The IBM HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) team presented to the UPA Chapter of Minnesota on Thursday Sept. 12th.
A synopsis of the presentation follows: An ongoing question of the UPA-MN chapter has been, "Where does UI Design and Usability fit in your organization?" The answer for IBM Rochester HCI Design Department is in the User Technologies division of Software Development.
The IBM HCI Team handed out graphical depictions of the UCD (User Centered Design) Process and Integration, but they have other UCD downloads available on the web. The web site address is: www.ibm.com/easy
The iSeries 400 GUI Design was also discussed. The GUI Guidelines document for that product is available on the web at: www.as400.ibm.com/oper_nav/Guidelines
In addition to some great presentations we also had a call for nominations.
The nominations are as follows:
President: Caryn Zange Josephson Richard Sit
Vice President: Lucy Suits
Secretary: Libby Cecchi Pam Boehmer
Treasurer: Andrea Halverson
Program Director: DeeDee DeMulling Lucy Suits
Members are encouraged to send additional nominations to either:
Lucy Suits, l.suits@worldnet.att.net DeeDee DeMulling, ddemulling@mindspring.com or David Prigge, dep@cray.com
Renaissance Worldwide, Inc. Presents User Interface Design For Web Applications by Caryn Zange Josephson
2850 Metro Office Park Bloomington, Minnesota Suite 108
Wednesday, November 15 & Thursday, November 16, 2000
Registration and Breakfast: 8:00 am - 9:00 am Class: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
$895 per person ($795 per person if 3 or more register from your company)
Prepay by check or, be invoiced Contact: Gwen Ross 952-851-3063
A company's success on the web often depends on the type of experience their visitors encounter. Sites that are difficult to navigate slow to download and don't provide meaningful content result in fewer repeat site visits. In this class you will learn and practice techniques to help design web-based sites and applications that meet the needs of your visitors, and enhance the visitor experience.
Topics that will be covered in this two day seminar include: - identifying target users - designing to meet user goals - working within technology and human limitations - organizing your web site - design considerations such as navigation, layout and using special effects - creating prototypes - obtaining user feedback using techniques such as usability testing
The class combines a slide presentation, live examples of actual web sites and hands-on exercises to allow students to practice techniques.
Who should attend: Anyone involved in designing, developing or maintaining web sites and web applications: web designers, developers, business analysts, graphic designers, project managers, technical communicators, and marketing personnel.
I. Introduction Brief discussion of common problems found in Web applications, why these problems occur and consequences of not meeting user needs. Introduction of Web Interface Design Process Identify project goals and target users Many problems with web sites are due to unclear goals and not understanding potential users of the site. This section discusses project goals and determining who the users are, their demographics and why they want to or need to use the site.
II. Define the visitor experience Determine expectations visitors will have when coming to your site, and what features and attributes will enhance the visitor experience. Every project has constraints, whether they are technical, schedule-related or political. In addition, humans have physical, visual and cognitive limitations that need to be considered. Discuss how these constraints affect the visitor experience.
III. Determine content and develop task scenarios This section discusses how to identify what content will go on the site or application, and how to identify the tasks the users will need to perform. Task scenarios can help identify the most efficient navigation and organization of your site.
IV. Organize content and create site map diagram Once content is identified, it needs to be organized in a manner that will enable your users to find the information they need, or perform their tasks in the most efficient manner possible. This section teaches several techniques that can be used to organize the content of the site and document that organization.
V. Create storyboards of site Storyboards are rough sketches of pages that allow for ideas to be generated and evaluated. Different home page styles are discussed, and the storyboarding technique is taught and practiced.
VI. Design considerations There are a number of design considerations and guidelines that can help make the final site more effective. This section discusses and demonstrates some of these including navigation styles and guidelines, presenting content effectively, site appearance guidelines and designing interactive sites.
VII. Creating prototypes Prototypes can be an effective way of getting user feedback early in the process. This section discusses several prototyping methods that can be used in an iterative design and development process.
VIII. Obtaining user feedback The ease with which users can find the information they need, or perform required tasks is critical to the success of a site. This section discusses several user feedback techniques that can be used at different stages of the process, including user walkthroughs and usability testing.
IX. Detailed design During the detailed design phase, the user interface is refined and communicated to the development team. This section describes activities for refining the design, and provides samples of user interface design documentation that can be used by the development team when they are constructing the site.
About the Instructor: Caryn Zange Josephson provides training and consulting on a wide variety of interface design topics for Renaissance Worldwide, Inc. She specializes in working with development teams to design Interfaces for e-Commerce, Web, GUI and Intranet applications, drawing on over 17 years of experience in the information systems industry as an interface designer, software developer and quality assurance analyst.
She is a frequent presenter and trainer on interface design topics for large corporations and at industry conferences such as Software Development '96, '97 and '98, Web Development '97 and Usability Professionals Association. She belongs to the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) and ACM-CHI (Association for Computing Machinery - Computer Human Interaction SIG) and is a charter member of the Minneapolis chapter of UPA.