Gord also talked about the importance of building task-focused web sites, and showed examples where key tasks are supported right on the home page (e.g., booking flights).

Given that this is Ottawa, Gord also spent a fair bit of time discussing Government of Canada sites, and the restrictions imposed by Common Look and Feel guidelines.

There was healthy discussion throughout the presentation, and it seemed to be a good time for everyone.

Were you there? If so, post a comment and tell us what you think.

Julian Dolce, the Director of Creative Technologies at Fuel Industries will be our guest speaker on Dec. 16. There is an interesting profile of Fuel Industries in the Nov. 11 2008 edition of The Globe and Mail in the “breakthrough” section.

Fairytale ending for tiny Ottawa firm

The folks at Fuel drove people to, and kept them at, clients websites by providing sophisticated, easy-to-play video games. When McDonald’s asked Fuel what it could do for it, Mr. Burns suggested supplementing the traditional kid’s Happy Meal figurine with an electronic toy and video game as well as the figurines or game cards.

Date: Wednesday November 19, 2008

Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Location: bitHeads, 1309 Carling Ave. (East side of Westgate Mall)

Cost: FREE of charge - please rsvp to mdascal@ocri.ca

Complimentary snacks and beverages will be provided.

The Ottawa eBusiness Cluster invites you to attend their monthly networking event with guest speaker, Carolyn Gardner, Director of Customer Experience at Sitebrand Inc.

Successful e-commerce is all about finding, keeping and converting website traffic. While first time visitors are likely your largest underperforming segment of website traffic, investments in search and email also make them your most expensive. So whether your conversion is about revenue, registrations or downloads, how can you improve the online experience to optimize results? Join Carolyn as she discusses the realities of driving traffic, building visitor personas and creating personalized messaging to maximize the conversion of first-time visitors.

Request a complimentary whitepaper titled “First Time Here? A Marketer-Oriented Approach to Optimizing Online Conversions” in advance of this session:
www.sitebrand.com/landing_pages/webinar.html

Carolyn Gardner, Bio
With strong roots in email marketing to next evolution expertise in web personalization and persuasion, Gardner is Director of Customer Experience at Sitebrand. Previous success saw Gardner as founder and president of cardcommunications, a niche email marketing agency acquired by Sitebrand in 2007. Watching the web for “what’s hot” and “what’s not” since the late 1900s is the driving force behind all her speaking presentations, blog posts, webinars, podcasts, emails and tweets. But what really appeals to e-marketing newbies and experts from around the world is Gardner’s non-technical, say-it-so-your-grandmother-understands approach to all things “e”.

About Sitebrand
Sitebrand.com Inc. (TSX-V: SIB) provides online marketing solutions to major retailers across North America and Europe. Based on its proprietary on-demand software, Sitebrand’s Segment&Serve™ personalization solution delivers personalized online marketing campaigns for websites, email, search engine marketing, blogs, banners, point of sale, or any other web medium. Using Sitebrand, online retailers are able to develop customized marketing campaigns that leverage anonymous web analytics and visitor behavior, providing each visitor with a personalized experience in real-time—generating more customers, more profit per customer, more customer loyalty, and more conversions. Sitebrand was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Gatineau, Quebec.

Software Usability: Listening to the Voice of the User

OCRI and Macadamian Partnered Event - November 13, 2008
Brookstreet Hotel 7:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Panelists
Scott McEwen, Cognos, an IBM company
Michael Baynger, March Networks
Scott Plewes, Macadamian Software Engineering

Moderator
Lorraine Chapman, Macadamian Software Engineering

Session Overview
Software usability is about more than an attractive design. Usability can make the difference between users liking your application or getting frustrated whenever they have to use it - affecting your company’s bottom line.

To develop software that users like, developers must collaborate with users to find out what they really need. Companies that know the right way to listen to the voice of the user will have a better chance of success in the competitive market. On World Usability Day, a panel of experts in the user experience field will discuss how software companies can find out the right way to incorporate research into the development process.

The panel will address:

* the right and wrong ways to get user feedback;
* the pitfalls of user involvement in design;
* how user research can make your design decisions easier; and
* best practices for applying user feedback in the development process.

More information: http://www.ocri.ca/events/ocripartnered.asp

Date: Thursday November 13, 2008

Time: 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Agenda:
8:00 a.m - 8:30 a.m. – registration/continental breakfast
8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. - presentation

Location: “Signed” Room, Brookstreet Hotel, 525 Leggett Dr., Kanata

Cost
Early Registration (received by OCRI no later than 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday November 11, 2008)
$50.00 - OCRI members (plus 5% GST)
$75.00 - Non-members (plus 5% GST)

Late / On-Site Registration
$60.00 - OCRI members (plus 5% GST)
$85.00 - Non-members (plus 5% GST)

To make a reservation contact:
Patricia Ward
Conference Administrator
613-828-6274 ext. 249
Fax: 613-726-3444
Email: pward@ocri.ca

TITLE: Agile Testing: Practical Approaches to Quality that Get Results

DATE: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

TIME: 6:30PM Networking; 7PM-9PM Presentation

PLACE: TheCodeFactory, 246 Queen St., 2nd floor, Ottawa (between Bank and Kent, above the Green Papaya Restaurant)

Parking is free on the street after 18h

Light supper included (please register - see below - to help us estimate the quantities).

COST: $10.00, free for members

TO REGISTER: send an e-mail to suggestions@osqa.org with a subject REGISTER FOR NOVEMBER

MORE INFORMATION: http://www.osqa.org

SPEAKER: Matt Brayley-Berger, Borland

ABSTRACT:

Imagine dramatically shrinking your testing effort while, at the same time, increasing its velocity; being able to make decisions based on a real-time dashboard without having to re-invent your organization …

Software is critical in today’s business environment and its success depends heavily on a daunting paradox: provide higher quality software, faster. To achieve this, many organizations are adopting Agile development practices. With the transformation to Agile comes organizational culture change - to some, culture shock. Specifically, how will you transform your traditional quality practices and empower testing teams to thrive in the high-velocity, collaborative, incremental development world of Agile?

Eighteen months ago Borland’s leadership team decided to transition its development organization to Agile– 325 engineers, working on a broad portfolio of projects, and spanning thirteen different locations around the world — as part of an effort to reduce development costs, boost efficiency and quality, and increase customer responsiveness. A key component of Borland’s transformation was the migration of its quality and testing teams. Today, Borland is in “the thick” of its Agile shift, with nearly 40% of its teams using Agile practices. The results have been dramatic.

This interactive session will cover what Agile testing is, what it’s not, and how some industry leaders are incorporating Agile testing practices into their IT organizations. Some of the topics we’ll cover will include:

• Unit testing – it’s critical to a projects success, but is it enough?

• What’s the right amount of automation for organizations of different sizes?

• How are organizations successfully adapting existing automation practices to better support their Agile approach?

• What management insights can be gained through different levels of automation?

We’ll also share the real world lessons and benefits that Borland has experienced during its Agile transformation.

Attendees will learn:

• About the critical role of the tester in an Agile environment

• Practical approaches to migrate from existing testing practices into Agile.

• How the use of automation can help teams achieve their goals more quickly, and deliver real-time data to support management visibility into its activities.

SPEAKER’S BIO:

Matt Brayley-Berger is a senior domain specialist for Borland Software focusing on Lifecycle Quality Management and Test Automation. He brings eleven years of experience in the software project management and quality assurance disciplines, and he has been a frequent speaker and instructor on these topics for over a decade.

Most recently, Matt’s has led numerous organizational transformations from traditional testing methods to agile testing methods with industry leaders in the telecommunications, media, high-technology, and government sectors across the United States and Canada. He is also a certified SCRUM Master.

Prior to joining Borland in 2005, Matt worked for IBM Rational. During his eight years at IBM, he was a member of both the sales and services teams, and was responsible for considerable growth and customer successes in the areas of project management and test automation.

This year’s theme: Transportation

World Usability Day was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, on the second Thursday of November, over 225 events are organized in over 40 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

For more information, see: http://www.worldusabilityday.org/

COGNOS Innovation Lecture: Collaborating on, with, and about Technology

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
5050 Minto Building, Carleton University

Collaboration technology is the hardware, software, and social processes that support people working together to accomplish goals of mutual interest. An understanding of the ways that people interact with each other and how those depend on the tasks being undertaken and the contexts in which people work is essential to developing successful tools. This will be illustrated with examples drawn from collocated collaboration using large screen displays and distributed collaboration in classrooms, meeting rooms, and small group environments, highlighting the importance of human-centered design starting with observations of existing behavior followed by iterative prototyping and evaluation throughout the development.

Refreshments to follow
RSVP to: cognoslecture@carleton.ca

Kellogg Booth

Kellogg S. Booth is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He has worked in the fields of human-computer interaction and computer graphics since 1968. He was the founding Director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre at UBC. Prior to that he was a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo (1977-1990), and before that a staff member at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1968-1976). Research interests include human-computer interaction, visualization, computer graphics, user interface design, and analysis of algorithms. The current focus of his research centers on collaboration technology. He received a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1968, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 and 1975, respectively.

Time: 7:00pm

Place: TheCodeFactory, 246 Queen St., Ottawa

Learn how to apply best-practices in contextual navigation strategies to increase productivity, conversions and engagement.

Gord Hopkins, from Neo Insight (Customer Carewords partner with Gerry McGovern), will discuss how a well-designed, context-sensitive navigation scheme can help customers quickly accomplish their tasks. Customer Carewords and Top Task Management techniques are used to optimize the navigation and the Task Performance Indicator allows managers to measure and continuously improve task performance.

This presentation is being put on in conjunction with World Usability Day. In keeping with the World Usability Day theme of Transportation, several examples will be drawn from that industry.

When and Where:

This event will take place on November 13, 7-9 pm at The Code Factory, located at 246 Queen Street, between Bank and Kent, (on the second floor) above the Green Papaya Restaurant.

View map

Street parking is available at no cost after 6 pm.

Note: there is no cost for attending this event and prior registration is not required. Light snacks and refreshments will be served. An informal social gathering will follow at a nearby pub.

Presenter: Derek Featherstone

Topic: Accessibility: The Next Wave

Abstract: For 10 years, we’ve seen continued improvement in web accessbility — both from an awareness and technique perspective. But the web does not stand still. It evolves. It grows. And, its workers innovate to bring new technologies and solutions to the advancing edge of the web. Accordingly, we have moved away from simply providing essential services online to allowing full access to the seemingly unending supply of data through traditional visualization, interactive timelines, rich applications, and a variety of mapping tools.

In this session, we’ll take a look at what is happening with technology at the fringe: SVG, Ajax, ARIA, mapping APIs and how the upcoming WCAG 2.0 will help us think beyond what has come before and prepare for what is ahead.

Biography:

Engaging, surprising, and inspiring, Derek Featherstone is a internationally-known authority on accessibility, user experience and web development, a respected technical trainer, and author. His
approach never fails to champion the cause of web standards and universal accessibility.

As founder of Further Ahead, he has been an in-demand consultant to government agencies, educational institutions, and private sector companies since 1999. He is the Leader of the influential Web
Standards Project and has served on their Accessibility and DOM Scripting Task Forces.

When and Where:

This event will take place on October 21, 7-9 pm at The Code Factory, located at 246 Queen Street, between Bank and Kent, (on the second floor) above the Green Papaya Restaurant.

View map

Street parking is available at no cost after 6 pm.

Note: there is no cost for attending this event and prior registration is not required.

Job Title - UI Specialist
Company Name - McAfee
URL - www.Mcafee.com
Location - Sunnyvale, California

McAfee® is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that secure systems and networks around the world, allowing users to browse and shop the web securely. With our unmatched security expertise and commitment to innovation, McAfee helps home users, businesses, the public sector and service providers to comply with regulations, protect data, prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and continuously monitor and improve their security. Our products are unique in how they work together to make security affordable and manageable. These days, the threats are tougher, and the perpetrators are trickier. But as we have for more than 20 years, McAfee delivers superior protection that is trusted by millions of people.

Background

You will be a member of a new user experience team supporting the McAfee, Inc. Consumer Applications.  You will interact on a regular basis with users and apply learnings to deliver specifications which will result in a best in class user experience.

Responsibilities

• Proactively participate in full product development lifecycle, from business opportunity to requirements definition, to development of best-of-breed user interface design, to on-going monitoring and evaluation of customer satisfaction and effectiveness.
• Develop end to end user experience view of our applications and Web site, from needs awareness to purchase decision, product selection, download, installation, subscription renewal, configuration, responding to notifications and updates.
• Define use cases and user scenarios, sitemap diagrams, schematics, wire frames, storyboards, and written specifications.
• Conduct and deliver results from a variety of user experience studies appropriate to the business objective, e.g., competitive reviews, focus groups, field studies, usability tests, surveys, cognitive walkthroughs, paired comparisons, structured interviews, contextual inquiry, task analysis, field studies, heuristic review, remote testing, and card sorting.
• Build, review, aggregate, and report application usage analytics

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Human Factors, Cognitive or Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Science, Anthropology, Information Design or related field (or equivalent experience) required.  Advanced degree (MS/MA) preferred.
• Minimum of 6 years of usability experience in a corporate or consulting environment for high traffic ecommerce sites applying a variety of methodologies.
• Minimum of 4 years analyzing and reporting Web site metrics (traffic, clickthrough, conversion, path analysis, drop off rates).
• Experience in some or all of the following statistical methodologies: correlations, t-tests, regressions, ANOVAs.
• Experience researching user needs throughout the entire product development cycle: Must be skilled at conducting research early in the product development process, with a proven record of informing the product direction and strategy.
• Understanding of HTML, Javascript, CSS, XML/XSL, and other web technologies.
• Note: Must provide samples of user experience deliverables (e.g., plans, protocols, reports, consent forms, screening questions, presentations).
• Understanding of programming technologies, specifically capabilities and limitations
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Meticulous attention to detail.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to collaborate with inter-disciplinary teams in deadline situations.

 We offer a full range of competitive benefits to our full-time employees. Our extensive plan includes company paid Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage (choice of HMO, PPO or Premium PPO), Paid Time Off, paid Holidays, Stock Options, Flexible Spending Account, Educational Assistance Program, 401(k), ESPP and more!

Please visit us @ www.McAfee.com  or apply online @ www.mcafeecareers.com.