Subject: UWired Usability Meeting minutes, 11/19/99 I did not realize what a full meeting this was until I tried to write up the notes. -------------------------- UWired Usability Committee November 19, 1999 -------------------------- Attending: Mark Scott, Helene Williams, Connie Missimer, Kathryn Sharpe, Rick Ells, Mark Alway, Scott Macklin, Bill Corrigan Next Meeting: Friday, January 7, 2:30-3:30pm ACC Building, 3737 Brooklyn Ave NE Newsbits: February 7 - Tentative date for WebEd meeting hosted by UWired Usability Committee February 14 (Valentine's Day) - National Learning Infrastructure Initiative Common Solutions Group will be meeting at the UW. UW is one of two national sites to host symposium on teaching and learning. Scott Macklin is now Director of the Program for Educational Transformation Through Technology The Next Three Months - A group decision-making process First, the results of the process: Top Three Priorities 1. Tell people what has already been done 2. Create a Web site 3. Conduct pilot projects Assigned Tasks o Draft Web site - Scott Macklin, Rick Ells, Jason L. o Think about Usability Awareness Gathering - Rick Ells, Kathryn Sharpe, Mark Alway o Draft meeting announcement - Kathryn Sharpe, Connie Missimer o Arrange Webed session (February) - Mark Scott o Think up possible speakers. If we were to bring someone in, who would that be, what would they bring - Mark Scott, Rick Ells o Look into availability of a meeting room in OUGL in late February, early March - Scott Macklin, Helene Williams How The Process Worked 1. Idea Storm - as fast as we could, we went around the room calling out ideas on what we should do during the next three months o tell people what has already been done - College of Forest Resources - UW Libraries - Department of Technical Communications - UWired o centrally hosted web resources - research - link to other web development resources - who are the stakeholders? (web developers, etc.) o usability consulting service o referring people to LUTE o workshop or seminar model - quick way to do focus study - how would you do a focus group, usability test - quick seminars o video conference with Jakob Nielsen o videos of lectures on usabilities, user tests, o usability library - Usable web - Jakob Nielsen - identify usability resources that are most relevant to UW o brainstorm ways to communicate, distribute, disseminate ideas on user-centered design and usability issues o guest speakers visiting departments o targetted marketing o usability group tied to instructional and faculty - tech support in departments - Faculty on instructional design - go to Jaime Diaz o work on pilot presentation of what we could present - what is the UW doing o McCormick's campus conversations - technology - effective uses, implementation of technology - have developer's workshop within framework - what is the goal here are some ways to meet it, o template chautauqua - get an idea of the geography of class templates - making recommendations o cookie tracking 2. Clumping and Ranking - We then sorted the ideas and voted on which we wanted to work on during the next three months Votes Topic ----- -------------------------------------------------- (6) Tell people what has already been done - brainstrom on methods of effective communication with developers - distribution of info about usability - campus conversations about user-centered design, usability (5) Create central web resource relevent to uw - templates - links to usability research, articles, The Basics - links to UW Web developers, stakeholders (4) Pilot projects - look at specific sites, then scale larger - gain trust first - create examples that address specific usability topics - use examples in trainings (3) Usability services - point to available training - usability brokers - match people with usability skills to people with usability needs (3) Offer training - Something like University of California Davis seminars (?) - testing - guest speakers - Connect with Faculty Committee on Information Technology (FACIT) (2) Geoography of templates (1) We share technical info - serves, areas, technology, software, usability issues (0) Streaming media video clips demonstrating usability testing (0) Video conference with Jakob Nielsen 3. Discussion: o Top three are push activities o We seem to want a web presence o Interest in referral, advising, consulting o Interest in putting on usability training or workshop o Usability consulting or referral should probably wait until the Web site exists Usability Awareness Gathering (Web developer's gathering) o Do a test run to gather ideas at the Feburary WebEd meeting o Possible themes - Seeking a vision of how the UW sites will be working together - How to create and maintain UW Web sites in a coordinated manner across fiefdoms o How many do we expect? o Room 220 in OUGL would be good o Date late February, beginning March Information Mapping o Rick reported that he is impressed with Robert Horn's Information Mapping methodology for developing documentation. The methodology is described on the Information Mapping Web site: http://www.infomap.com/method/index.htm o Content is important, nothing can make up for bad content o Information Mapping provides a way of analyzing and organizing content o Navigation and presentation are also fundamental, but do not amount much if the content is mushy o The UW is in the content provider business - "content is our value-added" |- Rick Ells - 543-2875 - rells@cac.washington.edu - Rm 301 4545 Bldg -| |- http://staff.washington.edu/rells/ -|