Other STC Communities to visit...

2011 Business Meeting: UX and AccessAbility SIGs Team Up

This year’s business meeting was a joint meeting with the AccessAbility SIG. UUX SIG Manager Alice Preston led off the meeting by recognizing volunteers. AccessAbility SIG manager is Karen Mardahl in Denmark, and she was represented at the meeting by Carolyn Kelley Klinger. Discussion quickly turned to goals for the year:

1. Provide notification of and access to recent research
   • Provide a frequently-updated book list
   • Provide an active newsletter
2. Provide ways for members to connect; facilitate discussion and mentoring
3. Connect STC members interested in UX and accessibility with the larger UX and accessibility communities
4. Establish repeatable SIG processes that can be successfully passed on to future volunteers (this is a leadership and volunteer team goal)

Volunteers Recognized

• Cheryl St. Charles, Webmaster and Web Redesign Project manager
• Meenakshi Khanna, Associate Manager/Treasurer
• Kristi Leach, Associate Manager/Content
• David Dick, Newsletter Editor

Web Team, including the following stalwart members in addition to the above:

• Arun Martin
• Elisa Miller
• Cheryl Bowsher
• Cheryl Hunt
• Kathleen MacDowell
• Maggie Reilly
• Additional volunteers for particular user-centered design or usability measurement activities

2011-2012 Volunteers Needed

The SIG is seeking a backup webmaster and testers for the new site. In addition to these needs, if you are interested in one of the projects we’re discussing on My STC, you can suggest a one-time task to help with, or you can help get a group together for a longer-term project.

Follow STCUUX and STCAccess on Twitter

The SIG tweets links to usability content at http://twitter.com/stcuux. Often, the links are to UX content that is particularly relevant to technical communicators.

Follow our sister SIG at http://twitter.com/stcaccess.

Usability and User Experience at the 2011 STC Summit

The UUX SIG was very well represented at the 2011 Summit, with presentations by the following members:

Usability and Accessibility Progression: Discussing Techniques and Career Options - a set of tables in a single room, with three repeats of each session. Attendees chose three of the tables, and switched on cue. (If you want to see a brief description about each of these topics, see http://bit.ly/oZehhY.)

• George Hayhoe and Jamie Conklin, “Making the Case for Focus Group Methods”
• Michael Albers, “Difficulties of Usability Testing in Complex Information Spaces”
• Caroline Jarrett, “The one-question survey: ideas and pitfalls”
• Carolyn Kelley Klinger, “Designing Documents for Everyone”
• Alice Preston, “User Experience Positions and Consulting Options”

Kristi Leach, “Grassroots Documentation Testing”
Caroline Jarrett, “10 Tips for a Better Survey”
Carol Barnum and Laura Palmer, “Users Play Cards. We Keep Score. Magic Results!”
Angela Colter, “Incorporating Accessibility into Your Usability Reviews”
Brad Nunnally, “From Cancer to Bankruptcy”
Kel Smith, “Innovations in Accessibility: Designing for Digital Outcasts”

In addition, the User Experience Institute presentations brought us some excellent discussions from practitioners and academics in the field:

Joe Sokohl, “From Design to Definition”
Carla Galvao Spinillo, “Animated Visual Instructions: Can We do Better?”
Char James-Tanny “The DUH Factor: Diverse, Understandable, Human (Web Content for Everyone)”
Indi Young, “Mental Model Diagrams: Supportive Content for Specific Folks”

And there was one “outlier” presentation by a former VP of User Experience at Razorfish, who is on the faculty at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and is a founding partner of her own digital services firm, who brought UX and Content Strategy together:
Karen McGrane, “We Are All Content Strategists Now”

The presentations I attended were fabulous; and even better, they were attended by many who are new to the User Experience design and Usability Testing fields.

If you weren’t able to make it to the Summit, you can still see a lot of the presentations on Summit@aClick website AND, if you go there NOW, you can pre-order conference materials through 15 July at significant savings. Order before that date for just $149 for members and $299 for nonmembers—that's a savings of $100 and $200, respectively, off of the regular $249 and $499 rates.

STC UUX Community Reception at the STC Summit, Sacramento

On Monday, May 16, 2011, the STC SIG communities held their open house. The UUX SIG invited members of the STC community to participate in several UX activities. Alice Preston and Kristi Leach led the evening UX activities, with able assistance from Donn DeBoard and AccessAbility representative Carolyn Kelley Klinger. Our table was busy throughout the reception -- enough so that our volunteers barely had a chance to grab something to eat or to visit other community tables. The UUX SIG team at the table was thrilled to see this level of participation from Summit attendees in the evening UX activities.

The UUX SIG is in the process of revamping its website. As part of the re-design, Summit attendees were invited to participate in a card sort process. Interested participants were invited to provide input on how site content should be organized. Each content topic was written on a single post-it note. Participants grouped post-it note cards together on a wall by category. This input will help the SIG understand how to organize the content of the site. The results of this card sort are currently being reviewed and analyzed. If you want to see how much fun people were having with the card sort, please take a look at the STC’s Flickr photo stream (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/stc_office/5794232818/in/set-72157626752327465).

In addition, SIG volunteers had prepared several personas or profiles of the people who would be using the UUX site. These personas bring UUX site users to life by telling their story, and they were well received by the Community Reception attendees. In place of offering inexpensive giveaways, the UUX and Accessibility communities offered a priceless new list of recommended books (put together by Booklist coordinator Maggie Reilly) and held a drawing for a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate.

Finally, Summit attendees interested in actively participating in the UUX SIG left their business cards for future contact. There is a place for you in the UUX SIG. The UUX SIG is always looking for another pair of helping hands. If you are interested, contact Alice or Kristi to see where you can help.

Suggested Summer Reading

Want to learn more about creating a great user experience? Check out STC 's Recommended reading for UUX

Important books, articles, and topics on user experience design, according to the UX community: Rosenfeld UX Zeitgeist

The New Issue of Usability Interface

Usability Interface - April 2011

• Writing for the Web
  By David Dick
• Interview with Colleen Jones: Consultant, Blogger, Author
  By David Dick
• August Report on the STC India User Research and Usability SIG
  By Arun Martin
• October Report on the STC India User Research and Usability SIG
  By Arun Martin

Columns and SIG News

• Editorial
  By Alice Preston, UUX SIG Manager

Buy these books from Amazon - Click on the link and help your SIG!

Jarrett, Caroline and Gaffney, Gerry Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability. Oxford, UK: Elsevier; 1 edition, 2009 ISBN: 978-1-55860-710-1 Amazon

Redish, Janice (Ginny) Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works. Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition, June 11, 2007 ISBN:0123694868 Amazon