World Usability Day 2006: Life can be so easy

"How do I program my DVD recorder? And why does my cell phone never do what it is supposed to do?" The World Usability Day (WUD) has been established for all those who have already asked themselves similiar questions. For the second time, this worldwide event informed visitors on 14 November about the meaning of usability and the methods involved. The numbers show how important the topic "Usability" is: Under the slogan "Making Life Easy!", 218 events took place this year in 40 countries. Last year, it was only 115 Events in 35 countries. So this is a result which the initiators– the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) – can be proud of.

UID represented on the WUD with great success

UID is also happy about this success. As a sponsor and co-organizer of the event that took place at Rotebühlplatz in Stuttgart, UID welcomed nuerous visitors and media representatives. The UID booth which presented the range of UID services was well attended. The presentation of the projects biozoom and aonDigital TV allowed a deeper insight in the work of a usability expert.

Usability unlimited

Many visitors attended the lectures and presentations which UID was involved in with great interest. Jakob Biesterfeldt and Sylvia Thalmeier let the audience become part of an international online conference. Together with members of the International Usability Partners (IUP) network from Great Britain, Italy and China, the five lecturers put the website "Myspace.com" to test. They and five to eight users examined the cultural differences and common interests when using "social networking" sites. One result was for example that such sites are not very popular in China, but widely used in Great Britain. In Germany and Italy however, they have only been used for a short time, but become more and more popular. After the presentation of the results, the two UID usability engineers had a discussion with representatives from Great Britain, Italy and China via Virtual Team Room (vitero) about cultural and organizational differences in usability tests. The active integration of the audience turned the lecture into a unique experience.(see picture 3).

A new era of watching TV with aonDigital TV

Well attended was also the lecture of Franz Koller about "Digital TV in a Usability Test". He talked about how digital TV becomes an attractive and easy-to-use experience for the whole family. The secret is: In order to meet the requirements of the different target groups, the users must be integrated in the development process at an early stage. On this basis, UID developed an optimal interaction concept combined with an attractive screen design for aonDigital TV – the digital TV entertainment that comes from the telephone socket.

Cell instead of dumbbell with biozoom

Will your cell phone soon be able to do everything but making coffee? This question was addressed by Claus Görner, who presented the cell phone as your personal fitness trainer. biozoom is the name of the mobile bio scanner, which is able to measure physical and mental fitness. Dr. Görner, managing director of UID, demonstrated how information can be displayed in an easy-to understand and well structured way. The magic word in this project is again "user-centered design process". Usability Tests with users in gyms helped to optimize the product and led to a "award-winning" result, winning two iF communication design awards.

Further information on biozoom.
Further information on aonDigital TV.
Further information on the International Usability Partners (IUP).

Further information on the World Usability Day 2006:
www.worldusabilityday.org
www.worldusabilityday.de

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