Webinars

Heavily-Used Interfaces: Designing for Efficiency

Everyone agrees that interfaces should be easy to use. Some suggest that people should be able to walk up to a new interface and use it without error the first time. "No errors during the first use" is a good ideal for occasionally-used web sites; it is not particularly relevant to back-office applications that are used many hours each day.

Consider the person in a call center that is taking orders or answering questions about a person's account. During each call, the call agent does two things at once: carries on a conversation with the customer and uses software to retrieve, edit, or enter information about an order or account. For the call agent, "easy to use" means "fast to use" - otherwise, the agent won't be able to keep up with the customer's conversation and requests.

Lead by Rick Omanson, Director at User Centric, this webinar will discuss how to design a heavily-used interface to be efficient and "easy-to-use" for expert users.

In this 60-minute webinar, Rick will describe:

• How expert users view, interpret, and use interfaces differently from novice users
• Strengths and weaknesses expert users have in comparison to novice users
• Interface features and strategies that make expert users more efficient and compensate for their weaknesses

Presented by: Rick Omanson, Ph.D.

Usability & Electronic Health Records

During this webinar, Managing Director Robert Schumacher discussed the recently released Electronic Health Record (EHR) Usability Protocol from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. User Centric has been heavily involved in ensuring EHRs are evaluated for usability.

This webinar provides insights and tactics to help you:

• Position usability next to other methods of evaluating electronic health records
• Show the application of some key human performance principles to EHR design
• Discuss the emerging methods of expert review and validation testing for evaluating and measuring user performance of EHRs

Presented by: Robert Schumacher, Ph.D.

Behaviors First, Colors Second: The Importance of Interaction Design

When developing a new product, it's easy for companies to buy into taking a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach. Through user research and discovery, the user requirements, overall architecture and core user interactions are defined prior to developing and applying the visual skin. However, when companies think about redesigning their products, the core focus tends to be on 'freshening up' the interface. Often companies will want to "update" their products without making changes to the back-end software architecture, but many fall short because they focus solely on improving the look-and-feel. This is where a UCD approach can have a tremendous impact in improving the user experience.

Lead by Martin Ho, Associate Director at User Centric, this webinar will discuss UCD in theory and in practice.

In this 60-minute webinar, Martin will provide:

• Delineation between the Information Architect, Interaction Designer and Visual Designer
• An overview of the UCD process
• Discussion on the benefits and applicability of different UCD activities
• Tips on how to leverage the UCD process within constraints

Presented by: Martin Ho

Medical Device Human Factors: Catching up to the FDA

The release of the FDA's draft guidance document (Applying Human Factors and Usability Engineering to Optimize Medical Device Design) has caused many medical device manufacturers to realize that adjustments to their human factors research process are necessary. Understanding how product development processes and lifecycles can be shaped to meet human factors engineering standards while minimizing the impact to overall time and cost of product development is a critical success factor for these organizations. For example, identification of representative user groups, risk analyses (FMEA), and human factors validation research may have existed previously as independent activities, but according to sound research design and FDA guidance these activities are necessarily interdependent.

Medical device manufacturers are struggling to make this adjustment in the middle of product development cycles that may have been underway for several years, as well as for future development cycles.

Join Korey Johnson, Associate Director of User Centric, in this webinar to learn how to get answers to the questions you should be asking during exploratory research and how to use those answers to ensure safe and effective use of your medical device for your intended user population. You will leave this session with some practical ideas on changes that can be made to your product development process.

In this 60-minute webinar, Korey will provide insights and tactics to:

• Identify potential user groups.
• Understand the difference between unique groups and variation within a group.
• Eliminate major usability issues early in the design process.
• Incorporate users into risk analyses.
• Choose the right tasks for a human factors validation study.
• Understand potential outcomes by way of generalized real-world examples.

Presented by: Korey Johnson

No, But Really, Do I Need Eye Tracking?

It's a well-known fact that eye tracking can provide some interesting insight into how people process information. But how can user experience professionals determine if eye tracking is indeed a useful addition to their studies? User Centric, Inc.'s complimentary webinar on April 17, "No, But Really, Do I Need Eye Tracking?," addressed this subject by discussing the benefits of eye tracking and the proper application of the method.

During the webinar, User Centric, Inc.'s Associate Director, Aga Bojko, spoke candidly about when to use and, perhaps more importantly, when not to use eye tracking. Bojko described both qualitative and quantitative types of findings that can be obtained with eye tracking research, and explained how to decide whether or not stakeholders benefit from this method. This presentation outlines example situations in which eye tracking is most effectively utilized, from determining the ease of new drug label differentiation from existing labels to evaluating which package design will be most effective on a shelf.

Presented by: Aga Bojko

Reading between the Words: Strategies for Improving the Readability of Printed Text

The Gutenberg printing press was a great leap forward through the invention of uniform type, but with the uniformity of type there has been a cost to readability that has been overlooked. Research of handwriting shows that writers, consciously or otherwise, provide readers with subtle formatting cues that help them read and understand more efficiently.

In this presentation we describe what those cues are and how they help readers. We show practitioners how to apply these techniques to put these cues back into their copy — even when it's printed. Finally we present reading studies and A|B split comparisons showing that when printed text includes the cues that writers naturally provide, readers will read faster, remember more, like the copy better, and take action more often.

Models and Methods for Global User Research

With the increasing focus on globalization of products and services, the need to understand user experience in distant markets is more urgent. However, conducting global user research can be confusing and is a significant risk of time and resources. In this webinar, we talk through several methods for global research. We'll present these various methods and the tradeoffs and considerations for choosing one method over another. We'll also step through the elements of success in conducting a global study – from planning to results.

This webinar is not about localization or globalization of user interfaces, it will instead focus on methods and practices for how one conducts successful global user research.

Download PDF: Cultural Differences in Usability Testing around the World

Presented by: Robert Schumacher, Ph.D.

For Better Agent Experience in Contact Centers, Press 1 Now

Designing the agent desktop for effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

Join us for a fast-paced and illustrated tour of user interface solutions for common user experience challenges in call center agent desktop software.

It's a lot easier to provide a top-notch customer experience when your service agents have top-notch software. While every business and call center is unique, there are surprising similarities in the pain points, feature requests, and "blue sky" wish lists that we encounter when we work with businesses to improve the software used in their call centers.

We'll cover typical problems, telltale symptoms, and mockups of solution ideas for each, including benefits, drawbacks, and important considerations for the proposed solutions.

As we present these ideas, we'll also describe techniques that can help you to:

• Discover what's working well today, what's not, and why
• Design a "best case" agent interface that minimizes errors, inefficiency, and frustration
• Validate and fine-tune the design to ensure that it will have the desired effect
• Implement the design through a prioritized approach, providing interim improvements that cumulatively lead to the full agent desktop vision

Presented by: Rick Omanson, Ph.D. Mike Murphy

Service Design: Beyond Customer Journey Mapping

Often, Service Design approaches can ask too much of an organization too soon. The difficulty is how to implement the opportunities uncovered from customer journey mapping. We recognize that companies work in silos and don't change quickly. We've come up with ways to guide organizations through prioritized decision-making that will result in a meaningful change to the customer experience.

This webinar will focus on sharing consulting experiences and thoughts on how organizations can adopt Service Design in a manner that focuses effort and drives measurable business outcomes which work within existing organizational structures.

Presented by: Shailesh Manga

Complex User Interfaces Don't Need to Be...Complex

Some user interfaces (UIs) can be designed to be incredibly simple and easy to use, whereas other UIs need to incorporate and support some level of complexity, whether it be the agent's screen design for a call center or the user workflow for system admins on enterprise applications. All too often, UIs are painted with broad brush strokes in terms of simple vs. complex.

This webinar will focus on the following questions:

• Where does 'complexity' come from?
• What 'complexity' is unavoidable?
• What 'complexity' is avoidable, and how can you avoid it?

Presented by: Martin Ho

There is No Such Thing as User Error

Medical device design necessitates an assessment of risk. The need is prudent given their ecosystem of use, but also mandated by regulatory agencies. Risk management uses analysis protocols to identify and predict situations where a device may fail and assess the consequences. Common techniques, like Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) must expand to go beyond engineering and material failure to identify hazard risks due to user-device interactions or "use errors."

During this webinar, we will discuss the practice of the FMEA with added upgrades, such as a Task Analysis and how integration with simulated use labs can help you and your design team be more successful at reducing patient risk.

Presented by: Gavin Lew Korey Johnson

Conducting Longitudinal Mobile Studies

As researchers, we employ a variety of data collection methodologies to allow us to answer key business objectives. Longitudinal research allows for collection of rich data on how devices are used in real-life context and how users learn or adapt to an artifact/device/feature over time. This type of research requires detailed planning to ensure a successful project, since few changes can be made once data collection starts.

During this webinar, we will highlight 10 tips for conducting a successful longitudinal study and how to avoid common pitfalls relating to planning, recruiting, project management, and data collection. While this methodology can be applied to many different types of stimuli, examples from the mobile space will be provided for each tip.

This webinar is intended for those who have at least a basic understanding of research methodology and study design, but do not necessarily need to have previous experience with conducting longitudinal research.

Presented by: Heather Rakauskas Piyatida Haerr

Who's Counting? Using Eye Tracking Measures to Quantify User Experience

Eye tracking is often used qualitatively: to help describe user behavior, illustrate attention patterns, and diagnose usability issues in formative UX studies. However, the true potential of eye tracking lies in its ability to measure the user experience and help guide business decisions through summative/validation research. To unleash this potential, UX professionals should be familiar with the multitude of eye tracking metrics suitable for UX research, and be able to correctly match them to the study objectives.

In this webinar, Aga Bojko, Associate Director at User Centric, will reveal a practical classification of measures into (1) measures of attraction and (2) measures of performance. Measures of attraction assess the impact of a design on users' awareness, interest, and desire (i.e., how well a design supports business goals). Measures of performance, on the other hand, determine how well a design helps users achieve their own goals (e.g., in terms of how much the design contributes to a user's mental workload, and the level of information processing and search efficiency the design enables).

So, if you've ever wondered when to use average fixation duration vs. total dwell time, when to analyze number of fixations on an AOI vs. number of fixations prior to the first fixation on an AOI, or how to interpret pupil diameter data, this presentation will put these questions to rest.

Presented by: Aga Bojko

Lost in Translation: Designer/Developer Collaboration for Great User Experiences

"Wait, this isn't what we designed…" Sound familiar? Unexpected gaps between the proposed design and final product can be major pain points for developers and designers alike, but most surprises can be avoided if the right steps are taken throughout design and development.

What are the key pieces to designing and delivering great user experiences? There is extant literature on requirements gathering, contextual and usability inquiries, information architecture, interaction design, and visual design, but there is far less discussion on the handoff between UX designers and developers.

In this webinar, we'll share experiences and recommendations:

For project managers:

• Learn ways to reduce risk and cost for large-scale development projects
• Understand common pitfalls of design/developer interactions and how to avoid them

For UX designers:

• Learn about different types of design documentation, and when each type is most effective for a successful implementation
• Understand how different levels of interaction and collaboration with developers can impact your designs

For developers:

• Understand why and how to get involved early in the design process
• Learn to anticipate and request the design artifacts that will be most useful to you during the development process

Presented by: Martin Ho Mike Murphy

UX Research: What They Don't Teach You in Grad School

Three case studies on UX techniques and methodologies that will inspire, amaze, and possibly strike fear. But, through it all, lessons learned from the field and fundamentals of UX research will be presented. The goal is to depart with practical perspectives and sufficient rigor to guide a course towards a customer aware corporate strategy.

*Please note we had technical difficulties during the Q&A so we were unable to 'close out' properly but the presentation was recorded without issue.*

Presented by: Gavin Lew

Usability in the Contact Center

During this webinar we discuss how to measure and improve long-term user performance in contact centers, best practices in designing contact center UIs, and key considerations when launching new contact center applications. This webinar is for anyone who works with high-volume contact centers and organizations with substantial back office transaction processing.

Presented by: Robert Schumacher, Ph.D.

Power (and Limitations) of Dashboards

Dashboards... build it, and they will come.

'Dashboard' continues to be a buzzword in the B2B and B2C world. Dashboards are seen as a silver bullet which, in conjunction with reskinning an outdated UI, can reinvigorate current users and draw in new customers. Unfortunately, when poorly implemented, dashboards can reduce the overall user experience. During this webinar, we will:

• Discuss the benefits and potential weaknesses and limitations of dashboards
• Share how we determine and design for the best use of dashboards
• Discuss why dashboards are never a silver bullet in and of themselves

Presented by: Martin Ho

Health IT Usability I: Introduction to Usability in Health IT

Are you currently evaluating or deploying an EHR, eRx, CPOE or other Health IT systems? If so, Learn How to Improve the User Experience in Health IT is a series of Webinars that are committed to teaching you about Health IT Usability: What it is, how it can be measured and improved in systems such as EHR, eRx, or CPOE, tools and resources, and best practices from other industries who have been focusing on usability for years.

By attending this Webinar series, you will learn the essentials of usability in the context of Health IT, the fundamentals of measuring user experience, the fundamentals of clinician-centered design, and how to incorporate usability into Health IT development. You will also learn the details of usability and its relation to certification and meaningful use as well as how to calculate return on investment for usability.

Presented by: Robert Schumacher, Ph.D.

Health IT Usability II: Measuring Usability in Health IT

Are you currently evaluating or deploying an EHR, eRx, CPOE or other Health IT systems? If so, Learn How to Improve the User Experience in Health IT is a series of Webinars that are committed to teaching you about Health IT Usability: What it is, how it can be measured and improved in systems such as EHR, eRx, or CPOE, tools and resources, and best practices from other industries who have been focusing on usability for years.

By attending this Webinar series, you will learn the essentials of usability in the context of Health IT, the fundamentals of measuring user experience, the fundamentals of clinician-centered design, and how to incorporate usability into Health IT development. You will also learn the details of usability and its relation to certification and meaningful use as well as how to calculate return on investment for usability.

Presented by: Robert Schumacher, Ph.D. Gavin Lew

Health IT Usability III: Helping Physicians Work Faster and Smarter

Are you currently evaluating or deploying an EHR, eRx, CPOE or other Health IT systems? If so, Learn How to Improve the User Experience in Health IT is a series of Webinars that are committed to teaching you about Health IT Usability: What it is, how it can be measured and improved in systems such as EHR, eRx, or CPOE, tools and resources, and best practices from other industries who have been focusing on usability for years.

By attending this Webinar series, you will learn the essentials of usability in the context of Health IT, the fundamentals of measuring user experience, the fundamentals of clinician-centered design, and how to incorporate usability into Health IT development. You will also learn the details of usability and its relation to certification and meaningful use as well as how to calculate return on investment for usability.

Presented by David Liebovitz, MD | Chief Medical Information Officer, Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation | Medical Director, Clinical Information Systems, Northwestern Memorial Hospital