UPA 2006: Usability Through Storytelling

 

As usability professionals, we weave stories that have been harvested from user communities. While using products we help to develop, they tell us stories of frustrations and joyous discoveries. Observing and analyzing users and their tasks creates stories that will bring the user community alive in the minds of others. Even older stories, told in the ancient tradition of Native American tribes, can teach us how to communicate with and educate our peers. - DeeDee DeMulling, Conference Chair

• Conference Dates: June 12-16, 2006
• Location: Denver/Broomfield, Colorado, US
• Attendees: 600+
• Conference Web Site and Final Program
• Conference Committee
  
• Photos from the conference on Flickr (tag: UPA2006)

• Keynote and Invited Speakers
• Idea Market Afterthoughts
• Presentations
• Panels
• Peer Reviewed Papers
• Experienced Practitioners Track
• Workshops

The conference proceedings are available for sale in the UPA Store.

Keynotes and Invited Speakers

• Steve Denning - Usability through Storytelling: the Discipline of Business Narrative
  stevedenning.com  
• Kevin Brooks - Stories in the Mirror: Narrative Reflections
  story resources   presentation slides
• Annie Archbold - They're Telling a Story: What are They Saying
• Carolmarie Stock - Pictures in My Mind: Using Storytelling to Help Develop Creative Imagination
• John C. Thomas - The Story of the Story: Using Narrative Elements in the Service of Usability
  presentation slides
• Leigh Rubin - Telling 365 Short Stories a Year: The Inspiration Behind Creating a Daily Cartoon
  Rubes online
• Nelson Soken - Ready, Set, Innovate: With the Customer Experience in Mind
• Roy Carter - Narrative and Interaction: Memory, Experience and Form
• John Carroll - Getting Your Story Straight: Scenario-based Usability Engineering
   presentation slides
  

The Idea Market - Afterthoughts

Ever feel that the best part of a conference happens between sessions? Ulf Andersson did. So he devised a new format for conference sessions called an Idea Market. Attendees are free to roam from one idea station to the next, until they find a topic that they are interested in. Multiple "activators" stir up lively discourse on a variety of topics in a highly interactive, fluid session.

Wednesday –

• How do you resolve issues and more the design forward afer conducting a review among user experience design peers - Cindy Lu
• Can we make usablity performance data more compelling and understandable - Kevin Lee
• How do we create realistic usability testing scenarios that engage participants while addressing the issues we need to explore - Lori K. Anschuetz
• To what degree can facial recognition technology replace human usability specialists? - Laura Richterich, Petro Branco
• What are the best practices for conducting international studies? - Kimberly Oslob
• How can we work with China? - Gerry Gaffney, Daniel Szuc
• What five things do you wish recruiters knew about user experience? - Karyn Young, Laurie Lamar
• Playing usability limbo: how low can you go? - Rhiannon Gallagher
• If we had a seat at the table, what would we say? Erin Liman, Steve Ranson

Friday

• Analysing usability study results: is it magic behind the curtain? - Emma Rose, Anita Salem
• In usability is it true that "the customer is always right"? - Christine A. Paulson
• Making it to the top: what does it take to be a successful user experience professional? - Andrew J. Schall
• How can we combine usability and market research for complete user/customer research? - J.O. (Joe) Bugental
• What are the positive and negative impacts on usability resulting from off-shore development, product globalization and international teams? - James M. Herold
• Have you applied "just in time" education? - Carrie H. Cianchette, Joy Andrews
• Computing whereever and whenever: how can usability testing account for the issues related to mobile computing - Kathlene Leonard
• Why should we conduct quantitative usability projects? - Stephanie Rosenbaum
  

Presentations

Presentation sessions are either 40 or 90 minutes long, and focus on a practitioner's ideas and experience with usability methods, skills, philosophy, design, business case studies, or other relevant topics.

SPEAKERS	PRESENTATION TITLE
Qiwu Liu , Barbra Enlow	Enhancing Usability of Print-Based and Web-Based Documents Through Information Design
Tim Herbst , Bill Dixon, Lisa Battle, Sean Wheeler	Applying User-Centered Methods to Inform New Product Selection and Strategic Planning
Michelle McNulty. Ellen Mangan	Usable Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems & Older Adults: Observations & Recommendations
Desiree Sy	Formative usability investigations for open-ended tasks
Don Zimmerman. Linda Stapel	Using focus groups to design user-based Web sites
Shawn Henry, Chris Haas	Redesigning /www.w3.org/WAI: A Tale of Two Sites ( WAI Web site redesign project site)
Lynn Miller	Interaction Designers and Agile Development – A Partnership
Jay Joichi	Using Scriptwriting Techniques to Develop More Engaging and Effective User Scenarios
Kathi Kaiser, Lyman Casey	Digital Prototyping for Dummies: An Unconventional Approach to Creating Interactive Prototypes
Mark Wehner	Researching Concepts with Comics
David Siegel	Evaluation in the Field: Usability, Utility, and Technology Adoption  (Advanced Topic)
Lyman Casey, Kathi Kaiser	From Green Screen to Browser: Bringing an Industrial Order Entry Interface into the 21st
Leah Rader, Beth Toland	Create Compelling User Stories--Collaboratively
Merryl Gross	Tales Come True: Use Cases As Functional Specifications
Ron Sova	Storyboards - A Dynamic Storytelling Tool
Judy Kistler-Robinson, Jennifer Wilmer	A Different Story: Applying Nielsen's Heuristics for Speech-Enabled Applications
Spencer Gerrol, Reshmy Kurian, Javier Broch	When in Rome: Understanding Cultural Differences in the Context of Building Personas and Creating Designs for Various Cultures
Nelson Soken	Ready, Set, Innovate: With the Customer Experience in Mind
Robert Schumacher, Alfonso de la Nuez, Tim Bosenick, Shelley Allen, Ed Israelski	How Usability is Changing the World: Assessing the Impact of Global Testing
John Whalen	The Usability of AJAX: A Primer for Usability Professionals and a First-Hand Account Presentation slides (HTML)  Presentation slides (PDF) Handouts
Richard Fulcher, Rachel Garb, Alex Liston, Donna Slote	How (Not) to Destroy a Great User Experience: Discovering and Documenting the Story Behind the Design Presentation Slides   Functional Spec Template
John Schrag	Using Formative Usability Testing as a Fast UI Design Tool
Marguerite Bergel, Ann Chadwick-Dias	Web Accessibility and Usability for Blind Users: Closing the Gap
Gavin Lew	Advanced user experience techniques or “what they often do not teach you in school…”
Larry Marine	Driving Product Design from the Business Objectives Presentation slides, Example design spec
Maggie Reilly, Barbra Wells	Shoes for the Shoemakers Children: Bringing Usability Home
Caroline Jarrett, Whitney Quesenbery	How to look at a form...in a hurry Presentation Slides
Cory Lebson	Tools for Electronic Collaboration: Off the Shelf and Into the Usability
Timothy Keirnan	An Inside Job: Usability Success Stories In Corporate IT
Kerry Bodine, Moira Dorsey	Persona Best Practices That Drive Business Results
Tom Noonan	A Study of Researchers in Europe, UK and the US: A Review of the Methodology, Findings and How the Results are Being Used
Agnieszka Bojko, Abigail Stephenson, Gavin Lew	Team and Data Management in Large-Scale User Research Projects
Michael Harms, Bob Dolan	Applying Universal Design: A Framework for Relating Design Guidelines to Accessibility Requirements
Jennifer Wilmer, Judy Kistler-Robinson	Usability Testing to Get the Caller's Side of the Story

Panels and 10-Minute Talks

SPEAKERS	TITLE
David Siegel, Caroline Jarrett, Scott Kincaid, Steve Krug	Usabilty Fundamentals: Testing
Susan Dray, Joseph Dumas, Janice James, Thyra Rauch	Usabilty Fundamentals: Research
DeeDee DeMulling, Ron Sova, Stephanie Rosenbaum, Whitney Quesenbery	Usabilty Fundamentals: Design
Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus, Jakob Nielsen, Steve Krug, Susan Weinschenk, Janice James	The State of Web Site Usability for 2006 Presentations
Joi Roberts, Nicole Schadewitz, Carmen Broomes, Yue Yin, Liu Wei, Pedro-Jorge Adler	People Are Talking! Projects Designed to Enhance Storytelling Within Communities Presentations part 1, Presentatations part 2
Larry Constantine, Jeannine Strope, David Kellmeyer, Werner Höfler	When User Interaction Really Matters: Designing for Performance-Critical Applications
Mary Theofanos, Dean Barker, Whitney Quesenbery, Lisa Battle, Mary Beth Rettger	Usability Standards: Are they effective in fostering good usability practice? Handouts
Paul Sherman, Caroline Jarrett, Steve Fadden, Catherine Courage, Carol Barnum	Usability Stories II: Successes and (Gasp…) Failures
Scott Kincaid, Catherine Courage, Maggie Duvall	Compare your Instincts with the Users

Peer Reviewed Papers

Peer-reviewed papers are submitted as both a complete paper and a presentation. Both must reflect the priorities of the UPA conference, which emphasize practicality, hands-on experience, and interactive presentation.

AUTHORS	TITLE
Omar Vasnaik, Roman Longoria	Bridging the Gap with a Remote User Presentation Slides   Paper (Note: This paper was inadvertently left off the Proceedings disc, so is posted here to make it available)
Michael Hawley, Joe Dumas	Making Sense of Remote Usability Testing: Setup and Vendor Options
Laura Faulkner	Ethnographic Awakenings that Changed Designs
Jay Joichi	Using Scriptwriting Techniques to Develop More Engaging and Effective User Scenarios
Dong-Seok Lee, David Woods, Daniel Kidwell	Escaping the design traps of creeping featurism: Introducing a fitness management strategy

Experienced Practitioners' Track

This day-long program included five sessions that are geared for practitioners with at least 5-10 years of experience and who desire a deeper level of understanding and discussion. Attendance was limited to 40 people.

SPEAKERS	TITLE
Lisa Battle, Rebecca Ray, Karen Bachmann	Integrating UCD with Requirements Engineering: Improving Processes, Formats, and Communication
Duane Degler	Next-Generation Design: Interacting with the Semantic Web
Dawn Vitale, Michael Rawlins	Risk-based Approach to Implementing Usability Methods and User-Centered Design Principles
Agnieszka Bojko, Abigail Stephenson	A, B, or C? Using Eye Movement Measures to Compare Alternative Layouts and Graphic Treatment Solutions
Donna Tedesco, Tom Tullis	A Comparison of Methods for Eliciting Post-Task Subjective Ratings in Usability Testing Presentation Slides   Paper

Workshops

UPA workshops provide an active arena for advancements in the field of usability and design. Workshops provide the opportunity for experienced practitioners to develop new ideas about a topic of common interest and experience.

LEADERS	WORKSHOP TITLE
J.O. (Joe) Bugental, Stephen Turner, Stephanie Rosenbaum	Overlapping Usability and Market Research: Synergies and Issues
Rich Gunther	The Business of Usability: Developing Metrics to Justify Our Existence and Budgets Workshop Report, Project Website
Natalie Webb, Tony Renshaw	Adding Value with Eyetracking
Larry Wood, Thomas Tullis	Issues and Best Practices in Card-Sorting
Richard Douglass	Tutorial: How to Conduct a Competitive Heuristic Evaluation Presentation Slides

 

2006 Conference Committee

• 2006 Conference Co-Chairs: Delight 'DeeDee' DeMulling, Carol Smith
• Conference Advisor: Caryn Josephson
• Advanced Topics: Chauncey Wilson, Joi Roberts
• Exhibits: Dave Metropolis-Rundus
• Idea Markets: Deborah Hinderer Sova, Hank Henry, Cristin Witcher
• Invited Speakers: Bill Albert, Kate Caldwell, Carmen Gillette
• Local Liaison - Broomfield, Colorado: Pawan Vora
• On-site Conference Volunteers: Pam Cote, Mary Pat Laboda
• Panels and Presentations: Debbie McConnell, Stephen Hatfield, Jean Fox
• Peer-Reviewed Papers: Charlotte Schwendamen, Satyam Kantamneni, Laura Downey
• Posters: Merryl Gross, Michael Crowther
• Printed Program Design: Allen Rotz, Melanie Datz
• Publicity: Kate Caldwell, Bula Barua, Jennifer Bombach
• Reviewers: James McElroy, Jerome Ryckborst, Kathy Coats
• Session Chair Coordinator: Catherine Courage
• 10-Minute Talks: Chauncey Wilson, Joi Roberts
• Tutorials: Suzanne El-Moursi, Sheila Carey
• Usability Fundamentals Panels: usan Dray, David Siegel
• Workshops: Eugenie Bertus, Lada Gorlenko
• Web Site: Kelly Berg, Jeremy Harrington, Amanda Nance

Do you have a presentation to add to this site? Send the presentation file or link URL to the Web Director. Files may be in Acrobat (PDF), Rich Text (RTF), Word (DOC) or Powerpoint (PPT) format, and should be under 2 Megs.