CapCHI Workshop

Strategic Usability Engineering
A workshop led by Deborah J. Mayhew, PhD

Date: Monday May 12, 2008
Time: 9:00AM - 5:00PM; Registration + Breakfast will begin at 8:30AM
Location: RA Centre, 2451 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7X7

New Registration is now open:

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Abstract

This workshop offers success strategies for practicing usability engineering in organizations developing software products and services for the public or for internal users.

It provides effective organizational skills that can be put to immediate use by interaction designers, computer scientists, web designers, software engineers, graphic designers, information architects, usability engineers, industrial designers, and other professionals involved in pursuing the goal of optimal user experiences for end users.

Such professionals working in government agencies, non-profit organizations, vendor companies, as well as in the commercial sector, will find this course of relevance to their goal of successfully introducing and integrating usability engineering methods and practices into their development organizations.

The workshop first outlines how to make the business case for usability engineering in general - and specific usability project plans in particular - by adapting general cost-justification techniques to estimate expected return on investment (ROI) for usability initiatives. This technique can be used to solicit funding. Cost-justification is discussed across a wide variety of contexts, including both commercial and internal traditional business applications, public web sites, intranets, and web-based applications.

In addition, the course provides a variety of organizational strategies for:

• Gaining the support you need to introduce usability engineering expertise, techniques and methods into your development organization,
• Successfully adapting usability engineering practices to your particular organizational structure and corporate culture, and
• Integrating usability engineering with your unique development methodology and institutionalizing it across your entire development organization.

Lecture materials are augmented by frequent class discussion as well as several hands-on exercises carried out in small groups. The workshop is aimed at providing concrete tools for succeeding whether you are:

• Your organization’s very first experience with usability engineering professionals and practices
• A seasoned individual contributor trying to motivate and support the growth of a more pervasive usability function in your organization
• The manager of a newly formed usability group, or
• A part of a seasoned usability group trying to permeate your entire development organization and methodology.

New Following the workshop, attendees who are interested can participate in an informal "unconference". This will be an opportunity for attendees to talk some more with Deborah and with each other and unwind. The aim is for all attendees to leave the day with a clearer idea of how strategies for practicing usability engineering can benefit their organizations and to know how to make their great ideas become a reality.

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Biography

Dr. Deborah J. Mayhew is an internationally recognized author, teacher, speaker and consultant on software user interface design and usability engineering. She has been Owner and Principal Consultant of Deborah J. Mayhew & Associates, a consulting firm offering a wide variety of services related to usability engineering, since 1986, when she became one of the first independent consultants in her field. Clients have included IBM, AT&T, John Hancock Insurance Co., GE, Hewlett-Packard, Ford Motor Co., GTE, American Express, Apple, American Airlines, Texas Instruments, NASA, the National Cancer Institute, The New York City Police Department, Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), Cisco Systems, the IRS and many others. Over her 25-plus years in the field of usability engineering, Dr. Mayhew has consulted to companies in many diverse industries on the design of products based on a wide range of technology platforms including mainframe computers with “dumb terminals”, GUIs, medical technology, manufacturing equipment and Web sites and applications. She has helped promote, establish and institutionalize usability engineering functions and staff in many of her client organizations.

Dr. Mayhew holds a B.A. in Psychology from Brown University, an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Tufts University. In the early 1980’s, before going into consulting, she was an Assistant Professor in the College of Computer Science at Northeastern University in Boston, where she taught graduate and undergraduate level courses to computer science majors. At that time she developed and offered some of the earliest university courses in the nation within a computer science curriculum on user interface design and usability engineering. Prior to her position at Northeastern, Dr. Mayhew worked for seven years in the computer industry, both as a software developer, and as a usability engineer.

Dr. Mayhew is a frequent instructor in conference Tutorial programs, has taught courses in many large organizations, and has authored or co-edited four books on topics in usability engineering, some of which have been adopted as texts in university courses all over the world, and has contributed chapters to many other books. One very popular book is Cost-Justifying Usability, co-edited with Randolph G. Bias, Academic Press, 1994, and recently out in a second edition published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2005. Another is The Usability Engineering Lifecycle, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1999.

Dr. Mayhew offers the full range of usability engineering consulting services, including usability requirements analysis, user interface design, usability testing, heuristic evaluations, style guide development, cognitive modeling and usability engineering training, as well as usability engineering management and methodology consulting. Her website is at http://drdeb.vineyard.net.

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Agenda

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Registration Fees (including breakfast, lunch, and breaks)

New Registration is now open:

• The registration fee includes the book, Cost-Justifying Usability!
• The number of seats is limited so register early.
• The registration deadline is Wednesday May 7, 2008, if seats are still available.
• A current ID is required for the Student Rate (student, post doc or post-doc equivalent).
• We also encourage participants to bring a laptop with Microsoft Excel software installed; wireless Internet capability is not necessary. Not everyone must have a laptop, but we do plan to do some hands-on group work if possible.

For more information, contact workshop@capchi.org.

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Venue

The workshop will take place in the Courtside B Room at the RA Centre on Monday May 12, 2008 from 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM.

Breakfast, lunch, and refreshment breaks will be provided.

Free parking is available on site.

The RA centre is near the Billings Bridge Shopping Centre and accessible by bus routes from downtown and the O-Train. Visit OC Transpo for more bus route information.

RA Centre
2451 Riverside Drive
Ottawa, ON, Canada
K1H 7X7
T: (613) 733-5100
For more info, visit www.racentre.com

Directions to the RA Centre:

From Toronto...

• Take Highway 401 east.
• Take the Hwy-416 N exit- exit number 721A- toward
• Kemptville/Ottawa
• Merge onto Route 416 N
• Take the Hwy-417 E exit toward Ottawa
• Take the Bronson Ave. exit- exit number 121A- toward Hwy-16/Hwy-31/Airport
• Turn right onto Bronson Ave
• Take the Riverside East ramp
• Turn slight right onto ramp
• Turn slight right onto Riverside Dr
• Turn right into RA Centre 2451 Riverside Dr.

From Montreal...

• Take autoroute 40 West
• Autoroute 40 West becomes Trans Canada Hwy/Route 417
• Take the Walkley Road exit- exit number 110.
• Turn left onto Walkley Road (stay in the right hand lane)
• Turn slight right onto Heron Rd
• Take the Hwy-16 N/Bronson North/Riverside East ramp
• Take the Riverside East ramp
• Turn slight right onto Riverside Dr
• Turn right into RA Centre 2451 Riverside Dr.

For a map of the area surrounding the RA Center visit http://www.racentre.com/e/about/general.htm

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