User Centric World Usability Day activities to be featured in UX - User Experience Magazine

User Centric's activities on World Usability Day will be featured in UX - User Experience Magazine's first issue of the year. The article, “A World Usability Day Case Study: Conducting Multinational Expert Reviews”, will appear in the magazine's issue 6.1 in February. It will explore User Centric's collaboration with other members and affiliates of The User Experience Alliance ('UXA') to conduct a worldwide expert review on World Usability Day - November 14, 2006.

The article's authors, Maura Vij of User Centric (USA), Simon Herd of Serco Usability Services (UK) and Tjeerd de Boer of User Intelligence (the Netherlands), are each representatives of founding members of the UXA. In the article, they discuss the process, benefits and results of this review and how global usability services can deliver real business benefits.

To fulfill the UXA's purpose of promoting international user research, teams in eleven different countries and in multiple time zones completed a total of twenty-two reports. Clients for the reviews included international organizations such as IKEA, The Tourism Authority of British Columbia, an international communications provider and major international financial services company.

The article outlines some of the key findings and trends in areas such as cultural issues, symbolism, and imagery.

"Conducting an international user research project is no small task," Robert Schumacher, Managing Director of User Centric, explains. "Our experience is that the preparation phase alone for global projects requires an average time investment of 25 - 50% over local user research projects."

"Our hope is that this article will inspire further research and collaboration to refine methods for meeting the expectations of international organizations seeking user input," Schumacher added.

About UX - User Experience Magazine

UX - User Experience is a magazine by and about usability professionals, featuring significant and unique articles dealing with the broad field of usability and the user experience. The magazine is a publication of the Usability Professionals Association. Its audience is both usability professionals and others who have interest in the field.

Please visit here for more information.

About the UXalliance

Founded in 2005, the UXalliance is the international network for user experience. The UXalliance covers Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia; they are ideally placed to lead international user experience research. The UXalliance has over 250 professionals worldwide, manages over 50 testing facilities and has experience across a broad range of technologies and sectors. www.UXalliance.com

The UXalliance consists of eleven partner companies, Axance (France) www.axance.com, Mitsue-Links (Japan) www.mitsue.co.jp/english/, Optimal Usability (New Zealand) www.optimalusability.com, Serco ExperienceLab (United Kingdom) www.serco.com/usability, SirValUse (Germany) www.sirvaluse.de, Snitker & Co (Denmark) www.snitker.com, UIDesign Group (Moscow) http://eng.uidesign.ru, UserCentric (United States) www.usercentric.com, User Experience (China) www.usability.cn, User Intelligence (Netherlands) www.userintelligence.com, Xperience Consulting (Spain) www.xperienceconsulting.com; four associate partners, Mercedes Sanchez Usabilidade (Brazil) www.mercedessanchez.com.br, Teleno (Switzerland) www.teleno.com, ThinkUser (South Korea) www.thinkuser.com, and User Intelligence (Finland) www.userintelligence.com/fi; and six affiliate members, Ayer Viernes (Chili) www.ayerviernes.com, ExperienceU (Czech Republic) www.experienceu.com, SSB Bart Group (US) www.ssbbartgroup.com, Symetria (Poland) www.symetria.pl, The Design and Usability Center (DUC) www.bentley.edu/usability, and Yu Centrik (Canada) www.yucentrik.ca.

About User Centric, Inc.

User Centric is a global consulting firm that focuses on improving user experience. We apply our expertise to projects involving handhelds, web sites, software, medical devices, print, packaging, and telephony services. Experience, quality, value, global reach and outstanding client services set us apart. Our services include user research, user interface design consulting, information architecture, usability testing, user interface evaluations, eye tracking, and online surveys. Learn more about us at www.UserCentric.com.