said for consistency – either go through the RFP process to select a vendor or don’t.

I say this all before Susan Dray did a fantastic job describing how she and David Siegel avoided being the “bad cop”.

• Step 1: Continually ask yourself, “How can we provide value?”, from a strategic standpoint.
• Step 2: Deep and early collaboration with both the client and other vendors.

Another key Susan brought up, when there’s brought-to-a-stand-still conflict, the problem is usually lack of information. If two solutions to a problem are exclusive and equally valid, then as Susan says, “a little data goes a long way.” I’m a big fan of finding new information to resolve a conflict. In the end, the final solution is rarely either of the initial options.

In the end, this presentation was about 3 organizations working together successfully to solve a big problem. Was it all sunshine and lollypops? No. Did everyone work on making it work, understanding they’re all there for a reason? Yes and that seems to be the bigger lesson here.

Years ago, I reviewed one of Marc Rettig‘s many illuminating presentations. In the middle of this particular one, he threw in landscape painting with the caption:

“I just like this picture.”

. I remember quite a few pictures and photos in his presentations and it showed me early that PowerPoint is better as an companion to the speakers conversation than speaker’s notes. The presentation tonight could have used some more pictures and fewer bullet points.

Oh yeah, and DeeDee, you rock.

Successful collaboration on large projects requires an approach to user-centered design that distinguishes project roles and responsibilities. Jennifer Bohmbach, Susan Dray, and Lyle Kantrovich will present this case study showing an example of bridging corporate cultures for a more holistic UCD approach. They ’ll outline how three firms collaborated on a large website redesign, following a User-Centered Design approach in a company where UCD isn’t yet commonplace.

About Our Speakers and The Topic
Jennifer Bohmbach was formerly the Experience Design Practice Director at JWT, and is currently Vice President of Information Architecture at Sun Microsystems.

Since 1979, Dr. Susan Dray has worked in the field of human factors to increase the quality and intuitiveness of user interface designs for users around the world. She has worked as both an internal and external consultant, and combines expertise in interface evaluation, usability evaluation, and contextual and ethnographic research with a cross-cultural and organizational perspective. As President of Dray & Associates, Inc., she consults internationally on interface design and usability. She has evaluated and helped redesign user interfaces for all types of websites, desktop and Web applications, as well as both hardware and software consumer products and technical equipment. She specializes in international user studies, and has conducted user research in 17 countries, including one of the largest international usability evaluations ever done – studying 120 users in 8 countries in Europe and Asia.

Lyle Kantrovich is the User Experience Director at Cargill where he leads an internal team that provides consulting and training in usability and user centered design. He enjoys seeing business clients realize the value of user-centered design. His experiences include design for web, handheld, and client-server applications. Lyle is President of the Minnesota UPA Chapter, a SIG-CHI member, and a regular contributor to Information Architecture discussions on SIGIA-L. He has written articles for SIG-CHI’s Interactions magazine, Boxes and Arrows, and his web site Croc O’ Lyle.

Thurs, June 9, 2005
Target Plaza North, 1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN

6:00 pm Networking, food & beverages
6:30 pm Welcome & brief Chapter meeting
7:00 pm Presentation
8:00 pm Adjourn to optional after-meeting food, suds and networkin

Cost & Registration
Non-members: $10
Professional Members: Free
Student Members: Free

Registration and more info at upamn.org

Nicole Tollefson and Phil Kragnes are recognized as experts in the field of accessibility. They will be sharing some of the highlights from a day-long tutorial they’ll be conducting at the Montreal UPA International Conference in July. For the chapter meeting we’ll only be able to scratch the surface of the topic, but the information is sure to be valuable. You’ll gain insight on how to provide truly accessible Web design through demonstrations of adaptive technology, references to case studies, and a short discussion of how disabled users approach the Web. Nicole and Phil will also highlight some issues to consider around designing for users with disabilities; such as balancing accessibility with team needs, usability, and project timelines. They’ll also briefly discuss what lessons can be transferred to other types of interface design projects.
Meeting Details
——————————————
May 12, 2005, 6:00 p.m.

Room 402, Walter Library
117 Pleasant Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
University of Minnesota

6:00 pm Networking, cookies and beverages
6:30 pm Welcome and brief chapter meeting
7:00 pm Presentation

Please join us on Tuesday, April 5th, for a visit to the Mayo Clinic. Just as seasons change, so do usability teams.  A few years ago, the team at Mayo Clinics in Rochester was discovering what the world of usability was all about.  Since our chapter’s last visit, the team and facilities at Mayo have undergone a transformation.

Thomas Suther, a founding member of the UPA-Minnesota chapter, will explain some of the changes and give us a tour of the usability labs. Then we’ll move to another building on campus and have a tour of the SPARC Innovation lab.  This lab is a living experiment in practicing medicine, and an interesting twist on the concept of usability testing. In this lab, Jenny Dusso will explain how ideas are brought forward and tested in exam rooms, with real physicians and patients.

As an added bonus, Caroline Jarrett, a usability specialist from the United Kingdom, will join us for our meeting.  Caroline’s specialty is forms design, and she will be in Rochester teaching forms classes at Mayo.  She has offered to share a few insights from ‘across the pond’ on usability and UPA chapters.

If you, or someone you know, would like to attend, please register by emailing events@upamn.org. When RSVPing, please also indicate if you are interested in driving or riding in a carpool down to Rochester.  If you offer to drive, please indicate how many passengers you could take.  We will attempt to loosely coordinate carpooling efforts in advance.

RSVP by sending your name and company name or business affiliation to:
events@upamn.org.

Non-member visitors are welcome, but are asked to pay $10.00 to attend each meeting.

Carpool departing Mall of America, 4pm
Tour at Mayo begins at 6pm