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/.

• 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.

“Schools & Colleges” vs ”Academic Programs”

We are ever changing and refining the navigation for wayne.edu and over the past year of so many more universities have been changing their wording from “Schools & Colleges” to “Academic Programs”. That got us wondering, we thought academic programs had a more concise description of what is on the page behind the link. So we decided to try it out.

Technical Results

May 21 – June 15, 2009 (3 weeks)
126,433 Page Visitors
20,644 Conversions
16.33% Conversion Rate

Why was there no clear winner?

Two reason’s why I think no winner was found. The first is an issue on our end, we displayed the test for everyone, internal and external computers. Typically on campus staff/faculty have wayne.edu set as their homepage, they know the site and what they need to get to. Regardless what the link is called they will click it, this throws off the results since they are not our primary audience and they are not actually thinking about the click they are making.

The second is that someone looking for our list of programs has really only one route to get to it from wayne.edu and that is this link. It might take someone longer to figure out “Schools & Colleges” will give them a list of our programs but they still got there. They are adapting to our wording instead of ignoring our wording and using another method to find the information they need. I even wonder if we changed it to “What we offer” we would still get people clicking on it because they have a specific task in mind already.

We ended up just keeping Schools & Colleges for now

The thought is since there was no real winner although we love academic programs better we cannot justify the change. The university community has been voicestrous about any changes to wayne.edu and we want to make sure we have some real numbers to backup a navigation change.

Frankly the homepage navigation is not where we want it to be at all. It’s these types of tests that get us in the right direction on purpose instead of on a whim.

We are going to run another test on an unknown date for an unknown time with the lessons we learned from this test. Sorry we can’t tell you more but I am sure we will write about it afterward.

The iPhone cannot view the Flash site so if you wanted to look at or follow the map you were out of luck. With a little iPhone detection we redirect users to: http://campusmap.wayne.edu/iphone/

Instead of getting a flash version of the map we converted it to an SVG image and embedded it. This allows for the fully viewable main campus map to be viewable and scalable without getting blurry. Although it is not the best solution it is a step in the right direction.

What’s Next?

As we continue to support the iPhone and iPod Touch features we will soon release a fully searchable map that includes all our campuses. It will also be able to link to the built in Google Map to pinpoint its location.

As C&IT expands wireless availability on campus the easier it is to get oriented with campus while you are walking through it.

Your Opinion

What would you like to see on the campus map? Are we missing something or is something not working like you expected? Let us know, we would love to hear about it. Just comment on this post.

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.