Usability workshop, Phoenix, AZ

["Ann L. Lamon" <alamon -at- PSN -dot- NET>]

Announcing "Communicating with the Developer"
A Workshop presented by Whitney Quesenbery
February 26th, 1999
Presented by the Society for Technical Communication, Phoenix Chapter

        " Introducing User-Centered Techniques into the Software Development
Process "
The Phoenix Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication is
pleased to announce that Whitney Quesenbery will be here in February to
present a half-day workshop on techniques documentation specialists can
use to help produce more usable products.

What You'll Learn at the Workshop
Introduction to LUCID - overview of the six stages, activities and
deliverables of those stages and how they work to produce more usable
software.
Learn "Guerilla tactics" for information developers - activities from
LUCID that can be initiated by the documentation department. We'll look
at the specifics of each of them. Handouts will include templates and
samples. There will be exercises around two or three of these activities
(task analysis, scenario creation, and one of the usability techniques).
· UI Roadmap: Create a UI Roadmap as a starting point for the
documentation work. The same goals, business case, constraints, etc.
exist for any user assistance material.
· User analysis: Conduct user interviews if you can, but even if this is
impossible, create a functional requirements analysis from the user
point of view. Use this analysis to help make your case to the
development team.
· Scenarios: Use the task analysis material to create scenarios of
typical user activities. They not only help clarify design goals, but
personalize the user to the design team.
· Storyboards (paper prototypes): Volunteer to create a complete paper
prototype and use that to work out the wording of any on-screen prompts,
tool tips, or other embedded help. You'll be surprised how often
developers who rejected the idea at first become "addicted" to the
storyboards as their design documentation.
· Ongoing design support: Become the team "secretary" and document
design decisions as they are made in meetings. Create a one-page style
guide that developers can use as they lay out screens.
· Low-impact usability activities: Card sorting for menu organization;
icon/concept matching, etc. Volunteer to do these quick studies (maybe
even just with people within your company).
Learn how to make the case to management - A look at some of the
literature on the return on the investment in usability and
user/performance centered design.
Get solutions you can use in your workplace - Every participant will
bring the story of a situation they are facing, or have faced in their
own work. Whitney will pick some of these (combining them where they
seem similar) and the group will brainstorm solutions, so everyone
leaves "active".

Workshop details (February 26, 1999/12:30-5:30/ITT, 4837 E. McDowell
Rd., Room 13/ $79 non members, $49 members, $39 students).
 For information, contact Ann Lamon at (602)772-9603
or e-mail: alamon -at- psn -dot- net -dot- 

About our Workshop Speaker
Whitney Quesenbery is Vice President of Design Services at Cognetics
Corporation. She has been the project leader for many of Cognetics'
consulting projects, including a multimedia introduction to the AT&T
Product Documentation Development group, which was named Best of Show in
the STC International Online Communications Competition in 1996. Other
key projects include the Dow Jones Investor Network--a multimedia news
service, and the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4 Travel Guide--an interactive
guide to the printer. Other interface design credits include work for
Lucent, IBM Internet Media Group, OpenText, ADP Easy Pay, JP Morgan and
the U.S. Postal Service. She is part of the team developing Cognetics'
L.U.C.I.D. (Logical User-Centered Interaction Design) methodology, which
stresses the importance of human interaction and usability testing in
interface design.

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