Monday, December 12, 2011
Usability Testing Student Presentations
UPA Boston December Meeting will feature short, interactive presentations from the “Usability and User Experience Research” class, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College. Students in class have worked in teams to run usability testing sessions for the following web systems:1. Brigham & Women’s Hospital “Find a Researcher” http://researchfaculty.brighamandwomens.org/search.aspx2. Harvard/NASA Astrophysics Data System http://labs.adsabs.harvard.edu/ui/3. EBSCO Discovery Service http://ebscohost.com/discovery/There will be three presentations, each last 15 minutes. At the end of the 3rd presentation, there will be questions from the class to the audience regarding their tips on running usability testing and conducting UX studies.
 Schedule
- 5:30-6:00 — Event setup
- 6:00-7:00 — Arrival, networking and dinner (through Simmons’ Catering)
- 7:00-7:10 — Brief UPA Boston announcements (UPA Board members)
- 7:10-7:20 — Introduction of class projects and teams (Rong Tang)
- 7:20-8:05 — Presentations
- 8:05-8:30 — Students’ questions to the audience
Amazing Prizes!
A copy of Techsmith’s Morae Suite will be up for grabs, as well as 8GB thumb drives courtesy of Simmons College. And, as always, free food for everyone.
UPA Boston Board Elections
We will be holding our annual board elections at this meeting. Due to state laws, we need members to submit paper ballots. Please come and have your voice heard!
Hosts, Presenters, and Sponsors
Host: Simmons College
Sponsors: GSLIS Technology Group; Simmons Student Chapter of American Society for Information Science & Technology; Simmons GSLIS Usability Lab
Presenters: LIS531Y Class
Facilitator: Rong Tang
Rong Tang is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College. She has taught usability and user experience research, evaluation of information services, library automation systems, digital information services and providers, and research methods and design. Her research areas range from usability testing and evaluation, user studies and needs assessment, mental models of online searching, bibliometrics and citation behavior research, to user community generated metadata and question-answering services. Rong is the Director of Simmons Usability Lab. She has received multiple research grants and awards. One of her papers has won the 2008 Wynar/ALISE research paper competition. She is a recipient of 2007 APA PsycINFO Needs Assessment Contract Award, 2007 Simmons College President’s Fund for Faculty Excellence, 2008 OCLC/ALISE Research Grant Award, and a 2010 contractual award from Harvard University Center for Biomedical Informatics.
Location/Getting There
Directions to Simmons:http://www.simmons.edu/overview/directions/
Beatley Library and Lefavour Hall
Kotzen Meeting Room
http://www.simmons.edu/overview/directions/maps/?map=academic
Parking
Simmons will offer discounted parking at the rate of $12 for those who need it. Please contact UPA Boston if you require parking.