St. Louis User Experience 2005: Friday, September 9

24 Jul 2007

Overview

St. Louis User Experience 2005 (STL>UX>2005) was a one-day peer-organized conference for user experience practitioners in the St. Louis, Missouri area. It was held on Friday, September 9 at A.G. Edwards in St. Louis (corner of Market & Jefferson).

Over 100 people registered and we even (unfortunately) had to turn some people away as we exceed capacity!

Yes, there will be another STL>UX conference in the future. Not sure where or when. If you’re interested in being notified about future conferences, sign up for the mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stlux/

Conference Program

Presentations are now available! If we have presentation slides or notes, you’ll notice a link to the file after the name of the presenter(s).

Download full program with details (150k Word Doc)

8:00Registration, continental breakfast, and networking
8:15
8:30
8:45
9:00Opening remarks
9:15Ditching Design… Almost (Pat Malecek) [PPT]Surviving the International Usability Test: Tips and Strategies for a Successful Outcome (Leigh Parker) [PPT]
9:30
9:45Web Analytics and User Experience (Jennifer Ruffino and Jeff Lash) [PPT]User Experience in China (Maggie Jiao Ma) [PPT]
10:00
10:15Break
10:30The Effects of the Testing Environment on User Performance in Software Usability Testing (Bryan Grubaugh) [PPT]Paper Prototyping for Call Centers (Sarah Kirk)
10:45
11:00User Experience Education: The HCI Program at the University of Missouri-Rolla (Richard Hall, Patricia Spence, Erik Schwartz, and John Brown) [ZIP]10-Minute Talks: Tips and Techniques for Usability (Kara McCombs) [ZIP]
11:15
11:30
11:45
12:00Lunch / “Open Mic”
12:15
12:30
12:45
12:00When registering, attendees can sign up for one of three 2-hour workshops:
  1. The Redesign Rumble (John Spyers and Eric Svoboda): Two or more teams will assemble and be given one hour to tackle the redesign of a local charity Website. Any and all User Experience weapons are allowed: IxD, UCD, GCD, AI, AIDA, GOMS, BPR, 00UI—as long is you can do it PDQ, bring it on! Each team’s effort will be judged by our panel, and the winning design & recommendations will be packaged and presented to the charity.
  2. Card-Sorting and Cluster Analysis for Information Architecture Design (Charlotte Schwendeman and Carol Righti): This tutorial will provide user researchers with practical guidance and demonstrations of the use of card sorting and cluster analysis to design the architecture of web sites and applications. This tutorial will address: What is a card sort and cluster analysis? How do I perform a card sort and cluster analysis (tools and methods)? What else do I need to know to be able to perform this method in practice? Special attention will be given to the WebSort tool and its use in card sorting and cluster analysis.
  3. Wireframes: What would a CIF look like? (Kate Peterson and Danielle Gobert): Recently, the ISO (International Standards Organization) has embraced the Common Industry Format (CIF) for reporting usability test results. This format, however, only covers a very small portion of what Information Architects, Usability and Human Factors Engineers, and User Experience Designers do. The majority of our daily work practices focus on cognitive walkthrough and “formative” methods of assessing and evaluating designs. One key deliverable has become the “wireframe” that, with the site map, defines the information and interaction architectural plan for the system. These wireframes vary from company to company: ranging from simple, hand-drawn plans to electronic renderings in computer drawing and illustration tools. To help new and experienced practitioners alike, wouldn’t it be handy to develop a common format for creating wireframes and reporting our recommendations? In this workshop, we will develop wireframes for a simple computer or Web-based tool. One group will use computer drawing tools and the other will use paper and other physical artifacts to create wireframe recommendations for the product. At the end, each team will present their deliverable and the pros/cons of using this presentation format as a standard in their organizations—and the computer and Web development industry writ large. In addition to the hands-on activity, workshop participants will be asked to bring in examples of wireframes they have created and briefly explain why they use whatever method they do and the advantages and disadvantages of their chosen method.
1:15
1:30
1:45
2:00
2:15
2:30
2:45
3:00Break
3:15Can you sweeten your user’s experience of implementing a company mandate? (Kate Knechel) [DOC]User Centered Design and Team Dynamics (Bill Miller and John Harris) [PPT]
3:30
3:45
4:00UCD in Practice and the Evolution and Methodology at Citigroup (Mike Chandler) [PPT]Usability in Academics and Practice: Bridging the Gap (Jerry Weinberg)
4:15
4:30
4:45
5:00Closing Remarks

Organizers and Sponsors

STL>UX>2005 was organized by a group of area professionals who saw the need for a local get-together that would encourage knowledge sharing, collaboration, and networking. The goal was to put together a high-quality conference quickly and easily, and thus the organizing group is small and the conference is not officially sponsored by any professional organization or corporation.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, contact Jeff Lash (jeff@jefflash.com), Chair of the STL>UX>2005 Organizing Committee.