February 2009 Contents

UPA 2.0 - A New Horizon

In January 2009, the UPA Board of Directors met in Portland to outline the UPA Strategic Goals and Visions for 2009 and the next 3-5 years. It was a fruitful and productive time as we looked ahead at how the UPA can develop its full potential and become the association we all think we want it to be. We discussed how the UPA can learn more from leading industry trends, market shifts, our membership, and our regional leadership & partners.

By Silvia Zimmermann and Dan Szuc

Build your Skills: Web Accessibility Evaluation

Are you one of the growing numbers of usability professionals who is interested in accessibility? Looking to expand your usability skills to include evaluating web sites for accessibility? Required to ensure compliance to national standards like "Section 508" or the new international standard from the W3C, Web Content Authoring Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0?

By Whitney Quesenbery, Sharron Rush, and Paul Sherman

Thumbnail: Bill Albert

Bill Albert is a quantitative sort of guy. That bent is reflected in his recent book, Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics, written with Tom Tullis. Readers may not realize, though, that there's a lot more to Bill than just the numbers.

By Cliff Anderson

UPA Member Spotlight:

Susan Dray Named an ACM Distinguished Engineer

The UPA is pleased to announce that Susan Dray was named Distinguished Engineer by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This honor is reserved for members with 15 or more years of professional experience who have made significant accomplishments and have had a significant impact on the computing field. Susan joins a list of eminent colleagues to whom ACM and its members look for guidance and leadership in computing and information technology.

By Silvia C. Zimmermann

Aaron Marcus Elected to CHI Academy

The UPA is pleased to announce that the CHI Academy has elected UPA member and UX Editor-in-Chief Aaron Marcus, President, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., Berkeley, California, to its organization, which is one of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction's (SIGCHI) highest honors.

By Silvia C. Zimmermann