About

"Making Life Easy!"

World Usability Day 2009 will feature over 225 events occurring simultaneously in over 175 cities worldwide. This is an event for everyone who's struggled to get somewhere in Boston, is dissapointed with a product that didn't last as long as it should have, or is wondering what the rabbit label in the grocery store really means.

We'll be discussing how usability and design impact our world in a sustainable way. What does sustainability have to do with usability? What are you doing to help sustain our world?

Moreover, it is also a unique opportunity for practitioners to capture real data from commuters and professionals in the area to support the development of safer and more effective products.

In addition, each of the activities at Boston's World Usability Day event are provided on this website, free for the benefit of individuals, organizations, and cultural institutions to use to support their own educational, usability-related or World Usability Day efforts.

The Local Effort

Boston's tie-in activities to World Usability Day will be on November 12th, 2009 at South Station, Boston followed by a networking event at MIT Stata Center. This Earth Day style event is raising the visibility of usability engineering and the importance of user centered design in product development.

This year's event is chaired by Rachael Acker and Jacqueline Stetson. The event is being organized by a subcommittee of Usability Professionals' Association Boston Chapter (UPA Boston) members and brought to you by Fidelity Investments. With support from communities at MIT, Tufts, and other usability-aware organizations, learning institutions and companies.

The UPA Boston Advisory Board is made up of:

• Chris Hass, President
• Margy Bergel, Vice President
• Susie Robson, Treasurer
• Greg Raiz, Secretary

The International Effort

Last year the tremendous World Usability Day community held over 200 events in more than 43 countries for World Usability Day 2008. Check out event pictures at Flickr.

This year World Usability Day 2009 efforts promotes the value of usability engineering and the belief that every user has the responsibility to ask for products and services that support straightforward, safe, and enjoyable use. The Boston event is registered on the WorldUsabilityDay.org site. The international effort is being organized by the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA), which is the parent group for UPA Boston.

Internationally, World usability Day will feature 36 hours of activities at the local level around the globe, all occurring on November 12, 2009 .

The UPA, UPA chapters, and allied organizations will all hold events, revolving around a common theme: "Making life easy!" This year World Usability Day has a special focus on Sustainability.

Why is World Usability Day Unique?

The importance of usability in product and service development is not trivial. It is intimately connected to education, healthcare and safety. Tools and systems that are usable are more effective in teaching students. Healthcare professionals can be more confident with safer and more understandable tools and thereby provide better quality healthcare to their patients. Government institutions can rely on easy to use and understandable voting machines to insure accurate and democratic elections.

World Usability Day is a chance for individuals, product developers, product purchasers, parents, and schoolchildren to learn about what it takes to develop a product or service that is easily understandable, safe, satisfying to use and effective for its intended purpose. Activities will promote awareness of usability careers which frequently span technical, managerial, and design fields. Practitioners will learn (or reaffirm) techniques and cutting-edge methodologies for enhancing product development cycles.

Usable technology makes a difference to everyone, everywhere around the world. Find out how you can help as a volunteer.