Presentation Abstracts
SESSION 1
Making the Case for Usability
Carol Barnum
This is the story of a company that went from a single request for a late-stage
usability test of its product to a user-centered design process that builds usability
into product development every step of the way. Most companies are quite secretive
about the fact they conducted usability testing on its products, so we never get
to see what the issues were for users and how products improved as a result. This
story is different. Using screen captures, video clips, and metrics of performance
improvement and cost savings, I can share the ways in which the product and the
development process improved, along with the company's bottom line.
SESSION 2
Useful, Usable, AND Desirable: How One Washer Changed the Face of Laundry
Laura Vennie and
Sara Ulius Sabel
For many, doing the laundry is complicated, time-consuming drudgery. A necessary
evil, it is not typically an activity that one looks forward to each week. At least,
that was largely the case until Whirlpool Corporation unveiled the Duet(R) Fabric
Care System -- a front loading washer and dryer pair that offered consumers a visually
compelling, easy to use, high performance alternative to traditional "white box"
laundry appliances. This talk explores how a user-centered research and design process
was used at Whirlpool Corporation to develop a product that shook-up the laundry
industry and radically altered the way that users think about laundry.
SESSION 3
Accessibility Experts Lead the Way to Profits by Design
Stephen Blosser and
Michael J. Hudson
Many products being produced today are not accessible to people with disabilities.
Machines, appliances and tools that require human interaction are being redesigned
and mass produced at an ever increasing rate. The way we live our lives (cook, wash
our cloths, drive our car, communicate, run the farm, continue our employment, etc.)
is changing on a daily basis.
Persons with disabilities are being left out of the design loop. While some guidelines
are available to help, such as ADA and Web consortiums, these do not always answer
questions about how persons with disabilities will utilize new innovative features
and control techniques. This presentation will describe the "Talking Washer/Dryer"
that is designed to be accessible to persons with visual impairments and be cost
effective. A new usability service (Accessibility Experts) available in Michigan
will also be presented that provides a solution to the need for persons with disabilities
to be involved in the design and usability testing of products.
SESSION 4
Recommender Systems: User Experience and System Issues
Joseph Konstan
Over the past decade, recommender systems employing collaborative filtering technology
have evolved from research proofs-of-concept to commonplace components of e-commerce
web sites and direct marketing. At the same time, research has moved forward to
embrace more sophisticated algorithms and more detailed exploration of both the
user experience and online community issues. This talk reviews recent highlights
from the decade-old GroupLens Research Project, including an overview of the techniques
used in recommendation and recent results on the social and design issues surrounding
participation in online communities.
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