Author Archives: Elizabeth
17 August 2013
“Usability in Govt Sys” book review from Society for Technical Communication
The Society for Technical Communication has published a review of my book.
The June 2013 issue of Technical Communication Online, STC’s Journal, contains a review of Usability in Government Systems: User Experience Design for Citizens and Public Servants, the book from Morgan Kaufmann Press that Dianne Murray and I edited. The review, written by STC [...]
14 May 2012
New SIGCHI Community: Research-Practice Interaction
A small group of people, mostly participants in this past week’s annual “CHI” (Computer-Human Interaction) conference, have formed a community to promote the exchange of information between research and practice in the fields involved with making computer systems and web sites better suited for use by the people who use them. This community exists under [...]
11 May 2012
We Are All Stakeholders
Can you think of anyone whose life is not affected by government information and communications technology? Anyone at all?
Even in the farthest reaches of the remotest areas, even when a population is completely isolated from the outside world, people’s lives are affected by the policies and procedures of the government that administers the area in [...]
posted by at 02:05 Leave a comment
2 December 2011
Usability in Government Systems — A Forthcoming Book
Just before US Thanksgiving of 2011, my co-editor and I delivered to our publisher the manuscript of a new book on usability in government systems. Two and a half years after Dianne Murray suggested doing a book and we chose the topic — and six weeks after I began the most intensive period of work [...]
30 January 2010
Music: Does Listening Enhance or Hinder Creative Work?
I’ve read many comments from other user experience folks about listening to music while they work. Most of them express the same as I experience: I can listen to music while I am designing or constructing a site or prototype, but it interferes with my ability to write. For me this is true even for [...]
8 October 2009
When Alphabetical Order Is Not Logical
Every so often, the question comes up among interaction designers and usability professionals regarding whether alphabetical order is a logical order. (See, for example, the February 2009 discussion on the Interaction Design list.) We’ve all seen numerous lists that appear in alphabetical order (and in which it makes sense): country, state, surname, street name, auto [...]
27 September 2009
So you’ve volunteered to review for the CHI 2010 UX Community
I’m delighted to say that, in addition to seasoned CHI-goers, I’ve recruited as CHI 2010 reviewers a number of strong UX practitioners who are new to CHI reviewing. Many of you have asked me what is involved in reviewing for CHI. Rather than answer you all individually, I am posting the information here.
Reviewing Process
The first [...]
27 September 2009
CFP: CHI 2010 Workshop on Researcher-Practitioner Interaction
Workshop Overview
This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners of human-computer interaction to explore whether and to what extent difficulties exist between them — and, if so, will endeavor to identify the dimensions of the problems and propose possible solutions. On the one hand, we will work to articulate factors that may render the research [...]
posted by at 01:09 Tagged CHI, CHI2010, research-practice interaction, SIGCHI, uxrpi Leave a comment
15 September 2009
Submission to IxD10: Hone Your Surveys!
Title: Hone Your Surveys!
Abstract
Free your surveys from the biggest common flaws.
Most of us find ourselves inclined to conduct a survey at least once in a while. Although surveys cannot replace observation, interviews, or empirical usability testing, they can be a cost-effective adjunct to more direct user research if designed and used appropriately. Unfortunately, too many [...]
posted by at 10:09 Leave a comment
30 March 2015
Calibrating web design for citizens: The value of user testing for government websites