A full day seminar presented by Jeff Johnson. This workshop is being coordinated by Dr. Mark Srite, Associate Professor in Management Information Systems, Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Overview

Many businesses and organizations develop software, whether it is to manage their internal operations, offer desktop software products, or offer online services on the Web. Yet, in the process of software design and evaluation to meet that need, designers and developers often forget that usability can make the difference between success and failure. Usability refers to the relationship between software and its users. Successful software or Web designers and developers understand that useful and usable software applications and Web sites require more than graphic design and programming skills. A high level of usability requires focusing efforts on the goals and tasks of the intended users. Anything that interferes with how easily users can achieve their goals will undermine your success.

The key to usable and useful software and Web sites is to design a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that reflects and supports the intended users in achieving their goals.

This workshop presents common software and Web design errors or “bloopers” that negatively impact site usability. Using examples from commercial software and Web sites, the speaker will present common GUI design errors and explain how to avoid them. After completing this full-day workshop, participants will be able to recognize those errors in Web sites and Web software products and, ultimately, be better designers and customers of interactive software and online services.

Topics

This workshop covers a subset of categories of common GUI and Web design errors or bloopers. They include:

• GUI Control Bloopers

• Navigation Bloopers

• Textual Bloopers

• Graphic and Layout Bloopers

• Interaction Bloopers

• Management Bloopers

Each blooper category covers three to four bloopers in that category. Each blooper is illustrated with examples from real software or Web sites.

About the speaker

Jeff Johnson is President and Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consulting firm. He has worked in the field of Human-Computer Interaction since 1978. After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford Universities, he worked as a user-interface designer and implementer, engineer manager, usability tester, and researcher at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Sun Microsystems. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on a variety of topics in Human-Computer Interaction and the impact of technology on society. He is the author of “GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Dos for Software Developers and Web Designers” (2000), “Web Bloopers: 60 Common Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them” (2003), and “GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Don’ts and Dos” (2007).

Who should Attend?

This workshop is intended for software designers and developers, mainly those who lack several years of experience designing and evaluating GUIs. Others who might benefit are technical writers, software Q/A engineers, usability testers, and software project managers.

Coordinator

Mark Srite is an Associate Professor in Management Information Systems, Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.