Understanding users' needs and expectations is essential for effective usability work. All too often, it's a part of the usability cycle that gets too little attention. Doing field work to talk to users may seem too expensive and time-consuming. Are there any good shortcuts? How do you justify the time and expense to management? How do you organize your field work to be most effective? How do you feed the results back into product development? (6082)

Commerce and communications across cultural borders, whether between neighborhoods, villages, geographic regions or nation-states, is an activity older than money and as fraught with latent misunderstanding as it is potentially profitable and productive. Today, thanks to the Internet and the globalization of the world economy, the volume and velocity, and the sheer distances goods, services and people travel to get to market have increased dramatically. Today, we live in nation-states in which the nation is a mosaic of diverse cultures. Today, there is a heightened awareness and sensitivity to linguistic and cultural differences.

New processes have emerged in response to this new global, multicultural and multimedia reality, namely localization and internationalization. Both address the challenges of communicating across cultural and linguistic borders. The presentation International by Design” will offer an introduction to these processes, their impacts on the authoring and graphic design of documentation and how both contribute to the quality of multilingual communications. (6064)

Successful collaboration on large projects requires an approach to user-centered design that distinguishes project roles and responsibilities. This case study shows an example of bridging corporate cultures for a more holistic UCD approach. We’ll outline how three firms collaborated on a large website redesign, following a User-Centered Design approach in a company where UCD isn’t yet commonplace. (302)

We have conducted usability tests with over 130 older adults in recent years. Although this group is very diverse in personality, technical savvy, and mental and physical ability, we have made some basic observations that should be considered when recruiting, preparing for, and executing a usability study with this user demographic. These points will be listed, described, and discussed. (195)

Long-term investigation is commonly used in many disciplines, but is less known in usability. The seminar reviews the different strategies of longitudinal research and their applicability given the goals, requirements, and restrictions of usability work. Advantages and limitations of longitudinal data in usability are discussed, together with common activities, timeframes and measurements. (173)

Many of us use paper prototyping, but what do we really know about it? We’ll look at several research studies that examine the validity of paper prototyping in terms of finding usability problems. We’ll also discuss how paper prototypes (and other aspects of testing) might bias a usability test, and how users respond to them. (132)

Challenge: Increase use of an Intranet site by computer-resistant employees. Approaches: Focus groups, interviews, expert analysis, and remote usability testing. Result: Major restructuring of site. Presentation: Bridging cultural challenges posed by non-technical staff who resist using computers, pros and cons of testing techniques used, and impact of the changes. (147)

Recent advances in information technology, networking and interface research have provided new tools which will allow us to completely redefine rethink or definition of interface. Flexibility in interface made possible by processors can now allow them to provide user options that can address the needs of a very wide range of users – as part of the standard interface. And the introduction of user interface sockets can enable the concept of portable personal interfaces. Coupled with natural language and direct access to functionality we can have products that users can control on their own terms. Someday we may even be able to control things by simply thinking about them. The foundations for this has already been laid. (6067)

As it is becoming increasingly common to work on cross-cultural and internationally dispersed teams and to conduct usability evaluations with culturally diverse users and teams, communication challenges increase. This presentation explores key concepts for understanding cultures, based on the work of two major figures: Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede. Their work will be used to analyze communication samples from different parts of the world. (134)

The objective of this panel is to bring together UCD practitioners to discuss and relate cases where user-centered design contributed significantly to the solution of a business problem. Panel participants will also discuss organizational factors that facilitated or impeded the application of UCD techniques to the problem. Finally, participants will also discuss successful – and unsuccessful – tactics and strategies for communicating the value of UCD to other parts of the organization. (282)

How do you collect user feedback on web site organization if users are spread across the globe? A remote card sort may be the answer. We review currently available technologies for performing card sorts remotely and present a relatively low-tech remote card sort method, analysis techniques, and real-world success. (283)

Building successful prototypes requires that they be fast and flexible. High-fidelity prototypes are one way of taking a prototype from requirements-gathering to user testing. This presentation will look at high-fidelity prototypes from e-commerce, library, and community portal web projects built using CSS and Visio. (269)

This session describes a method to get a product’s key business, design, and development stakeholders to agree on what tasks and features you should design for. I’ll present a prioritization matrix that objectively weighs the business and user needs against the technical feasibility of the desired features, bridging the three different internal cultures. (164)

Universal design for DVD interfaces? This case-based presentation illustrates DVD accessibility and usability simultaneously dovetailing smoothly and colliding spectacularly. We show how two lab-based usability evaluations of DVD audio navigation with blind and sighted users brought unexpected insights into the possibilities and limitations of accessibility design for DVD interfaces. (245)

New technologies, reduced workforces, and higher expectations from the public are transforming the way that businesses and government agencies deliver online services. However, online services are not just forms. We describe ways to improve user experience by providing integrated services, preventing errors, using appropriate tone and language, and structuring the interaction. (247)

50% of adults in the U.S. read at the 8th grade level or below (Kirsch, Junegeblut, Jenkins, & Kolstad, 1993). A major pharmaceutical company has recently implemented a policy that all their print materials must be at a 6th grade reading level. The goal of this two-year study was to learn how to make web-based medical content usable and accessible for lower-literacy adults. The results will be used to redesign all of the 30+ websites associated with the pharmaceutical company sponsoring the research. (175)

Transforming users' needs and expectations into usable products is a difficult process. Like all creative acts, it is both art and science. When does analysis end and design begin? What approach should you use? What tools can make the job easier? How do you evaluate and refine work in progress? (6085)

This tutorial focuses on developing and applying patterns to design user interfaces for Web-based applications. The participants will learn: to create user interface design patterns, to augment design guidelines with patterns, and to effectively communicate patterns to the application development team and customers. (268)

While usability research focuses mainly on sighted users, and somewhat on blind users with assistive devices, little is known about the needs of low vision users. We added interactive audio and visual help to a prototype and tested it with low vision users to investigate their needs. Findings will be discussed. (292)

This presentation describes the redesign of a large company’s intranet Search application. The project team followed an iterative user-centered design process that included feedback from employees at numerous times during development. The presenters will show how the design evolved from its inception to completion and offer rationales for design decisions throughout the process. They will also offer advice and “lessons learned.” (184)

Agile software development methods hinge on weekly assessment, planning, development and test cycles to move a software project toward a product or system that is only broadly defined. User-centered design hinges on systematic, proactive careful study and evaluation of users goals and mental models that ideally precede any system design or development. This panel bring together varying perspectives from within software development and user-centered design to discuss and debate how (or whether?) agile software development and user centered design methodologies can be reconciled. (311)

This article discusses the need for studying Web usability issues in natural environments. We propose that remote, Internet-based studies, testing users on their own technological devices at a time convenient for them, will complement traditional lab studies. We also describe a toolkit for supporting the conduct of remote usability studies and empirical experiments. (246)