Olga Howard
Olga is an Information Architect and Usability Consultant. For 10 years Olga has worked in the Web industry including public sites, Intranets, Extranets, interactive television, and online communities. Her focus is in providing Information Architecture, Usability consulting, Interaction Design, and Community Network Strategy to create great Web Experience Design. She has a wide breadth of experience starting with design and producer roles to project management. Olga can be reached at olga [at] olgahow [dot] com.
Website: http://olgahow.com/
Monday, April 21st, 2008
| April 22, 2008 |
| 6:00 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
Near the end of 2006, the new, quite large website we were working on was nearing launch. Most site product areas needed rapid user feedback due to an aggressive development schedule. And, as we neared launch, more functionality was available so it was actually feasible to test user response to the working elements. However, with a 2-person research team and MANY disparate small research needs, we had to develop a way to effectively get customer input within days of the frequent requests.
We developed the Revolving Door technique in response to this need. It’s called Revolving Door because we scheduled participants to come in a steady stream over a period of 5 weeks and altered the usual research request process allow last-second requests to come in, thus shuffling and changing what topics were put in front of the revolving series of participants.
Working with lots of different topics with a high volume of participants and providing analysis within 2 to 3 days of starting testing helped us learn a lot about juggling disparate needs. We are eager to share what we learned in order to help other research teams provide agile, rapid research with confidence and without going bonkers.
Date and time:
April 22, 2008
6:00-7:00 p.m. Dinner at La Madeleine for anyone who would like to join us
7:00-9:00 p.m. Presentation
Location:
Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center
4805 Edgemoor Lane
Bethesda, MD 20814
Presenters:
Leah Rader: With 10 years experience in understanding and crafting
user experiences through qualitative research methods, Leah most
enjoys the improvisational moments in participant interviews. She has
delved into the behavior and thinking of customers as a head
researcher for consulting firms, e-Lab, Sapient, and Matter. She
started up the user experience research practice for Marriott
International and most recently has worked with Revolution Health as a
freelance researcher.
Beth Toland: Beth has a broad range of experience having worked in
most major functions of the web–from design and information
architecture to content development and research. Her specialty is
messaging and branding which is particularly useful in solutions
development and opportunity mapping. Beth has led projects for
consulting firms Andersen and Sapient, and helped build the research
practice at Marriott International. Most recently, she developed the
research offering at Revolution Health, where she pioneered several
new data collection methods.
Registration:
Please register online at
http://www.upa-dc-metro.org/registration/event/beginEventReg.php
Cost
$5 members
$15 nonmembers
Directions to the Program:
The Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center is located at 4805
Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814. The Center is in the two-story
County office building on the plaza level of the Metropolitan complex,
above a County parking garage.
By Car:
The entrance to the parking garage is marked with a large blue
Bethesda Center parking sign. Parking is available in the garage -
$.75 per hour short-term (3 hours or less), $.50 per hour for over 3
hours. If you are coming south on Old Georgetown Road (from the
Beltway use exit 36), turn right on Woodmont Avenue and the parking
entrance is almost immediately on your left (second driveway). If you
are coming south on Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike, turn right onto
Woodmont Avenue, go south for approximately one mile, cross Old
Georgetown Road, and the parking garage entrance is the second
driveway on your left. If you are coming north on Wisconsin or west on
Rt. 410, take Old Georgetown Road north, turn left at the second
traffic light (Woodmont Ave.) and the garage entrance will be on your
left (it’s the second driveway). Take the elevators from the parking
garage to the plaza level (P). The building is located at the center
of the plaza. County and American flags and a sign bearing the County
seal mark the entrance to the building.
By Metro, Bus or on Foot:
The building is located across the street from the Bethesda Metro
station. From the Bethesda Metro Station, take the escalator from the
bus bay to the plaza level, turn left, walk past the clock tower and
across to the Metropolitan plaza using the pedestrian bridge. If you
are walking from any other location, the Center’s street entrance is
at 4605 Edgemoor Lane (corner of Old Georgetown and Edgemoor) and is
marked with County and American flags. Take the elevator to level 2
for meeting rooms.
La Madeleine is located at:
7607 Old Georgetown Rd
Bethesda, MD 20814.
The restaurant is a short walk from the Bethesda Metro stop.
Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | UPA | Washington, DC, USA
Tags: | DC | upa
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Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
User experience teams can wander into unknown territory when we redesign our Web 1.0 products into Web 2.0 offerings. Lillian Christman, of Plateau Systems, will share with you the story of one user experience team’s Web 2.0 adventure. Ms. Christman will discuss how the team arrived at their usability goals, what the most salient aspects of Web 2.0 are to them, and what the most salient features of our redesign were. She will also speak about their design collaboration as well as general process issues. Ms. Christman will conclude with a short summary of lessons learned and some thoughts about our next design cycle.
Date & Time
March 12, 2008
6 – 7 PM A light dinner will be provided at the event location.
7 – 9 PM Program
Location
SRA International, Inc.
3434 Washington Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22201
202.282.3080
Presenter Bio
Lillian Christman is Director of User Experience at Plateau Systems, an Arlington startup that provides web-based talent management software. Prior to joining Plateau, Christman directed user experience at Q.Know Technologies where she led the design of a tagging and collaboration extension to the Microsoft Office suite. Christman worked in the Silicon Valley for 15 years, designing the user experience for software startup products and large-scale enterprise appplications. She holds a PhD in sociology from Vanderbilt University. Ms. Christman is currently leading the Web 2.0 redesign of the Plateau user experience. Instrumental to this effort are Plateau’s “usability partners”, targeted customers and user groups, who are actively collaborating in the redesign.
Details at UPA DC Metro site.
Cost
$10 members
$20 nonmembers
Registration required.
Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | UPA | Washington, DC, USA
Tags: upa-dc | Usability Goals | Web 2.0
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Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
| January 24, 2008 |
| 7:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
“Hearts On Our Feet”: Making A Difference In The World Through UCD4D
In the past year, a new community has emerged within User-Centered Design, a community calling itself “User-Centered Design for Development” or UCD4D. The name places this community squarely between UCD and international economic and community development, an interdisciplinary juncture that has previously been unexplored but which holds great promise for collaboration and connection. Basically, by linking together the UCD/usability community with the economic and community development community, we hope to help leverage the skill sets and knowledge of both to tackle hard global problems such as poverty, literacy and health.
In this talk, Susan Dray will give some history and background about how this community formed and what it is up to. She will also give some examples of UCD4D projects in the so-called “developing” world, and will discuss ways that we all can to do “make a difference” in the wider world by using our UCD skills creatively to help solve global problems.
Speaker:
Susan Dray, Ph.D., CHFP, is President of the consulting firm, Dray & Associates, Inc. based in Minneapolis, MN. She and David Siegel, her husband and business partner, have worked with companies worldwide to help bring the voice of the user to the table on design projects. They have done user research in 24 countries and are widely recognized for their expertise in cross-cultural field research. A pioneer in UCD having entered the field in 1979, Susan worked at Honeywell and American Express before moving to consulting in 1993. She has published widely and is active in a variety of professional groups.
She currently serves as Director of Publications for UPA and has been a prime mover in the development of the UCD4D community. For more information, see www.dray.com.
Cost:
$5 members of the UPA DC Metro Chapter
$15 non-members
Please register online at:
http://www.upa-dc-metro.org/events/2008/01-24-08.htm
Date and time:
January 24, 2008
7:00pm - 9:00pm
6:00-7:00 p.m. Dinner at La Madeleine for those who would like to join
us (directions below)
Location:
Hyatt Regency Bethesda
One Bethesda Metro Center (7400 Wisconsin Ave),
Bethesda, Maryland, USA 20814
Congressional Room (Conference Level, one Floor below the Lobby)
The Hyatt Regency Bethesda is located above the Bethesda metro stop on the Red Line.
Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | UPA | Washington, DC, USA
Tags: upa dc metro
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Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Many of you know that our DC Area UX community is incredibly active. In the next few months I’ll be taking time to review our local UX-related organizations in an effort to help those seeking advice, networking opportunities, and work in this field. If you have an organization in mind that would be interested in a small review please send me a note (olga [at] olgahow [dot] com). Until later…yours truly. Olga.
Posted in Washington, DC, USA
Tags: LocaleWelcome
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Monday, November 26th, 2007
| December 12, 2007 |
| 5:30 pm | to | 7:30 pm |
UPA-DC would like to thank its volunteers and members for another wonderful year! Please join UPA-DC for networking and holiday cheer Wednesday, December 12 from 5:30 - 7:30. Light hors d’œuvres will be provided, along with a cash bar.
Location:
Sesto Senso
1214 18th St., NW
Just south of Dupont Circle and a block north of M St.
www.sesto.com
Go to the private room upstairs, which unfortunately, may not be wheelchair accessible.
Cost: This is a FREE event. Registration is not required.
Posted in Calendar | Washington, DC, USA
Tags: holiday2007 | upa-dc
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Friday, October 26th, 2007
Living Rooms: Human Factors and Industrial Design Contributions to the Home as a Health Care Venue.
Cochaired by both HFES and IDSA, this collaborative conference was based on the premise that the home will become a vital health care venue over the next 15-20 years as Baby Boomers grow older and put increased strain on the medical system. It brought together human factors practitioners and industrial designers to examine, discuss, and interact with one another about how to design products and homes that meet these needs.
Posted in Calendar | Washington, DC, USA
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Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
| April 10, 2008 | to | April 11, 2008 |
The IT Architect Regional Conference is the largest event in the Washington, D.C. area to address the pressing needs of IT architects today. There are over 30 seminars and four tracks separated by specialty: Enterprise, Infrastructure, Software and Fundamentals. Architects of all levels can take their skills to the next level. (Postponed from the fall of 2007 to spring 2008.)
See IASA for more information.
Posted in Calendar | Conference | Washington, DC, USA
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