UX & You: User Experience Design & Research
The New England Chapter of the Association for Information Science & Technology, together with the Simmons College Student Chapter, invite you to join us at our 2016 Winter Event:
UX & You: User Experience Design & Research
Whether you are providing a service for free or for profit, in-person or virtually, your organization's success depends on the user experience. Our speakers are experts in the field of UX Research and Design. Through them, you'll learn about the nuts and bolts of usability and user experience while hearing practical examples of usability at work. You'll also have a chance to experience some real-world UX techniques that you can bring back to your organization.
| When | Wednesday, January 6, 2016, from 8 am to 3pm |
| Where | Simmons College Linda K. Paresky Center, 3rd Floor, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA |
| RSVP | Eventbrite |
Program
| 8:00-8:45am | Registration Coffee & tea provided |
| 8:45-9:00am | Welcome & Introductions |
| 9:00-10:00am | Rong Tang, Associate Professor, School of Library & Information Science -- Simmons College In this talk, Rong will first present an overview of UX research in terms of its essential characteristics and processes. She will then provide insights into challenges that UX researchers face when carrying out a user study as either a scholarly endeavor or practical project. Following that, Rong will discuss some of key questions and noteworthy trends in UX research. Finally, Rong will pose her own thoughts on a possible paradigmatic shift in user research when UX is embedded in new information environments where user experiences are constantly instantiated and reshaped by the interactive and ubiquitous access, through embodied and collective minds, and surrounded with large scale boundary-less cyber entities or objects. |
| 10:00-11:00am | Steven Anderson, Digital Repository Developer -- Digital Commonwealth Eben English, Web Services Developer -- Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library (BPL) recently conducted a usability test of online book-reader interfaces to inform the development of Digital Commonwealth (http://digitalcommonwealth.org/), a digital repository featuring collections from a state-wide consortium of Massachusetts cultural heritage institutions. In the study, which was conducted at the Simmons Usability Lab, participants were asked to take several open-source book-viewing applications for a "test drive," performing basic tasks related to searching and reading digitized book content. This talk will discuss the development and execution of the study, which was undertaken to inform the BPL's implementation of an open-source e-reading application to provide access to historically significant materials such as manuscripts, town records, legislation, and yearbooks. Topics of particular focus will include: the evolution of the study design, lessons learned from the study process, and how the study ultimately influenced our work at the BPL. |
| 11:00am-12:00pm | Kate Lawrence, Vice President, User Research -- EBSCO Information Services Today’s students employ diverse search strategies to discover content in support of their studies. With search results serving as the staple of the digital ecosystem, creating that experience hinges on a deep understanding of user needs at that critical juncture. While usage metrics may reveal the user’s clicks, the story behind those choices may remain untold. And as usability testing proves useful in identifying areas for improvement, going off-script to capture user pain points is not always sanctioned. Looking outside the confines of traditional research methods allows capturing the “free-range” insights of today’s researchers. This presentation will feature the experiences of the User Research Team at EBSCO Information Services as they set out to illuminate the true user journey of scholarly research. Attendees will learn what what page designs elicit smiles, smirks, confusion or delight. Learnings from ethnographic studies will be shared, with insights about the complex feelings students have about searching for information and their diverse strategies for evaluating search results. |
| 12:00-12:45pm | Lunch Provided Please notify us of any dietary restrictions. |
| 12:30-1:45pm | UX Demonstrations Visit exhibits to learn UX activities and techniques that you can apply in your own setting. |
| 1:45-2:45pm | UX Case Studies Lightning Round Graduate students from Rong Tang's Usability and User Experience Research course will be presenting three case studies from their own research. |
| 2:45-3:00pm | Closing remarks |
Getting There
Simmons College is easily accessed from the MFA stop on the MBTA E Line of the Green Line. Additionally, several MBTA bus routes stop near Simmons, including numbers 8, 19, 39, 47, 60, 65, CT2, and CT3. Contact the event organizer at neasist@gmail.com if you need special accommodations. We hope to see you there!