Please save the date for our annual Triangle area World Usability Day celebration.
The theme this year is: Designing for a Sustainable World.
World Usability Day 2009 is approaching design from cradle to cradle. Coming from a user-centric perspective and looking beyond form and function, we are exploring the impact design has on our world. For this year’s event we’ve lined up a great speaker and planned a killer design competition. See below for more information. Read the rest of this entry »
In this role, the User Experience Architect will:
-Oversee day-to-day ongoing user research (understanding client/user needs) for assigned products, applications or solution areas.
-Analyze and synthesize user research & understanding to define appropriate functionality and product requirements to drive future redesigns.
-Define and design User Experience Strategies and Frameworks representing the future state of integrated solutions, product suites and integration into broader strategies.
-Define and design User Experience Architectures (comprised of wireframes, sitemaps, interaction flows, and prototypes) for desktop and online applications as well as web and mobile experiences.
This is a hands-on and strategic position offering the right candidate an unprecedented opportunity to lead the definition and evolution of several widely known and used products and applications.
Lead teams in user-centered design activities including:
-Heuristic Reviews and Competitive Audits: Performing heuristic evaluations of client and competitor products.
-User Research: Conducting contextual inquiry (in person observation & interviews) with target users to understand their mental models and behaviors.
-Research Analysis: Analyzing information gained during user research and also conducting heuristic and competitive analysis.
-Research Reporting: Writing recommendation reports based on research.
-Persona Development: Defining target users and authoring detailed user personas.
-Modeling & Task Flow Creation: Conceptualizing ideal user paths/task flows/scenarios, etc.
-Information Architecture/Interaction Design: Building navigational systems, information architectures, sitemaps, etc.
-Wire Frame Creation: Identifying key screen types and generating full screen inventories.
-Usability Testing: Conducting usability testing, analyzing the results and creating a recommendations report.
-Other UCD related activities as required.
Contact: Heather Wrenn
Senior Product Manager
The Product Development Infrastructure (PDI) team has an immediate opening for Business Analyst/Product Manager.
Location: RTP, North Carolina.
Job responsibilities:
Elicit requirements using interviews, document analysis, requirements workshops, surveys, site visits, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, task and workflow analysis.
Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, decompose high-level information into details, abstract up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguish user requests from the underlying true needs.
Proactively communicate and collaborate with internal (and sometimes external) customers to analyze information needs and functional requirements and deliver the following artifacts (or Agile/SCRUM equivalents) as needed: Functional requirements, Business Requirements Document, Use Cases, GUI, Screen and Interface designs
Required skills:
5+ Year in Business-Analysis/Product-Management OR Product /Applications Development
Strong experience with Technology and Application Architectures
Excellent communication skills both written and verbal
Very strong skills in influencing and persuasion
Strong Analytical skills
A passion for building excellent products and solutions
A good sense for great Usability and User Experience
Desired skills:
Certification in Business-Analysis, Product-Management or equivalent
Strong Usability/User-Experience Design background and experience
Please contact Brent Rogers (breroger@cisco.com).
Wells Fargo has an immediate opening to fill a 6-month Senior Usability Specialist contract in our Charlotte, NC office. There is a possibility of extending the contract up to 18 months if there is a business need.
The Senior Usability Specialist is responsible for designing and conducting 1×1 usability studies of web-based experiences. This individual will collaborate with interaction designers, business owners, developers, and graphic designers to establish the research plan and outline requirements for the test material. The researcher responsibilities include: devise screeners, manage recruiting, design study, facilitate testing, collect and analyze data, report results, make recommendations, and to effectively communicate findings to a broad audience of stakeholders.
The researcher will be part of the User Research team within the Internet Services group, and will collaborate with other senior researchers in the Charlotte and San Francisco offices (collaboration with SF is virtual). The primary focus of the research work for this position is related to the merger between Wachovia and Wells Fargo. The nature of these projects is fast-paced and complex – it requires researchers who are flexible, collaborative, with excellent problem solving skills and ability to prioritize research findings for business decision-making.
* 5 or more years focused experience in usability testing of web interfaces
* Excellent written and oral communication skills
* Outstanding analytical skills
* Detail orientation
* Quick learner
* Self-directed
* Demonstrated success in conducting research and testing with a wide variety of end users
* Demonstrated experience with a variety of research and testing techniques, including think-aloud, 1-on-1 interviews, card sorts, and on- site observation.
* Position is on-site in the Charlotte office during regular business hours (generally Mon – Fri, 8:30am – 5:30pm)
* Preferred Skills/Experience: Financial services experience
Please send resume to Caroline Beacham at caroline.beacham@wachovia.com
Wells Fargo in Charlotte is looking for free-lance user researchers who would work with us on a per-project basis from time to time when we have overflow. This would be an ongoing opportuntiy. This is 100% research, 1×1 usability testing. Please contact caroline.beacham at wachovia.com.
The Triangle Area ColdFusion Users Group (TACFUG) is planning a conference called CFinNC for October 17-18, 2009 on Centennial Campus at NC State University. The topics will be ColdFusion, Flex/Flash, AIR and miscellaneous other topics. The presenters will range from triangle speakers along with presenters from all over the US. Registration for this conference is FREE for attendees.
If you are interested in learning more about Flex or other Adobe technologies such as AIR and Coldfusion this is a great opportunity to receive FREE training. For more information or to register please visit: http://cfinnc.com/
STC competitions offer an excellent way for you and your team to get recognition for your technical publication, help system, artwork, training, or any other form of technical communication. Each year, the STC Carolina Chapter generally sponsors the following competitions:
The Call for Entries has been distributed. Start working on those Competition Forms for items you or your colleagues want enter! Remember, you do not have to be an STC member to enter (but members save money on the entry fee, and even more by submitting entries by the Early Bird date.
If you’re shy about submitting your work, sign up as a judge. Assessing the work of other technical communicators invariably gives you insight into your own work. Judge Training day is a great networking opportunity too. You don’t need to be a member to judge, so recruit those non-members in your office. Judge training is October 17. This year, the door prizes include four signed copies of “The Well Fed Writer” by Peter Bowerman.
Contact: Betsy Kent <lizkent@nc.rr.com> for more information.
Give us a day and we can teach you all the rocket surgery you need to conduct qualitative studies the real-time, native environment way.
What we’ll cover…
Nate Bolt, president of Bolt|Peters, is fascinated by the personal, social, and cultural role of technology, and how research and design can transform those roles. After pioneering and directing the User Experience department at Clear Ink in 1999, which included the construction of Natural Environment and Remote Observation laboratories, Nate co-founded Bolt | Peters. He now serves as el presidente, where he has overseen hundreds of user research studies for Sony, Oracle, HP, Greenpeace, Electronic Arts, and others. Beginning in 2003, he led the creation of the first moderated remote user research software, Ethnio, which is being used around the world to recruit hundreds of thousands of live participants for research.
Nate regularly gives presentations on native environment research methods in both commercial and academic settings, and is currently co-authoring Remote Research, a book on remote testing. Working with faculty at the University of California, San Diego, he created a degree titled “Digital Technology and Society,” which focused on the social impact of technology. He also completed a year of communications studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he was jailed briefly for playing drums in public without a license.
Would you like improve the sustainability of our world?
Are you passionate about user centered design, graphic design, industrial/product design, engineering, human factors and/or psychology?
If so, then you should participate in our TriUPA World Usability Day design competition!
Participants will tackle a design issue where user centered design and usability is central to the success of a solution that drives sustainability.
Sounds great! What do I need to do?
1) Sign up to participate by September 23, 2009.
2) Attend an Information Session.
You don’t have to attend this session to participate in the challenge, but if you have questions or would like more information, please join us on September 17th (Thursday) at 6pm at Capstrat (1201 Edwards Mill Road, First Floor Raleigh, NC 27607).
3) Pick a topic from our list of suggestions, or create your own!
4) Present your design ideas, findings and solutions.
Participants are invited to share their solutions during our World Usability Day event to be held November 12th from 6:00 – 9:00PM, at the SAS Auditorium. Presentations need not be formal and can be a poster, informal oral presentation or PowerPoint format. All participants should plan a presentation around 7 – 10 minutes.
For more information or questions about this year’s event contact:
Rebekah Sedaca, rebatilley@yahoo.com
Laura Blanchard, laura.blanchard@mac.com
Do you write standards-compliant code?
Dream about CSS positioning techniques?
Post to Zeldman’s wall, just ’cause you can?
Web Designers with a passion for user experience design needed for on and offsite freelance work for a large technology firm in RTP. Position starting late September. 20-40 hours per week.
Must have:
Valid (x)HTML code
Tableless CSS sites
User centered design techniques
Contact:
Heather Wrenn, AQUENT
(919) 806-4371
HumanCentric is expanding our list of local freelancers who would be interested in project-specific short/long term contract work. We are looking for experienced people in the fields of user interface design, human factors, technical writing, graphic design and interaction design for potential project work. A minimum of 3 yrs experience is desired. Experience in small screen interface design such as mobile phones, consumer appliances etc., is a plus.
Please send your resume and portfolio (if applicable) to jobs@humancentric.com. We will do our best to respond to you in a timely manner.
HumanCentric is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). No applicant shall be subjected to discrimination because of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, disability, age, reprisal for engaging in anti-discrimination activities, protected genetic information, sexual orientation or parental status.
