Usability Professionals' Association

Type

Tutorials

Tutorials are formally prepared sessions at which instructors teach conference participants specific usability or design skills. Session sizes range from 10 to 100 participants. One-third to one-half of each session must involve audience participation. For 2009, we invite new submissions, submissions from previous years and encourage a variety of state-of-the-art topics.

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.

Position Paper

A position paper is required for all full day workshop submissions.

30 Minute Presentations

High energy, fast paced presentations, giving presenters an opportunity to focus on sharing their research, methods, or experiences. Content of these presentations must be easily presented in 30-minutes. While these sessions will require less interaction with the audience, we expect a livelier, more dynamic presentation style.

Experienced Practitioner Program

These half-day (3 hour) sessions are designed to encourage participants/attendees to discuss and share experiences and best practices with each other on topics geared towards experienced practitioners (3+ years of experience). We are looking for proposals that include and encourage interactivity with both the presenter(s) and with each other, beyond mere question-and-answer time. You can use a workshop format, or challenge us with something different!  As long as it is interesting to experienced practitioners, we’d like to see it.

Experienced Practitioner Topic

Presentations in the regular conference program where experienced professionals can present or discuss focused topics. This is a 90-minute format, previously known as "Advanced Topic Seminars".

Presentations

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

Panels

Panels cover the same areas of interest as presentations and consist of 3-5 experts in the topic of the panel conversation.

Peer Reviewed Papers

Peer-reviewed papers will be published in a special section of the conference proceedings. All proposals for papers must be submitted in a package with a proposal for a presentation, which will be delivered at a special paper presentation session. Both the paper and the presentation must reflect the priorities of the UPA conference, which emphasize practicality, hands-on experience, and interactive presentation.

Posters

Posters are a way to present late-breaking results, new ideas or concepts in an informal, visual and interactive manner.

Idea Markets

The Idea Market is a highly interactive and casual set of discussions about "burning questions" in usability and user-centered design, led by an "activator". Each activator chooses a topic, posts the questions or issues to explore about the topic, and records the ideas that come up during the discussion.