Present or host a meeting
Chairs image Interested? Contact Greg Raiz for more information.

  October 2008

Chapter Business


Two people stood up and introduced themselves as first timers.

Colin Hynes (Staples) gave a short intro talk. He noted how terrible things look for the economy right now, but said that he feels good because his group is hiring and they're having a real impact on the business.

Chris Hass gave a short talk, as well.

  • Talked about World Usability Day. Mentioned still looking for volunteers, reviewers, and sponsors. Reminded people to volunteer by sending an email to: volunteer@upaboston.org
  • Mentioned that there will be no meeting in December, and that the World Usability Day counts is the organization's November meeting. 
  • Mentioned that planning has begun for a cross-UX organizational New Years party in January. 
  • Mentioned that Margy has volunteered for the VP role temporarily until a new VP is elected. And that she's on the ballot.
  • Mentioned that membership is now 700+.
Chris introduced Anthony Hand as a social outreach coordinator Anthony told the group about the UPA twitter account, and that they're welcome to contact him any time.

Michael Ledoux (EnerNoc) said that his organization is hiring. www.enernoc.com  mledoux@enernoc.com

One student at Northeastern was there and mentioned that he's looking for a co-op, internship, or part-time job. He's a computer-science/cog psych major in undergrad.

Chauncy got up and gave a rave review of the LiveScribe Pulse Pen.


Presentation: "10 Minute talks"

Chauncy gave a brief history of the 10 minute talks and talked about how they would work.

Sean Angerman, Usability Manager, Staples: "Accidental Accessibility"
Sean gave a short talk about their experience upgrading their Flash-based online store circular not too long ago to their vendor's newest version. In the process, they dropped the non-Flash HTML version because they had feedback from the field that it wasn't needed any more plus reducing it would save some costs. However, it turned out that the HTML version was used by visually impaired users. So based on customer feedback, it was brought back.

Demetrios Karis, Verizon: "Ask not, 'How many participants?' Ask, 'How many sessions?!'"
Demetrios shared a case study from a few years ago comparing participant online shopping preferences between 4 sites: SuperPages.com, Yahoo, eShop, and MySimon. He emphasized the study design, which included 3 sessions.

Tom Vollaro, Senior Researcher, Design Pattern Evangelist, Autodesk: Running an Extended Workbook Study with Multiple Users Simultaneously"
Tom shared a case studying involving user research into some new Autodesk software UI designs. The research ran 5 users at a time in the same room with 2 moderators and 2 observers. He shared lessons learned with such a research design.

Chauncy Wilson, Autodesk: "Cognitive Biases & Their Impact on User-Centered Design"
Chauncy described a handful of well-known biases which can afflict user researchers, including their signs and how to overcome them.

Len Conte, Mathworks: "6 Conversations You Never Want to Have During a Remote Usability Study"
Funny and cautionary stories that have occurred during remote usability testing sessions, including fire alarms, physical injuries, and inappropriate comments made about (and overheard by) test participant