UPA-MN The User Research behind Windows Vista

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.