Userfocus Usability Newsletter, May 2010

Welcome to the May edition of the Userfocus usability newsletter.

Message from the Editor

Election fever has gripped the UK and provides an interesting distraction from our day jobs. The theme of this election has been 'change' and there are interesting parallels to creating change within organisations. One of the most frequent questions I'm asked by clients and delegates on training courses is, "How can we change our organisation to focus on usability?" I'm pleased to say I now have an answer, and it comes in the form of Jon Innes and Liam Friedland. We're bringing these well-known practitioners over from the US in July so they can run a training course in London titled, "Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process". This course has never been run in the UK before and if you manage a user experience team, you'll love this course. Better yet, send your manager along too and really make change happen.

Still on the theme of change, we all need a jolt occasionally so this month's article describes a creativity technique you can use to generate design solutions to usability problems. I hope you find it useful.

David Travis

Feature article: Creative ways to solve usability problems

It's sometimes said that usability professionals are good at finding problems, but not quite as good at coming up with creative solutions. This article describes a creativity technique called SCAMPER that will help you effortlessly generate dozens of design solutions to any usability problem you identify. Read the article in full: Creative ways to solve usability problems.

What we're reading

Some interesting usability-related articles that got our attention over the last month:

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Usability Training: Now Booking

Web Usability, June 16-17, London

For web designers who want hands-on experience with usability tools and techniques, "Web Usability" is a 2-day immersion seminar that shows delegates how to boost sales and conversion rates, increase usage and improve customer satisfaction. More information about this training course: Web Usability.

Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process, July 8, London

For managers or advocates charged with championing user-centred design processes, "Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process" is a 1-day workshop that shows delegates how to think strategically about user centred design. More information about this training course: Repositioning User Experience as a Strategic Process.

Intranet Usability, July 14-15, London

For intranet developers who want to help employees find and use content quickly and easily, 'Intranet Usability' is a 2-day immersion seminar that contains examples of award-winning intranets for delegates to compare their own intranet against. More information about this training course: Intranet Usability.

User Experience quotation of the month

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." — Steve Jobs.

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