UX will have a business meeting on Monday morning, May 4, at 7:30 am. I know; its early. We will feed you, however.

Also on Monday is the UUX networking luncheon. For that, you need to spend $35 and sign up for it when you register. Registration closes April 15.

And Monday evening is the welcoming reception in the exhibition hall. UUX will have a table.

I would love to know who is planning to go, and who is planning to attend the business meeting and the luncheon.

Labels: conference, UUX business

How many STC communities are on Twitter? All of these. There may be more, but Twitter search is down today.

stcukandi - STC UK & Ireland
stcintermtn
STCHouston
STCIndiana
STCBoston
STCPugetSound
stcchicago
STCAtlanta
stcwdc
stcaccess
stc_org
LoneWriterSIG
stcfrance
STCINDIA

To see these Twitter sites, just type http://www.twitter.com/sites-twitter-name-as-above.

For example: http://www.twitter.com/stcwdc

UUXManager will follow all of them.

Labels: collaboration, Twitter, UUX business

Sue Heim is tweeting all about it, and the tweets are all at UUX Manager on Twitter.

Labels: conference

My friend Nick Finck is amongst those who are sharing the slides of their past conference presentations at KomunitasWeb. At the bottom of each presentation, there is also a link to other presentations by the same person.

Labels: educational, inspiring

Executive Director Susan Burton used YouTube to announce three programs to help STC members affected by lay-offs, salary cuts, and other financial setbacks.

If you have not heard, STC is offering help to renewing members and person's joining for the first time by letting dues be paid in four monthly installments. They are also offering a payment plan for people wanting to attend the conference who cannot pay the entire fee up-front.

Dues Payment Plan
STC officials have initiated an option for members to split their dues into four equal payments spread over four months. This optional payment plan is available for both new and renewing members and for all categories of membership except students.
Payments must be made by credit card (Visa, MasterCard, or AMEX). Checks are not accepted for split payments. Payments are manually processed by staff and cannot be completed by the applicant online.
The payments will begin with the receipt of the membership application or renewal. A charge is made on the day of receipt for one-fourth of the total amount owed. A second one-fourth charge is made one month later, the third payment another month later, and the final payment is charged in the fourth month.
STC Director of Membership Lloyd Tucker outlined an example of what happens: “If a person sends in their request for split payment on 2 April for classic dues totaling $175, STC charges one-fourth of that amount ($43.75) on 2 April. One month later, on 2 May, a second $43.75 is charged to the card. Then, on 2 June, the third payment of $43.75 is charged, and the final payment of $43.75 is charged on 2 July.”
“This is an experimental program that we’re offering during these tough times,” explained Tucker. “I think our members will appreciate being able to spread out their payments over four months.”
The split-payment option is well-timed. The membership renewal period ends 31 March.
http://www.stc-access.org/2009/03/20/stc-offers-split-payment-option-for-members’-dues/

Conference Payment Plan:
STC members may choose to spread their conference registration payment by paying half with their registration form and half onsite.
Eligibility
Available upon request to all members in good standing with the exception of students who are encouraged to volunteer and retired members who have a special rate.
Process
1. Download the conference registration form [1] (.pdf)
2. Make two equal payments, half paid with your registration and half to be paid onsite. (Potentially spreads your payment over two different credit card cycles)
Pay by credit card (Visa, MasterCard, or American Express). Checks cannot be accepted for split payments.
Payments are manually processed by staff and cannot be completed by the applicant online.
* E-mail (or fax +1-703-522-2075) the registration form to Julia
O'Connor [2].
Links:
http://conference.stc.org/docs/2009-Summit-Registration-Form.pdf[
julia.oconnor@stc.org

Labels: UUX business

What an experience! UUX held it's first Web seminar this morning. Apart from several technical glitches (in spite of multiple rehearsals and tech support calls earlier this week), people seemed to like it.

As presenter, it was odd talking to my computer screen and only knowing that somewhere out there were people who could hear me.

Eric Hughes, Web seminar coordinator, did an awesome job as moderator, despite problems getting people both phone and Web access. I could never had displayed the patience he displayed!

Now that we have passed this milestone, I am excited about planning more seminars. If you want to help, fill out the survey below and tell us what you want to learn about.

Labels: UUX business, Web seminars

Morgan Kauffman is using LinkedIn, now, as a means of finding editors, writers, copy editors and others for their books. You can join their group is you are a LinkedIn member. Find the group at
http://www.linkedin.com/groupInvitation?gid=1833644

I just returned from a four-day holiday taking my goddaughters - 12 and nearly 10 - to Los Angeles for the primary purpose of watching the University of Washington Women's Basketball team play in the Pac-10 women's tournament. Given the Dawgs lackluster season, we did not expect to attend a game on Saturday, so we promised the girls a trip to Universal Studios.

The girls were a joy to spend time with; standing on line? Not so much. Until we got to The Simpson's ride.

Yes, the Simpsons have a ride. And the ride was awesome. But I want to talk about the way the ride designers handle the necessity of having hundreds of people stand on line for 20, 30, 40 minutes. All we UX designers can learn something from this.

From the minute you enter the queue maze, you have sight of a large, bright, flat panel television. On this television is playing a quintessential Simpson's carton; an irreverent, low-comedy that pokes fun at the entire theme park experience!

You are no longer at Universal Studios, you are in Krustyland in Springfield. Yes, Krusty the Clown is your host. You are standing with the Simpson family all through the wait. Krusty is trying to sell you stuff. In one section, you are next to the Lost & Found (run by the aunties) and the concession stand (run, of course, by the Indian grocer).

In another, Krusty is guiding the Simpsons past the nuclear plant ride (!) and Maggie slips away and crawls through the door. In silhouette, you see her become 25 feet tall!

In what seems like no time (25 minutes for us) you are seated in your vehicle with the Simpsons in the front seat. And you know that nothing goes right when the Simpsons are around!

I won't give you a play by play of the ride, except to say that 25-foot-tall Maggie saves the day when Sideshow Bob disguises himself and tries to capture the Simpsons and eke his revenge on Krusty for firing him. Along the way, she mistakes your vehicle for a pacifier, sticks it in her mouth, and then spits it out in disgust; that may not be spit hitting your arm, but you could have fooled the girls!

I have never had so much fun waiting online! Disney is good at keeping a line moving, but the queuing experience at a Disney park is not hilarious.

What do visitors to our sites see while they wait? Ads? A twirling hourglass? What if they saw a carton, instead? Or a 10 second visual joke? Think about it.

Labels: inspiring

Fellow STC member Karen Greenwald is launching her first blog, discussing the issue of how to keep up, keep relevant, and keep employed. Check it out at http://kgreenwald.blogspot.com/

Labels: inspiring

Adobe has released a new version, numero 8, of Robohelp, and version 4 of Captivate.

Should you or shouldn't you? Check out reviews of both at WritersUA: Matthew Ellision tooks at RoboHelp 8 and Scott DeLoach looks at Captivate 4.

Labels: tools

What topics would you like to see in the next UUX Web seminars?

Give use your topics and the names of speakers you would like to hear. We also want to ask a couple of questions about cost and frequency.

Labels: Web seminars

After months of planning, UUX is ready to jump into the business of offering Web seminars to members of the community, STC, and other UX practitioners. To celebrate, we are offering special pricing for both STC and non-STC members.

Planning for Documentation Usability Testing

Description: Need some help getting started doing usability evaluation on a documentation project? This seminar walks you through the steps for determining how to define your target audience, how to set usability goals, how to determine an evaluation method appropriate to the goals, and how to report your findings in a way that helps prioritize what changes need to be made to improve usability.

Date: March 19, 2009 - 12 Noon Eastern, 11 AM Central, 10 am Mountain, 9AM Pacific

Cost: $10.00 per UUX member and STC member; $15 per non-STC member.
Register at STC.Org to make sure you are amongst the 140 lucky participants!

Non-STC members must create an account to register for a seminar.

Thanks to Eric Hughes, volunteer extraordinary, for all of his efforts to make sure we know what we are doing, at least technically.

Labels: Web seminars