Recently in World Usability Day 2006 Category

It's 6:08 p.m. and our first MU World Usability Day has now passed into the "historic event" category. I am pleased to report that initial impressions indicate the activities were both well received and, more importantly, useful!

The first order of business is to acknowledge and thank the terrific speakers who contributed their time and talents today. There's no doubt that MU is blessed with many TRUE experts in the field. Thanks go to Sanda Erdelez, Jim Laffey, Mike Peplow, Borchulun Yadamsuren, Paul Turner, and Gary Westergren for their contributions. Last, but, not least, thanks to Niki Stanley in Web Communications for conceiving the idea for the conference at MU and planning the whole event. Although she wasn't able to be with us today due to unforeseen health problems, her fine planning and organization allowed the rest of us to continue delivery of our conference without skipping a beat.

I would be very interested in hearing from participants of the conference what things they found useful, favorite "aha" moments or simply comments that would invite continued conversation. Feel free to respond to this posting as you like!

Thanks, everyone, who attended and made the day a success.

We're pleased to announce the program for the 2006 Mizzou World Usability Day event. The program features presenters from the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies, IATS Adaptive Computing Technology Center and Web Communications, and will cover a wide range of topics. There will also be tours of the Information Experience Lab over the lunch break, and University Bookstore will be hosting a book table from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. where participants can stock up on some of the top usability books. It should be a great day, and we hope you'll be able to attend as many of the sessions as your schedule allows.

Visit the 2006 Mizzou World Usability Day site for session details and times. Registration is free, but space is limited. Please fill out the online registration form by Nov. 7.

Usability is a hot topic of conversation among Web designers and developers these days. Many of us have spent countless hours designing a Web site that looks great only to receive complaints from site visitors who have difficulty navigating the site. In the end, we learned that designing without the user in mind results in a less-than usable site. In 2005, the Usability Professionals' Association created World Usability Day to raise awareness of user centered design across disciplines. Building on the success of last year's program, UPA is gearing up for the second annual World Usability Day on November 14, 2006.

Several universities participated in the 2005 events, and we've been discussing the possibility of organizing a 2006 World Usability Day slate of events here at Mizzou. We would like to get your feedback on this idea. Would you be interested in participating and what topics would you like to see covered?

Some ideas include:

• Keynote lecture by Sanda Erdelez, associate professor of information science and learning technologies
• Usability do's and don'ts for the Web
• Usability evaluations of campus Web sites (as submitted by campus developers)
• Low-cost usability testing options for campus developers
• Round-table discussion about current usability issues and how folks have addressed them in their own work
• Tours of the Information Experience Lab (usability lab) in the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies
• Accessibility evaluations of campus Web sites using assistive technology software (JAWS, Naturally Speaking, etc.)

Let us know whether you'd be interested in participating and what other topics you'd like to suggest by commenting to this post!