UPA Voice

The UPA Voice is a web-newsletter addressing issues of interest to the UPA membership. UPA Voice is edited by Gia Rozells. You can reach Gia at Gia_Rozells@intuit.com to discuss any issue relating the UPA Voice newsletter.

Rozells, Gia. Usability Professionals Association. Journals>Usability

Usability as Therapy

Underneath the carnival excitement of the information revolution I hear a quiet but persistent murmur warning of an emerging technology crisis. Not everything is right in the information economy.

Kreitzberg, Charles B. Usability Professionals Association (1999). Careers>Usability>Workplace>Technology

Usability in Ireland: We're Just Getting Started

Irish e-commerce is in its infancy and we have made many mistakes, but it is still an exhilarating and exciting industry. webBusters estimates that Irish websites are operating at an efficiency and effectiveness level of only 46%, due to shortsightedness and a failure to properly prepare, plan and test work. In this article Jude Murray of webBusters argues a case for usability in Ireland.

Murray, Jude. Usability Professionals Association (2001). Articles>Usability>Regional>Ireland

Usability in Open Source Software

Open source is a software licensing philosophy which believes the human readable code source of a software should be available for the public to freely install, modify, or redistribute. The term 'open source' can also refer to the community and development practices of thousands of free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) projects who subscribe to this philosophy and license their software under one of the many available software licenses.

Paul, Celeste Lyn. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Software>Open Source

Usability in the Real World

Usability is not just about research and labs. It has a real impact on real projects in the real world. This section includes case studies, news stories, facts and examples to help make the case that usability is a critical part of any product development effort.

Usability Professionals Association. Careers>Management>Usability

The Usability of eBook Technology

Although eBooks have not gained the consumer popularity expected by their developers and supporters, they still have a small base. This article explores their use in the education environment.

Bellaver, Richard F. and Jay Gillette. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>eBooks

Usability Professionals Association

The Usability Professionals' Association was formed to: provide a network and opportunities through which usability professionals can communicate and share information about skills and skill development, methodology used and/or proposed in the profession, tools, technology, and organizational issues; present the viewpoints of the profession to the public and other interested parties; educate the general public and others on the usefulness of the profession; represent the profession before governmental bodies and agencies; provide the methods and means to increase the members' knowledge of the profession through seminars, newsletters, magazines, and other communication tools, and through meetings and conventions; serve the best interests of the usability profession.

Usability Professionals Association. Organizations>Usability

Usability Professionals Association: Job Bank

Job postings will be removed after 3 months unless you notify the UPA office. A short reference to your job posting on the UPA website will be included in 1 issue of the Common Ground newsletter. To advertise the full job posting in the Common Ground, contact the UPA office at office@upassoc.org for ad sizes and rates.

Usability Professionals Association. Careers>Usability

Usability Professionals: Stay Prepared for Business Waves

The current economic climate is a little like the weather this winter. You just don't know what it will be like from day-to-day. Just as it's been a good idea to be equally ready for a beautiful spring day or a sudden plunge in temperature, the current economy has meant pretty much the same for usability professionals. Whether you're an internal to a company or an independent consultant, no one has escaped the ups and downs of this uncertain business climate.

Pauker, Anne M. Usability Professionals Association. Articles>Usability

Usability Professionals’ Association Urges Consideration of Plain Language

The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) wishes to express its support for plain language.

Usability Professionals Association (2006). Articles>Usability>Legal>Minimalism

Usability: Translating to Dollars  

The presentation provides an overview of performing ROI analyses and identifies the organizational customers to whom usability professionals should sell. It also offers several detailed examples.

Brooks, Douglas, David Skinner and Richard Finger. Usability Professionals Association (2002). Presentations>Usability

Usable Regulations: Legislation Pending in U.S. Congress

On March 1, 2006, witnesses testified before the House Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs. Their testimony supported what plain language and usability experts have long known: Clear, concise, easy to understand regulations will save the government (and taxpayers) time and money.

Haller, Thom. Usability Professionals Association (2006). Articles>Usability>Legal>Minimalism

Review: User Experience in Brazil - USIHC 2007

Brazil was the site of the seventh International Conference of Ergonomics and Usability, Interface Design, and Human Computer Interaction. Held in the seaside city of Balneario Camboriu in the southern Brazil state of Santa Caterina, the conference was hosted by the Universidade do Valle do Itajai (UNIVALI). I was fortunate to be invited to participate in the conference.

Sherman, Paul J. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Reviews>User Experience

User-Centered Deliverables: Communicating the Right Things to the Right People

As usability professionals working on the Web, it is our responsibility to make sure our clients' sites communicate effectively to their intended audience. We make recommendations about what information the audience needs, how they expect it to be presented and how they’ll need to work with it once they’ve got it. But how often do we consider our own audience, the people we need to make our recommendations happen? Does one set of documentation meet the needs of all members of an interdisciplinary team? Probably not.

Beecher, Frederick. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Using Calculators for User Engagement

Calculators can play important roles on websites. They are especially popular for financial sites, where they can help users calculate mortgage payments, retirement needs, interest earned, and so on. They also appear on other sites, where users can calculate things as varied as their BMI (body mass index), carbon footprint, life expectancy, or gas mileage.

Zhou, Yun and Cliff Anderson. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Assessment>User Centered Design

Using Email to Promote Usability

One of the most effective and inexpensive tools for educating your market is email. Here's how to use email to keep your visibility high and keep in touch with everyone in your network -- because you never know where the work is going to come from.

Benun, Ilise. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>Email

Using Usability Testing to Determine "Related Links" in An Online Brokerage Web Site

In content-rich web sites, success is defined by the user's ability to locate relevant content quickly and efficiently. To achieve such success, information architects and usability specialists direct their efforts towards developing intuitive and well-organized navigation structures to support user content search tasks. However, the rich content of the site may lend itself to more than a single navigation scheme that might satisfy the navigation demands of the site. In such cases, to decide on the best approach, usability tests are conducted. Observing users navigating through the site provides the critical information needed to finalize the information structure of the site. We used this technique to redesign the navigation of the www.harrisdirect.com web site, an online brokerage web site. This site is very rich in content. In addition to online trading, the site allows users access to a multitude of news, investment research, market research and educational content resources. The inherent inter-relationships of this content enabled us to further improve on the final navigation design by introducing related links in a manner that was derived from the usability test.

Vasmatzidis, Ioannis, Eliot Jablonka and Hsin Eu. Usability Professionals Association (2002). Design>Usability>Assessment

Voting and Usability Project Update

It's been two-and-a-half years since we started the Voting and Usability Project. This project started as we all realized with some horror that usability problems in our voting systems could affect the results of an election--effectively disenfranching some voters through the design of the ballot, as Susan King Roth put it in the report on her research. Since then, our interest has expanded into a more general interest in the usability of voting systems and usability professionals can help make voting systems more usable for everyone.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Civic

Voting and Usability Projects: How You can Participate

The UPA Voting and Usability project works to create a better elections process by improving the usability of ballots and voting systems.

Scott, Josephine. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>Government>Civic

What Is Open Source Software And Is It Usable?

Open Source Software (OSS) is a software project where all the source code is freely available, usually according to a licensing agreement baring commercial gain on the source. The contributors to the project are usually part-time computing enthusiasts with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. Usability specialists are not generally part of the development process.

Watkins, Robert. Usability Professionals Association (2001). Articles>Usability>Open Source>Software

What is Our Role as Usability Professionals?

As Usability people we usually tend to focus on making things easier to use. To allow for good usability and an excellent user experience we integrate user centered design methods and standardized usability processes into our daily work. We are used to doing this; we advocate for it day after day; we even try to persuade our clients and the people around us to do the same because we have a strong belief in it. And without question, making things easier to use is an honorable thing to do, because it generally enhances the overall user experience. However, we as Usability Professionals have the potential to reach beyond!

Zimmermann, Silvia. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Careers>Usability>Professionalism

What is User-Centered Design?

User-centered design (UCD) is an approach to design that grounds the process in information about the people who will use the product. UCD processes focus on users through the planning, design and development of a product.

Usability Professionals Association. Design>User Centered Design

What Kind of Teamwork Improves Usability?

Professionals are increasingly working in networked teams where electronic media and asynchronous communication play an important role. So how can communication behaviours in these contexts predict usability? Do efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in the communication process lead to the same for the resulting documentation?

Edwards, Kirstie. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Usability

What to Do When a Prospective Client Doesn't Respond to Your Proposal

These days, it seems to be the way more and more very busy people are simply saying 'Not right now.' So what do you do about it? Do you leave the ball in their court and just sit around waiting for them to hit it back? Of course not.

Benun, Ilise. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Careers>Consulting

What Web Sites Could Learn from Radio Stations

Twenty years ago radio-station operators faced the same problems web-based companies face today: Too many stations chasing too few audience members and not enough revenue to go around. No one could gain enough market share to make any money. An interesting thing happened several years later. Several 'rogue' stations started doing perceptual studies, music testing and format demand searches to understand what would allow them to create strong and lasting audience demand.

Seidholz, Donn. Usability Professionals Association (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability