It isn't obvious yet, but there are exciting changes underway with the UUX SIG website. On-going efforts to redesign the site and logo are starting to gel, and I'm sure you'll soon be hearing more about them from the SIG leaders and volunteers.

Why Mention the Redesign Here?

This Book Club page (on the UUX SIG website) is going into hibernation until the website redesign is final.

During the hiatus, UUX Book Club information will be kept current in a Ning community called "STC UUX Book Club Discussions." Membership in "STC UUX Book Club Discussions" is by invitation, so contact me if you'd like to join our community.

About the UUX Book Club on Ning

Alice Preston, the 2010 UUX SIG manager, sponsors the community, and she and Eric Hughes are co-administrators.

Moving the content to Ning helped avoid a problem that cropped up around March 1, when Google announced it would stop supporting ftp publishing. Picture my dismay when I heard this, because the book club posts are ftp'ed from Google Blogger to UUX.

Looking into free tools, I discovered that Ning is easy to set up. Ning also has a number of attractive options for community members, including threaded discussions and areas for posting events and pictures. The only drawback I've seen so far is that it's another site to join and log into.

Voila!

I've moved most of the relevant content from the STC UUX SIG Virtual Book Club pages, such as video and audio recordings and information on the books we're still considering for meetings. The site's still evolving and could include guest bloggers, quick polls, etc., so let me know what you think.

April Meeting

In case you missed my email announcing the April 21 meeting, Alice Preston will moderate our discussion of "Letting Go of the Words..." by Janice (Ginny) Redish. Special news: Ginny will join the discussion!

Time by Zone:
–India: 9:30–10:30 pm

–London: 4–5 pm

–EDT-US: 12–1 pm

–CDT-US: 11 am–12 pm

–PDT-US: 9-10 am

Order the book

Sign up for the meeting

UUX SIG members have priority sign-ups until April 2, 2010. After that, the meeting will be opened up to all STC members. All sign-ups for the meeting will end when we have 15 participants or April 9, 2010, whichever is sooner.

Poll of Book Titles for April Meeting

Like to know how your friends and colleagues voted? See the one-page summary of the April title poll.

Coming Soon

–Thanks to diligent efforts by Alice Preston and other UUX members, Rosenfeld Media and Morgan Kaufmann have offered to sponsor the UUX SIG and our book club. So in the future, if we discuss one of their books, members can receive a discount by buying directly from the publisher.

–Watch for a summary of our members' comments on “Rocket Surgery” by Steve Krug.

Y'All Come to Ning!

Comments or Questions?
Contact Kathleen MacDowell

UUX Book Club coordinator

kathleen at write for the user dot com

The next UUX Virtual Book Club meeting will be Wed, Feb. 24 at the following time (starting at the US East coast and moving west):

EST/EDT (US): 7-8 pm
CST/CDT (US): 6-7 pm
PST/PDT (US): 4-5 pm
Delhi: 5:30-6:30 am
UK: 12-1 am

Our incoming UUX SIG manager, Alice Preston, will moderate our discussion of Steve Krug's "Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems". NOTE: The book link is to Amazon. If you buy the book through this link you'll save money--they have the book on sale--and the UUX SIG will receive a few pennies (at no cost to you), for a double bonus!

We've had a great response since we opened the discussion to all STC members. Sign-ups will end when we have four more responses or at @ 6 p.m., Fri., Feb. 12 ("Rocket Surgery" Sign-Up).

If you'd like to learn more about the book, check out Dmitry Fadeyev's well-written review at UsabilityPost. The one point I disagree with him about is who should read the book.

As a technical writer, I think learning about usability testing will improve the documentation I create, even if I never do any testing. I see it this way: to test, you need to analyze the content and decide what needs testing. That in itself provides me (the writer) with another perspective on the content and helps distance me from the act of writing. The end result is more usable content. Of course, that's my opinion, and I hope other people will offer their own.

OPERATIONAL CHANGE
I won't be recording the book club meetings for the foreseeable future. The files are difficult to upload and download because they are huge. Instead, I'll post a summary of comments from during and after the meetings--these will be easier to access and more informative than a recording, as they'll be a compendium of our members' views on the materials.

MEETING NOTICES
Those who have signed up for the meeting will receive meeting information beginning about a week before (i.e., Feb 15-21). Materials will include some questions to think about, pointers on Genesys (the webinar program we'll be using), the webinar link, and a reminder.

DO YOU WANT TO RECEIVE BOOK CLUB NOTICES?
If you don't already receive book club notices, you can put your name on the mailing list. Some book club notices go out to the SIG list as well, but the list addresses are sometimes incomplete.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?
Contact Kathleen MacDowell
UUX Virtual Book Club Coordinator
kathleen@writefortheuser.com