Subject: UWired Usability Committee Minutes - 1/29/01



UWired Usability Committee Meeting Minutes
January 29, 2001

Attending: Kathryn Sharpe, Helene Williams, Rick Ells, 
  Joshua Cohen, Trevor Leffler

Projects:

  Rick Ells (rells@u) and Larry Gales (larryg@u) used the Catalyst WebQ tool
  to conduct an online survey on what a course in basic 
  XML should cover. 
  - Catalyst Web Tools are at...
    http://depts.washington.edu/catalyst/tools/
  - You can take the XML survey at...
    http://staff.washington.edu/rells/xml/survey.html
  - Easy to create the questionaire, results were neatly
    and automatically summarized.
  - Catalyst is exploring the use of XML, Trevor reports,
    as a possible way to create a general Web based tool
    for putting content onto Web pages using templates 

  Helene Williams (helenew@u) attended the User Interface 2000 Conference 
  (Jared Spool's group) in Boston October 30 - November 1 
  - Proceedings are online at www.ui2001.com (for money)
  - Helene worked as a volunteer at the conference and 
    enjoyed it
  - Spring UI conference will be in San Francisco April 8-12 
  - Volunteers are needed, sign up now

  Kathryn Sharpe (ksharpe@u)is working on a Computing & Communications
  organization site
  - Conducting interview of different types of people interested
    in knowing more about C&C
    - people who want a job
    - people who want to know what computing infrastructure we have
  - Objective is to make sure visitor needs are satisfied
  - This is different from the www.washington.edu/computing page,
    which is about computing services

  The Department of Technical Communications "Current Issues in
  TC" Seminar is hosting guest speakers each Friday 12:30-1:20pm
  in Loew Hall 206
  - Schedule is online at...
    http://www.uwtc.washington.edu/faculty/ramey/tc_521/speakers.htm
  - January 19 Dennis Wixon from Microsoft spoke on how everyone tries to
    avoid doing usability testing with heuristics, role-playing
    etc.
  - On Friday, February 2, Chris Hale and Colin Bay of Intel will
    speak on "A day in the life of a usability engineer"

  Joshua Cohen (posiwax@u) of PETTT is reviewing the usability tests of the
  Arthritis Source site http://depts.washington.edu/pettt/projects/#arthritis
  for ideas on a set of heuristics that Catalyst can offer
  to help people develop more effective Web sites. 
  - Currently working on a "Run a usability test" section 
  - Reviewers are needed. Contact Joshua to volunteer.


 |- Rick Ells - 543-2875 - rells@cac.washington.edu - Rm 011S MGH Bldg -|
 |-                http://staff.washington.edu/rells/                  -|