World
Usability Day Announces Global Partners In
Japan, Malaysia,
Scotland & the United States
Chicago,
IL, November 8, 2010: World Usability Day (WUD), an initiative of the Usability
Professionals' Association (UPA), today announced its six global partner events
and one new global sponsor. This year
WUD will be kicked off by a global partner event in Tokyo, Japan on Thursday,
November 11. Other global partner events
are being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Edinburgh, Scotland; Independence,
Ohio, and Southlake, Texas. And, the new
global sponsor is Bloomberg News Service.
Bloomberg is also sponsoring a reception in New York City featuring John
Hockenberry, Honorary Chair of WUD.
“This
is our first year featuring global partner events,” said Elizabeth Rosenzweig,
founder and president of WUD. “We are very excited about this year’s events and
are so grateful to global partners like Bloomberg for making many of these
events possible.”
WUD has
been held on the second Thursday in November for the past six years. Each year events are organized in more than 44 countries around
the world to raise the public’s awareness, and to train professionals in the
tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.
http://www.worldusabilityday.org/
In
recognition of this year’s theme, Communication, all global partners will
feature communication as the primary focus of their events.
· Japanese
participants will focus on products and services for communication, including
cellular phones, groupware, blogs, and office facilities.
·
The MIMOS Test Lab organizing committee in Kuala Lumpur put together an amazing program “Bridging Communication Gaps via Usability”. In this attention age, social media such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, RSS, Flickr, and MySpace have been primarily popular for connecting
people. They use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media
monologues into social media dialogues, for the co-creation of value.
As such, social media enables billions of people to participate in
online social activities, either as a reader, contributor, collaborator or
leader. This raises several issues in designing for social media. First, what
motivates technology-mediated social participation? Second, how to search for
information in social media? Third, how to measure the usability of social
media?
Global partner, the MIMOS Test Lab, will explore these issues,
including understanding the context of use theory that can help researchers,
designers and managers to design and write better for social networks.
Event website broadcast: http://www.mimos.my/technology-for-industries/centre-of-excellence/usability-lab/
· WUD2010
at global partner User Vision in Edinburgh, Scotland will also explore the
fascinating usability issues associated with social networking sites,
collaboration tools and communication devices. The various activities will
include interactive demonstrations, live usability and accessibility tests and
workshops. Participants will be among
the first to try out the revolutionary interactive Smart Table and road test
the latest eye tracking glasses from Tobii.
· Global
partner, the Northeast Ohio Usability Professionals’ Association (NEOUPA) will
provide unique opportunities for WUD2010 participants, which include a
combination of exciting speakers, workshop material, panel discussion and
keynotes focusing on the WUD2010 theme, Communication. NEOUPA’s WUD2010 will address the impact of
usability across numerous industries and industry providers. Participation
includes speakers from Lands End, Medical Mutual of Ohio, American Greetings,
ExactTarget, IBM, and more.
·
And finally, Sabre, Aquent and other
organizations will join global partner DFW-UPA, IXDA, Dallas, TX at their
WUD2010 event on the campus of Sabre in Southlake, TX. The DFW-UPA event celebrates Communication
Miscues, Mishaps, and Misunderstandings. This cross-organization event
anticipates over 600 participants in UX, designers, developers, analysts, and
marketers. The event will be broadcast to the UX community through social
media, the DFW-UPA website, broadcast emails and Sabre emails.
Event website: www.dfw-upa.org
The UPA was
established in 1991 and continues to be the organization of choice for
usability professionals worldwide. The UPA holds a yearly international
conference (May 2010, Munich), publishes new findings through both the Journal
of Usability Studies (JUS) and through User Experience Magazine, and has 50
chapters around the world.
