Something big is happening to the university Events Calendar.

A little bit ago Rob Vrabel mentioned we were working on the events calendar and I would like to confirm that we are and we have some great things in store.

We will be running down all the new features in detail closer to launch but here are just a few things to look forward to:

• Completely new interface
• Better listing and search for events by interests and audiences
• Upcoming Deadlines and Reminders are broken out from main calendar
• Images now supported for event promotion
• Image and video gallery available for every event
• RSVP’s to be created and managed by anyone
• Ability to show interest or say you are attending an event even if there is no RSVP
• Calendars will be better organized in the left menu
• Featured event promotion
• Addresses for location of off campus event
• Subscribe by RSS to a category or audience
• Email subscription for upcoming featured events each week

You can view the current calendar at: http://events.wayne.edu/

Designing for a Sustainable World

Designing for a Sustainable World focuses on how our products and services impact our world. The ‘Cradle to Cradle’ approach is to start the design with the premise of using materials that can fully enter a new life cycle by either going back to nature or going back into the design process as a new product. This holistic approach to sustainable design shows how usability can apply to all of what we do and build.

Please “Save the Date” for this program that will be relevant to researchers, professionals, and students alike. Explore advanced and timely topics of usability, accessibility and human-technology interface design in the sustainable global knowledge economy.

Tours of the MSU Usability & Accessibility Center are included in the day’s agenda.

For information on how to get involved, please visit http://www.usability.msu.edu/conf/2009/.

Statistics

136 separate calendars
30,804 total events among all sites
42,922 event occurrences (regular + recurring)
2,849 events emailed to friends

71% of events are recurring
41% of events are in the Student Center

14 events added per day on average (including weekends)

Most Used Calendars
6681 events by Student Center
823 events by Dean of Students Office
545 events by College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts

First Event
CULMA’s  Open House and Annual Reception August 31, 2004

Most Recent Event
MAME Annual Conference October 21, 2009

Most Recent Recurring Event
11th Annual Career Evening January 7, 2011

Date with the most events
94 Events – September 8, 2008

• What: “Usability Tweetup”
• When: 7pm, Saturday, July 18, 2009
• Where: Ann Arbor Brewing Company in downtown Ann Arbor [Google map]
• Why: To discuss web usability, web accessibility, Twitter; socialize; drink beer

Note that this is the night of the last day of the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

Want to copy an event?

When you have a new event that closely resembles a previous event you can now use your previous event as a template for your new event. You’ll have to know where to look for the copy event link though. We decided to tuck the event management links away to clean up the page and make it a little easier to scan for your event. Mousing over the event with reveal the Copy Event link as well as any other event management links available on your event.

Need to copy your RSVP too?

Event copying doesn’t stop at the event. If your event has an attached RSVP you can also choose to copy the RSVP along with your event. At the bottom of the copy event screen you’ll see a few extra fields (this will only display if your event has an attached RSVP). The only catch is that the short name has to be unique, so you’ll need to come up with a new short name for this rendition of your RSVP. If selected the entire RSVP will be copied and attached to your new event.

Full width homepage banner

Because of the stature and importance of this event, we decided to take up some special real estate normally reserved for emergency messages.  We placed a banner in the morning letting visitors know the event would be streamed live at 1:30 pm. Then at 1:30 we switch it over to a watch “live now” image (pictured on the right).

The banner got 380 clicks throughout the day. Out of the average 28,000 views the homepage gets on a normal day that means ~1.4% of all visitors clicked for more information.

Ustream.tv

Because the Detroit Institute of Arts auditorium only holds ~1,200 people, our University Television department offered a live stream so anyone could watch the event. In the past we have streamed events and get between 20-50 additional viewers depending on the content.

About an hour before the event, university television comes into my office to break some bad news. Their streaming server is not cooperating and the connection from the DIA to the server might be too weak to stream. Considering we have been promoting the live stream for the last few weeks this would not have been good. So I suggested we use our Ustream.tv account. We set up the account awhile ago and have been waiting for a chance to use it.

I showed them a quick tutorial on how to pipe the video through it, gave them the login instructions and off they went. Ten minutes later I got a phone call from UTV when they were testing out the stream. I pulled it up and it looked great, so I said “lets go for it.”

About 45 minutes before the event started we had to change the streaming template with the Ustream embed code. I setup a few staff member in our department as operators in the chat channel and hoped for the best. I was attending the inauguration, so I was not able to take part in the chat.

Live chat

At 1:30 the streaming page went up, we sent a tweet out and people started to roll in to view the stream. In the beginning while everyone was being seated there were 10-15 users viewing and chatting. This number started to rise as time went on. As we saw with the U.S. Presidential Inauguration live chat, chatting during an event adds an incredible amount of value and interactivity. In a setting that is usually reserved for a single person sitting at their computer with headphones, the experience now allows for massive discussion.

At first the discussion was about the audio quality and the volume of the Provost speaking, so we helped get the users’ sound turned up. A few viewers were looking for the program of the event so we put up a PDF and posted the link. The discussion then turned to the auditorium and how nice it looked. One alumnus was concerned about the cost of the event. This was great because it got the discussion rolling about how president Noren redirected $26,200 that was sent in by donors for the inauguration to student scholarships.

What made people stay was the ability to follow the speech and ask questions. Something that would have been unlikely if they were in the audience, only able to ask the people next to them who might not have known the answer.

We decided to send a message to @ustreamtv on twitter letting them know our inauguration was going on live. Just a few minutes later “Brad06” (Ustream Founder) joined the chat and a message came in “Wayne State’s stream is now on Ustream’s homepage.” We were ecstatic and soon saw a huge jump in viewers and chatters. The Ustream.tv homepage is pictured on the right showing the Wayne State inauguration as the first featured stream. The stream plays automatically when a visitor hits the page.

Now we had 230 viewers and 136 chatters. This exposure is HUGE for the university. At the peak of activity we had 432 people viewing the stream and 193 chatting. We had questions about the initiatives that president Noren was talking about. We even got a question from ustreamer-8123, “How do I go about applying to Wayne State?” It was amazing.

Statistics

In the end here are the numbers:

• 1:28 Broadcast duration
• ~1,200 Attended in person
• 73 Click through’s from twitter
• 380 Click through’s from the wayne.edu
• 432 Peak viewers
• 193 Peak chatters
• 5997 Unique viewers
• 6695 Total viewers
• 194.3 Average number of viewers
• $0.00 Cost

A learning experience

From Chris Pelzer, a web developer in our department that was manning the chat.

What can we do to change it?
The best thing that we could do to change the way it went was to have a group of people within the chat who could answer detailed questions about the University. We tried our best to answer or at least direct people to the correct area throughout wayne.edu, that could help them. It was very interesting to see how appreciated people were when we were able to help with their questions. Being able to answer the questions as the show went on showed we were an open university. Another thing we could change is the quality of the video by serving the stream using Adobe Flash Media Encoder. I will need to look into using that, but as of now Adobe Flash Media Encoder is only compatible with Microsoft Windows. Overall there were issues with the sound to begin with, but was quickly taken care of. Also the video was a little pixelated but decent.

What can we do to make it better?
We could make it better, though I know we quickly set this up and the chat, by being prepared. It was an interesting test today to see how how Ustream.tv works for a University Event. I believe it was very successful, since at the beginning we were pessimistic as to really how many people would have viewed. The next event we could incorporate events for the chat, which could get more people interested. Events such as trivia chat with prizes, where every so often we could have a question be asked and the people who respond correctly will be entered to win. Another could be an actual Q&A session with the speaker, who could answer a few questions from people who were unable to make it in person.

Learn about the opportunities social media brings for individuals, companies, and social causes. Find out how to use social media to

• engage your customers
• grow your career or business
• drive social change
• and more

Panelists

• Kevin Krason, President, Biznet Internet Solutions
  Founder of Biznet in 1994, Kevin’s strong leadership and business savvy have led Biznet to become one of the most successful web development companies in Michigan. Kevin’s skill at getting everyone on the same page has been instrumental for Biznet in establishing long term client partnerships.
• Shauna Nicholson, Marketing Manager, Biznet Internet Solutions
  Working exclusively in online marketing strategy, Shauna is known for her insight on social media marketing, Shauna is a resource for metro-Detroit businesses who want to leverage the most powerful online tools available. By transcending the social media hype and pairing reality-based business and marketing strategy to the tools, she positions clients to effectively secure measurable ROI.
• Ken Burbary, VP Digital at BIG Communications
  Ken has been involved in web development and interactive media his entire professional career. Constantly learning, he soaks up as many new pieces of information as possible. He’s equally passionate about both business and technology innovations driving his industry.
• Nick DeNardis, Associate Director of Web Communications at Wayne State University
  Nick oversees a staff of eight dedicated to web communications at Wayne State. He has initiated and maintains all of the university’s current social media initiatives. He hosts the video blog EDU Checkup where he reviews a higher education web sites live. Nick is also a .eduGuru writer and an active member of the higher education web community.

Where: Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. We will be meeting in Room 121 at the Morris Lawrence Building (map). Plenty of free parking is available adjacent to the building.

When: Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 6:30pm – 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

RSVP Here

When: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 6:30pm – 8:00pm

Speaker: Mary Donnelly, Senior User Experience Consultant at Evantage Consulting and Cathy McAdam, ACSW

Abstract

Making the web usable for all visitors is the primary goal of creating an accessible website. The W3C estimates that close to 20% of all website visitors have some form of disability, whether cognitive, visual, hearing, or physical. These disabilities affect how visitors access a website, whether on a computer with assistive technology, laptop, or cell phone.

Learn what website accessibility is, why it is important, and what you as a web professional can do to provide a more accessible website for all website visitors. See how a screen reader views a web page and discover the different methods for testing website accessibility.

Mary Donnelly is a senior user experience consultant with Evantage Consulting. Her extensive experience includes user needs analysis, low and high fidelity prototyping, usability testing, research study design, and heuristic evaluation and assessment.

At the March 2008 EKU Web Accessibility Conference, Mary presented “An accessibility study of an online resource directory geared towards people with disabilities and seniors.”

Mary is an HFI Certified Usability Analyst, a member of the Usability Professionals’ Association, and the Society of Technical Communication.

Cathy McAdam, ACSW, has 20 years experience in rehabilitation medicine as a medical social worker at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

In 1999, Cathy started her own company as a consultant focused on advocacy for assistive technology, and provision of career development services. She runs a tutor program for libraries for basic computer skills for Greater Detroit Agency For The Blind and Visually Impaired.

She leads grants focused on assistive technology for people with disabilities to drive systemic change that will permanently improve access to assistive technology devices and services.

Please comment on the Refresh Detroit Web site if you plan on attending. Thanks!

SOCHI and SCSI now bring you the third design jam in our browser redesign series, answering Mozilla’s call for participation.

WHAT: Prototype or create storyboards for your ideas for improving or redesigning Firefox
WHEN: Thursday, November 13, 6-8PM
WHERE: Design Lab 1, Duderstadt Center (North Campus)
RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=33711718121

Please indicate via the Facebook event if you will be attending so that we have an accurate count for ordering pizza.

We will also be having a vote for the best mockup or prototype.  There will be great prizes and recognition for the winning team!

Submissions should be sent to lizblank@umich.edu and must be received by midnight on Thursday November 20th.

More information about the event:

You don’t have to be a Firefox user or an HCI student to attend. Everyone is welcome. Pizza will be provided, as well as a chance at free Firefox t-shirts for anyone in attendance.

Haven’t prototyped before, or looking for an idea to work on?  Check out the latest post on the SOCHI blog for some information about tools available and ideas generated in our previous design jams.

This event is sponsored by Mozilla and SourceForge.

Hope to see you there!
SOCHI and SCSI

Originally Posted: http://uxnet.org/archives/1467

Getting to the Point: Improving Transportation through Better Design

The focus for World Usability Day 2008 is Transportation. Transportation in its broadest sense means moving products and people. Usability in transportation speaks to the interaction of people and vehicles, the challenges and issues of infrastructure and modes for moving around in our environment.

• Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008
• Time: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
• Cost: $25.00 – lunch included
• Location: MSU Union Building

Website: Michigan World Usability Day
Registration: Register by Nov 6, 2008

Usability in Your Life and in the Products You Use

How well does your product or website meet your customers’ needs and expectations? Does your product simplify or complicate your client’s workday?

This evening session, open to the general public, will explain this thing called “Usability”. Using a combination of presentations and demonstrations with products ranging from alarm clocks to speeding cars to the high tech hands free voice activated SYNCH that was jointly developed by Ford and Microsoft, attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of the value of designing an excellent, compelling, and safe user experience into products. It will also drive home the point that usability is a rigorous design practice that is applied to much more than just web sites.

Usability in Your Life and in the Products You Use is one of many events around the world on World Usability Day, November 13, features speakers from the worlds of software development and technology integration. This event will equip you with an overview of how to listen to your users and find out what they need. It is perfect for people and companies interested in making products that really work for users.

Speakers come from Ford, Ansys, Menlo Innovations, Tec-Ed, and the UM Transportation Research Institute.

• Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008
• Time: 6:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
• Cost: FREE – refreshments included
• Location: Soar Technologies, 3600 Green Ct # 600, Ann Arbor, MI 48105

Website: Usability in Your Life and in the Products You Use
Registration: Although this event is free, please RSVP to events@miupa.org to ensure that there are enough food and beverages for everyone.

Map to Soar Technologies
The Michigan UPA is still seeking sponsors for this event.