Colleen Jones

Georgia Statewide Effort on Accessible Technologies

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CHI*Atlanta Past Chair Bill Curtis-Davidson and CHI*Atlanta member Arthur R. Murphy are co-chairing a statewide effort called the “Georgia Alliance for Accessible Technologies” (GAAT), currently an initiative of the United Nations’ Global Initiative for Inclusive Information & Communication Technologies (G3ict). G3ict is a non-profit agency headquartered in Atlanta, and GAAT is intended to serve as a model for regional public-private partnerships on the topic of ICT accessibility. Over 60 Georgia-based companies, research and academic institutions, NGOs and public sector organizations have been involved in GAAT, and the initiative is exploring six “digital accessibility” thematic areas: Culture & Human Rights, Education, Employment, Healthcare & Rehabilitation, Technology, and Travel & Tourism (T&T).

In 2010, the GAAT Initiative plans to become an independent non-profit organization, and Bill and Arthur will describe some projects GAAT is pursuing this year in its focus area of inclusive travel, transportation and tourism. The GAAT Initiative has prepared a “Georgia Inclusive Travel & Tourism” concept paper, that Bill and Arthur will preview: http://sites.google.com/site/gaallianceaccessibletech/Home/themes/travel-tourism/georgia-inclusive-t-t-documents/G3ict_GAAT_TTConceptPaper_20091211FINAL.pdf?attredirects=0

Three GAAT participants will also participate in this panel-style discussion to describe various aspects of their research and development in the focus area. CHI*Atlanta has been a participant in the GAAT Initiative, and Bill and Arthur will welcome questions and encourage interest on the part of CHI*Atlanta members who may want to support this important effort!

Speakers:

1. Bill Curtis-Davidson, GAAT Co-Chair; Past Chair, CHI*Atlanta; and Business Development Executive, IBM Human Ability & Accessibility Center (http://www.ibm.com/able/)
2. Arthur R. Murphy, GAAT Co-Chair, and Owner, Aeolian Solutions, LLC Aeolian Solutions (http://aeoliansolutions.com/)
3. Anisio Correia (Panelist), Vice President for Programs at the Center for the Visually Impaired - Georgia (http://www.cviga.org/)
4. Daver Malik (Panelist), Research & Development Coordinator, Information Services, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (http://www.atlanta-airport.com/)
5. Bruce Walker, Ph.D. (Panelist), Associate Professor, School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech; and Director, GT Sonification Lab (http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/)

Don’t miss this special panel discussion. Register now >

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Rahel Bailie on Workhorse Strategy for Workhorse Content

Join CHI*Atlanta to kick off 2010 with Rahel Bailie’s perspective on content strategy.

Content strategy has opened up a new paradigm for considering user experience: in the online search for information, the user experience is the treasure hunt; the content is the treasure being hunted. UX professionals are starting to shift design methods from pouring content into decorative boxes to designing for optimum delivery of content. However, designing for instructive content can be quite different than designing for persuasive content, with a set of priorities that differs, though overlaps, those generally considered in the UX world. Each genre of content has its unique challenges for design and delivery. This presentation looks at how the medium affects the message and how to deal with the thornier ways of designing for content re-use and single-sourcing for the content genres beyond the marketing messages.

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The Healthcare Experience: Understanding Health Records

The healthcare experience depends largely on electronic health records. But what are they, exactly? This program at Philips Design will break down EHRs, PHRs, and EMRs in a way user experience professionals understand. A panel including CDC and Kaiser Permanente will offer a range of perspectives.

By the end of the panel, you will understand the differences between the health record terms, list three ways electronic records affect health/healthcare, and identify three considerations/dilemmas practitioners face when working in this field. As the first in a two-part series, this program lays the foundation for a second future program about designing for healthcare.

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WEB CONTENT STRATEGY: Where UX, Marketing, and IT Meet

Location: Georgia Tech Global Learning Center  -  Map
Cost: $15 for CHI*A or AIMA Members, $25 for Nonmembers

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In recent years, the people responsible for crafting our online experiences have – slowly but surely, and perhaps unwittingly – marginalized the process of creating and maintaining content customers actually care about. “Nobody really reads online.” “The design drives the experience.” “We can always fill in/fix the content later.”

Companies and agencies spend months and millions of dollars on how they’ll deliver content online, yet allocate very few resources toward creating and governing the content itself. Why? Distributed ownership, internal politics, scope creep, higher-than-anticipated costs … content is messy. To make matters worse, most of us don’t have the internal infrastructures necessary to support its ongoing care and feeding.

So. Who needs to “own” our content? How effective are web editorial standards and policies? What role does content strategy play in user experience design? When it comes to the CMS, will marketing and IT ever get along?

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, will lead a conversation with representatives from marketing, user experience, and content management about the emerging discipline of web content strategy. We’ll discuss new opportunities for agencies and organizations to rethink the way they plan for and manage content.

MODERATOR: KRISTINA HALVORSON
Kristina Halvorson is widely recognized as one of the country’s leading web content strategists. For more than a decade, Kristina has led content projects for hundreds of websites across dozens of industries. She is a passionate advocate for web content strategy and speaks regularly on the topic to audiences around the country.

THE PANELISTS

USER EXPERIENCE: Karen McGrane, Bond Art + Science
Karen has been making the internet a better place since 1995. As a Senior Partner at Bond Art + Science, she provides user experience design, information architecture, and content strategy services to clients like Fast Company, The Atlantic, and Fiduciary Trust. Karen is an active participant in the User Experience community and a frequent speaker at conferences, including SIGCHI, the ASIST Information Architecture Summit, and From Business to Buttons. She has also contributed to several Forrester reports on developing personas.

MARKETING: John Muehlbauer, InterContinental Hotels Group
John currently leads a team focused on Product Strategy and Planning in IHG’s Distribution Marketing area. His areas of responsibility include: PMO, User Experience, Brand Experience, and International Experience across all marketing distribution channels. One of his current initiatives is to upgrade the hotel content, including writing and photography, at ~3200 newly repositioned Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels.

VISUAL DESIGN: Brian Ikeda, Philips Design
Brian Ikeda is a Senior Interactive Art Director at Philips Design. He leads a team of talented information architects and visual designers who support all areas of Royal Philips Electronics by creating a variety of interactive products including ecommerce sites, marketing sites, intranet solutions, internal blogs and healthcare applications.

CMS / IT: Ryan Esparza, Content Management Consultant
Ryan Esparza is an enterprise content management consultant with experience in the ecommerce and online media fields. He has overseen multiple CMS implementations for use as web content management tools. Previously Ryan served as an Online Applications Manager at The Home Depot, where he was responsible for homedepot.com’s web content management strategy.

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Human to Human Interaction with CHI*Atlanta, PDMA, and IxDA

Location: User Insight
Directions: Map
Cost: FREE for Members

Join us for a fun evening of food, drinks, and networking with Atlanta’s best and brightest in user experience, product management, and interaction design.

Good membership standing with local chapters of CHI*Atlanta, PDMA, or IxDA is required.

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CALL FOR CONVERSATION STARTERS!
To spark conversation during the social, we’re going to display slides showcasing each organization as well as good and bad examples of experience design.

We need your help! Send us a PowerPoint slide with your favorite example of good or bad design. Include “Submitted by [first name last name]” and a brief statement about why it’s your favorite.

Email a Conversation Starter

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Accessibility Meetup (Atlanta, GA)

Location: User Insight

RSVP to Robert Hamburger

This group focuses upon the tools, techniques and initiatives that promote accessibility to people of all ability levels. From design implications and testing methodologies all the way to standards creation and international directives, this group covers the topics which will help you encourage accessible practices within your own workplace.

This group also is collaborating with the Georgia Alliance for Accessible Technologies (GAAT) and the Georgia Initiative for Inclusive Communications and Technologies in efforts such as inclusive tourism. (See a recent article about the efforts in Global Atlanta.)

At this meeting, we will cover how to discuss and explain accessibility requirements within different organizations, whether internally within one’s own company or externally with clients.

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Content Strategy Meetup (Atlanta, GA)

Where: Cafe Intermezzo (Perimeter / Dunwoody location)
RSVP:  Email Colleen Jones

This group explores the emerging discipline of content strategy. Tired of designs filled with meaningless content? Weary of delayed projects because the client or stakeholder didn’t finish the content? Interested in how better content could improve user experience? Enjoy writing, editing, and generally crafting good content? Then this group is for you.

This group, also known as a Birds of a Feather group with CHI*Atlanta, first held a planning meeting earlier this spring. A highlight was Richard Sheffield, author of The Web Content Strategist’s Bible and managing editor of UPS.com, sharing his thoughts about the relationship of CMS to content strategy. Colleen Jones also shared tidbits from the Content Strategy Consortium at IA Summit 2009.

Our next meeting will be largely social and offer the opportunity to discuss topics and activities of interest for future gatherings.  Don’t miss this opportunity to meet other people who care about content and to set direction for the group!

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Mobile Design Workshop with Barbara Ballard

Cost: $250 for Members, Non-members, and Students

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This course will help you understand many of the aspects that go into creating a mobile website. Learn techniques and methods from mobile interaction design specialists. This course emphasizes designing from the user’s point of view and exploring useful methods to create great mobileexperiences.

In order to understand the complexities that exist in planning and creating a mobile website, Little Springs Design has developed a hands-on training session. Participants will create a new mobilewebsite for the bus system in the city of Lawrence, Kansas. This topic has been selected due to the many different types of riders using the system everyday, and the large percentage that have special needs or require assistance in employing the transit system to best meet their needs. The pervasive use of mobiles can benefit the users by providing information at all times, and without delays.

In this mobile website design training you will learn:

Little Springs Design is a team of interaction designers, strategic business planners, and technologists. The firm designs experiences, products, and strategy for organizations that are interested in innovating mobile products, services and environments.

Barbara is Managing Principal of Little Springs Design and curator of the Design for Mobile conference in North America. She is also author of “Designing the Mobile User Experience” (Wiley 2007). Barbara has worked in product usability for Sprint and IBM. She has an MBA from the University of Kansas and a Bachelor’s of Industrial Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

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Top 10 Things a Web Designer Needs to Know for Mobile (Atlanta, GA, USA)

Speaker: Barbara Ballard, Little Springs Design
Location: Art Institute of Atlanta
Cost: FREE for Members, $35 for Nonmembers, $10 for Students (Student ID required)

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Okay, it’s on a small screen. And users might be walking around. But what do you really need to know? We’ll talk about specific, in-the-trenches practices beyond the CSS tricks you can find online, and provide lots of resources to find out more.

Barbara is Managing Principal of Little Springs Design and curator of the Design for Mobile conference in North America. She is also author of “Designing the Mobile User Experience” (Wiley 2007). Barbara has worked in product usability for Sprint and IBM. She has an MBA from the University of Kansas and a Bachelor’s of Industrial Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

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Tap Is the New Click (Atlanta, GA, USA)

“Tap Is the New Click” - A CHI*Atlanta Program
Speaker(s): Dan Saffer

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: GVU Center, Georgia Tech

Cost: Free for Members, $35 for Nonmembers, $10 with student ID

Learn more and register at chia.org

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | Atlanta, GA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting
Tags: | chi atlanta | chia | dan saffer | gestural interfaces
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