STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

SIG News - April 2004

2003 Distinguished SIG Service Award

Congratulations to Alice Preston as the recipient of the 2003 Distinguished SIG Service Award in recognition for her work with the New Jersey Usability SIG and contributions as lead copyeditor of Usability Interface.

Usability SIG Business Luncheon at STC Conference

When: Monday, May 10 at 12:30 PM
Where: Room 345 of the Baltimore Convention Center
Agenda: Discuss how the SIG is doing and your ideas for improving it.

Everybody is welcome!

Conferences: Usability Professionals' Association

The 13th Annual Usability Professionals' Association Conference (UPA 2004) will be held June 7-11, 2004 at The Minneapolis Marriott City Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Registration is open on the UPA 2004 conference website

The conference theme is Connecting Communities. Communities are changing in ways unimagined a generation ago. While technology undercuts and fragments traditional communities in many ways, it also opens broad new possibilities. UPA 2004 will explore the ways that communities affect usability and users, as well as the ways that technology affects communities.

Usability SIG Members Lead UPA Workshop

Susan Fowler and Alice Preston will be leading a workshop at UPA on Tuesday, June 8, 2004, titled: Workshop 9: "Yeah, I hear you": Why Aren't There More Sounds and Graphics in Our Interfaces?

This one day workshop will collect information on the use of graphics and sound in complex, data-intensive, and mission-critical designs. The participants will share information about the neuropsychology of visualization and auralization; when multiple media are and are not useful; and the challenges of adding multimedia to applications. The result will be guidelines, a resource list, and a bibliography.

We would like participants to have an interest or background in any of these areas: The use of sound (not just in software) to provide information; the use of visualizations to provide information; the use of sound or graphics to manipulate or analyze information; music, drawing, or painting; the design of complex systems used for decision-making or analysis; the design of large, complex systems in general; the psychology of visuals and music; accessibility, cultural and internationalization issues.

For more information, see the workshop description on the UPA site: