Tutorials

• An Introduction to Usability Testing
• New Methods for Designing for and with the iChild
• Introduction to iPhone Development

An Introduction to Usability Testing
Contact: Bill Killam for more information

This is an introductory tutorial on the topic of usability testing. This tutorial is intended for usability practitioners looking to expand their skills, other practitioners (designers, developers, testers, etc.) who may have usability testing interests or responsibilities, and management staff that may be considering incorporating usability into their organization. In the tutorial we will cover both management issues and practical issues of usability testing and discuss what usability testing is (and isn't).

In the module on management issues, we will focus on usability as it related to the organization. We will discuss what makes a product usable, the origins of usability testing, and the relationship of usability testing to the broader areas of Human Factors Engineering and other disciplines (e.g., marketing, design, development, and other types of testing). We will discuss product development models that incorporate usability and discuss such topics as the timing of usability testing in the design and development cycle, how to plan for them, and what ROI there is for usability testing.

In the practical module, we will focus the mechanics doing usability testing. We will discuss the different types of testing (formative versus summative) as well as different protocols that can be used for usability tests (both user-based and non-user-based). We will discuss how to develop a test including the test tasks, test length, participant selection and recruiting, data collection, and analysis. We will discuss ethical issues associated with conducting tests with human subjects. We will discuss what empirical data can be derived from usability testing and what cannot. Finally, we will practice the skills and principles involved in facilitating a user-based test.

Allison Druin, Mona Leigh Guha, Evan Golub, Greg Walsh
Contact: Mona Leigh Guha for more information

Today’s young people are information active, socially aware, and highly mobile. Designing new technologies for today’s independent, interactive, and information active iChild necessitates new design strategies. In this tutorial, we will introduce new co-design methods that have been specifically adapted for mobility, distributed sociability, and ubiquitous information. Participants will leave the tutorial having been introduced to or updated on co-design techniques that can lead to the development of new, innovative technologies for children.

This tutorial will begin with a historical overview of co-designing with children. Participants will then experience hands-on experience using new methods in designing for children’s mobile, social, and Internet technologies, and will learn about examples of technologies that have been developed with children using co-design methods. This tutorial will use hands-on design activities, small and whole-group discussion, and short presentations with slides and video.

The audience for this course requires no special background. We view design as most effective when it is interdisciplinary; therefore, we welcome and encourage attendance by industry professionals, academics, and students from a wide variety of communities (e.g., design, computer science, information studies, and psychology).

Contact: Ben Bederson for more information  

This is a programming course will teach how to develop applications (with a focus on user interface) for Apple iPhone. It will include some general mobile design principles, and will also briefly compare iPhone to mobile web development and Android development. However, this is primarily a programming course. It will jump start your understanding of Objective C, iPhone user interface libraries, Interface Builder, memory management and performance issues with the goal of making it easier for existing programmers to start developing for iPhone.

Students should already have basic familiarity with C or a C-like language such as Java or C#, and an understanding of basic object-oriented programming. If you have a Mac laptop, bring it with the free XCode development environment (downloadable from http://developer.apple.com/iphone/) installed in advance so you can try some simple exercises during the tutorial.

Workshops

• Government Applications of Social Media Networks and Communities
• Computing and Information Ethics Education
• Improving Human Computer Interfaces for Foreign Language Professionals
• Consumer Health Informatics
• Visual Analytic Tools for Managing Technological Innovations

Government Applications of Social Media Networks and Communities
Derek Hansen, Marc Smith, Jenny Preece, Ben Shneiderman
Contact: Derek Hansen for more information

Federal, state, and local governments are discovering interesting and ambitious ways that social media can be used to increase civic participation in decision-making, healthcare/wellness, energy sustainability, education, disaster response, community safety, scientific research, etc. This workshop will invite attendees to present current projects, design strategies, evaluation methods, and analytic tools. Issues such as universal accessibility & usability, privacy protection, and reliability will be discussed.

Computing and Information Ethics Education

Ken Fleischmann, Russ Robbins, Al Wallace
Contact: Ken Fleischmann for more information

More info coming soon!

Improving Human Computer Interfaces for Foreign Language Professionals
Contact: Sarah Wayland for more information

This workshop will focus on how to improve human-computer interfaces for the software used by foreign language professionals working for any part of the U.S. Government. We hope to develop a set of working guidelines that will enable any U.S. Government agency to evaluate the human computer interfaces in the software used by employees who regularly work with foreign languages. Some possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Developing a complete set of user interface and process development guidelines against which software can be evaluated.
• How to evaluate existing legacy systems for usability; suggest changes.
• How to deal with multiple IRBs when doing usability testing.
• How to configure software for all types of users, from beginner to expert.
• Guidelines for internationalization so that localization for different languages/cultures are easy to implement.
• How to deal with multiple tools on one desktop, sometimes working on different networks.
• Taking "real world constraints" into account, generate a set of guidelines with priorities so developers can determine which features are required, and which are "nice to have".

The goal of the workshop would be to develop a set of working guidelines that all government agencies could include as part of their specifications when funding new programming projects. In addition, guidelines could help agencies with legacy systems that violate these specifications solicit funding for improvements.

We are eager to get your feedback about topics to be covered in our workshop - please send us your ideas by April 30, 2010, to:

Sarah Wayland, Senior Research Scientist, University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, 301-226-8938, swayland@casl.umd.edu

John Kovarik, Research Consultant, University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, 301-226-8925, jkovarik@casl.umd.edu or jjkovar@nsa.ic.gov

Consumer Health Informatics
Contact: Bo Xie for more information

This workshop will examine the use of novel information and communication technologies (ICTs) in healthcare from the perspective of health consumers. Potential topics to be investigated may include (but are not limited to):

• Health 2.0 applications
• Mobile and location-based technologies for consumers
• Semantic web health applications
• Public health informatics
• Use of social media by patients and support groups
• Promotion of health literacy and education
• Privacy, confidentiality, and related ethical issues
• Information seeking behavior of health consumers
• Provider-patient communication and relationship
• Consumer use of personal medical records
• Patient created content (e.g., wikis, blogs)
• Personalized medicine
• Medical librarianship in the Internet age
• Health data mashups
• Dissemination of health information via social networks
• Narrowing health disparities among underprivileged social groups and individuals
• International comparisons of consumer health informatics practice and progress
• Emergency response systems
• Search and recommender system technologies for consumers
• Clinical trail recruitment and retention via the Internet

Abstract of no more than 300 words should be submitted by April 30, 2010 to Dr. Bo Xie

Please also include in the submission: Author name, Affiliation, Contact information, and Title. Authors will be notified of acceptance by May 10, 2010.

Visual Analytic Tools for Managing Technological Innovations
Contact: Ping Wang for more information

In order to survive and thrive, organizations in every sector of today's economy must innovate with new technologies. However, wide and dynamic arrays of technological innovations pose a significant cognitive challenge to organizations and their internal and external stakeholders. In this workshop, we explore state-of-the-art tools to help organizational stakeholders monitor and understand the complex and dynamic terrains of technological innovations.