Check out the article on BBC Technology News!

“To the heart of design” is a phrase that best describes the largest and most successful World Usability Day (WUD) event produced in Phoenix, Arizona, since its first event in 2007.

PayPal hosted and sponsored the event, kicked off with a multimedia presentation of examples from its extensive interaction design team members, numbering 250 strong, worldwide. From personas with a humorous “South Park” feel to in-home studies of individuals such as a deeply committed yet overwhelmed soccer mom, to before-and-after designs that resulted in capturing millions in revenue, the presentations illustrated best practices in user-centered design and methods today. Theo Mandel, Ph.D., Founder of Interface Design and Development and Vice President of the Arizona UPA Chapter, organized the event.

Taking best practices into action, Laura Faulkner, PhD, gave an inspiring keynote address that moved to the “heart of the designer.” Expressing the global WUD theme, Dr. Faulkner sparked the audience to see their own work in new ways, and achieve ”Design for Social Change” by their daily interactions with the many real humans required to create and deliver amazing designs. To this end, she brought diverse experience from her work as long-time UPA-International conferences co-chair, a research scientist with The University of Texas at Austin, a consultant/strategist with FalconDay Consulting, and even her experience as a certified yoga teacher.

The event, at PayPal’s new facility in Chandler, was selected as one of only 5 worldwide WUD Global Partner Events. The 100 attendees were each given a PayPal tote filled with merchandise from event sponsors. Software valued at over $2,500, from Axure and TechSmith, along with other prizes were awarded in a raffle at the end of the event. The PayPal team inspired job seekers with discussion of how it utilizes design professionals, lit up creative thoughts with peeks into exciting current and future projects.

On one small notebook page, the complex distinction between the different varieties of scotch whiskey is beautifully displayed.

Read the article here.

Want to know more details on the resurgence of user experience? Check it out on Small Business Trends – Simplify This: User Experience Experts Are in Demand

Any time you mess with the user experience, you’re going to risk backlash. If change is based on a solid understanding of your customers and the extent to which this disruption will – eventually – work for them, the effects will be not just survivable, but allow you to thrive.

Netflix committed a customer experience faux pas and the question is – Will Facebook do the same with their new total site redesign?

<< Check it out on Forbes >>

Here’s my section of the article:

Beyond gestures, finger flicks, touch interfaces, and rotating objects around to change orientation, the smaller real estate of mobile platforms is also causing design tool providers to rethink the layout and structure of their programs. Progressive disclosure, a longstanding user interface principle that presents only the minimum data required for the task at hand in order to reduce clutter, is a far more important UI design principle today now that pixel space is at a premium, notes Theo Mandel, PhD, president of Interface Design and Development, LLC, a user interface consultancy.

“More fully featured applications tend to throw lots of stuff at users and you can’t do that on a mobile device,” Mandel explains. “With progressive disclosure, you only give people what they want at the time, and then you give them ways to go deeper when and if they want.”

View the entire article >> Design Tools Get the Human Touch

View an amazing collection of new military healthcare devices in the battlefield!

“With the growing swiftness and capability of today’s technology, medical tools are increasing in their specificity to meet military healthcare needs. The combat environment calls for particular solutions; on the battlefield, where time is of essence, military healthcare providers need the right implement, at the right time. With extensive research and the integration of the latest civilian technology, innovators are finally poised to meet these needs.”

Now, with the onset of a multitude of EMR software programs coming to market now and in the next few years, software vendors are now marketing usability as a key feature of their products.

The real question is, are their products really more usable than their competitor’s? I’ve designed a number of EMR’s and electronic field data collection systems, and I know that most of the EMR’s I’ve seen have been far less than usable!

Here’s what vendors are supposedly focusing on to improve their product’s usability:

1. Reducing click counts and the time it takes to accomplish tasks
2. Improving screen-design elements
3. Creating consistencies in screen designs
4. Reducing information overload
5. Reducing alert fatigue
6. Matching system flow to workflow
7. Building forgiveness into data entry

However, following a usability checklist does not guarantee a product’s usability. Product design involves many iterative stages and activities, including user research, prototyping and design, and user testing.

A recent review of EMR usability is worth a read at amednews.com – Check it out!

Here’s an article titled “AMA report: Standardizing EMRs would ‘stifle innovation‘” that addresses these issues.

The topics of usability of electronic medical records (EMRs)–and their ability to “effectively integrate” with clinical decision-making and work flow–will be on the agenda when the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates meets next month in Chicago. The focus, contained in a trustees report, will be on how these issues have not been adequately addressed so far.

The trustees report addresses a 2009 resolution that called for the AMA to promote the development and universal adoption of a “standardized user interface” for all EMR systems, and to advocate for a federal mandate for interoperability of EMRs as part of its healthcare reform agenda.

For more information, view these links:

• AMA Board of Trustees report (.pdf)
• NextGov Article

A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results. Apparently, students favored search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it’s legit.