Web Exclusive: Bossone Auditorium hosts Usability Day
Dennis Mongello
Issue date: 11/4/05 Section: Sci-Tech
Nov. 3 marked the kick-off of World Usability Day in Philadelphia. This is the first event of its kind, focusing on making technology easier to use for everyone. The Usability Professional Association aspires to make Usability Day an annual event. They chose Bossone Auditorium as the Philadelphia location. Professional sponsors included Refinery and Electronic Ink, leaders in the field of human-computer interaction. The intimate affair included a small museum dedicated to various good and bad designs, as well as sample website usability reviews. The centerpiece of the event, however, was the keynote address given by Fidelity Investments Senior VP for Human Interface Design Tom Tullis.
The "Usability Museum" showcased some well-designed artifacts as well as some ill-designed ones. Best in show should really go to the measuring cups you can read from above as well as from the side. One of those would have really come in handy tonight as I was measuring water to boil for my ravioli. The most laughable cases of bad design were the car cup holders that keep you from accessing the car's radio and air conditioning controls and the infamous "butterfly ballot" with ambiguous holes prone to hanging chads.
Aside form checking out the museum, a usability specialist was available to test Web sites. I had http://www.thetriangle.org tested by Debra Levin of Refinery. She said the Web site reminded her of CNN's, which is a good thing. Of course, the Web site is not perfect, and she offered simple tips on how to make it better. This really showed how easy it is to make things more usable; it's just a matter of having a professional do some testing.
Another company, Electronic Ink, had a booth set up where they were showing attendees what a usability test is like. They had people go to a Web site and then asked them to perform a specific task or look for a specific piece of information. Professionals use this kind of testing to see how easy it is to navigate a site. They also had a laptop set up running Microsoft's upcoming operating system Windows Vista for attendees to play around with and see how usable it is compared to XP.
The "Usability Museum" showcased some well-designed artifacts as well as some ill-designed ones. Best in show should really go to the measuring cups you can read from above as well as from the side. One of those would have really come in handy tonight as I was measuring water to boil for my ravioli. The most laughable cases of bad design were the car cup holders that keep you from accessing the car's radio and air conditioning controls and the infamous "butterfly ballot" with ambiguous holes prone to hanging chads.
Aside form checking out the museum, a usability specialist was available to test Web sites. I had http://www.thetriangle.org tested by Debra Levin of Refinery. She said the Web site reminded her of CNN's, which is a good thing. Of course, the Web site is not perfect, and she offered simple tips on how to make it better. This really showed how easy it is to make things more usable; it's just a matter of having a professional do some testing.
Another company, Electronic Ink, had a booth set up where they were showing attendees what a usability test is like. They had people go to a Web site and then asked them to perform a specific task or look for a specific piece of information. Professionals use this kind of testing to see how easy it is to navigate a site. They also had a laptop set up running Microsoft's upcoming operating system Windows Vista for attendees to play around with and see how usable it is compared to XP.
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