World Usability Day at System Concepts
This year we celebrated World Usability Day with two very successful events; a free User Centred Design training course to share our knowledge with those wanting to improve their skills and an evening seminar exploring Digital Technology and Health for usability professionals.
Introduction to User Centred Design
Fourteen participants from diverse organisations including publishers, charities, retailers, banks and phone companies attended the training presented by System Concepts senior usability consultants Ansgar Kupper and Tony Rose.
Tony introduced the session by explaining the many benefits of a user centred approach to a design project. It not only results in products which are efficient, effective and satisfying to use but also ensures that projects are more likely to be completed to time and budget, without expensive last minute revisions.
Identifying your target users and gaining an understanding of their requirements are vital to a good design, and the next session, presented by Ansgar Kupper, looked at techniques that can be used to identify target users and create user profiles.
T
he second half of the day was spent learning how to apply usability best practice when setting release criteria, testing and evaluating products and systems.
Throughout the day, participants were able to practice their new skills, splitting into groups to conduct a variety of exercises culminating in the evaluation of a website and reporting back their findings.
One of them commented, “The course was very helpful on focussing and providing a simple structure to apply and prioritise techniques and standards that we currently tackle in an ad hoc manner.”
Another explained “Both Ansgar and Tony were approachable and had a good style of communicating complex ideas in a short space of time. Although the session only scratched the surface of the topic, I feel that I have gained a solid foundation on which to build.”
Digital Technology and Health
Over 60 people enjoyed our evening seminar, hosted in co-operation with Microsoft and the Ergonomics Society, exploring how a user-centred focus can deliver benefits to health.
First Dr Mike Bainbridge, who currently leads the Clinical Architecture team at NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH), explained how modernising and improving information management in the NHS was vital to helping it meet the needs of the aging and increasingly demanding population – including reducing the 11.9kg of paper representing a patient’s medical records to something more manageable.
Alison Clark, from Microsoft, then outlined the user research and UCD processes that were being followed to produce guidelines so NHS systems could handle information under a common user interface giving huge benefits in increasing accuracy, productivity and flexibility and reducing mistakes and training requirements.
System Concepts MD, Tom Stewart gave us his tips for achieving a good work-life balance, briefly summarised as – do something you enjoy, do it well, make technology work for you not the other way round (and spend as much time sailing as possible!)
The formal part of the evening finished with an exclusive preview of Bill Gates’ WUD address at the Microsoft meeting in Seattle and a lively question and answer session.
Leslie Fountain, Director of System Concepts, who organised the evening said “The event gave a great opportunity for professionals from different backgrounds but with a common interest in usability to meet up and swap news, stories and expertise. The variety of applications people were working on emphasised how far-reaching our field is, and how many different ways we can apply our skills.”
Kim Hiltz one of our newest usability consultants commented “It was great for stimulating the mind and for reminding us of how many fascinating problems there are out there for us to work on.”
Our thanks to all who attended and helped make the event such a success and to Microsoft and the Ergonomics Society for their generous sponsorship.
If you would like copies of any of the presentations, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and she will be happy to send them to you.