Category Archives: Usability

ASIS&T and UXPA Meet & Greet

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Joint ASIS&T/UXPA Meet & Greet event on Friday, January 28th, 2022 at 12pm ET.

Zoom Room: https://simmons.zoom.us/j/99660470996
Meeting ID: 996 6047 0996

The spring semester is an ideal time to discover the SLIS student chapters of the Association for Information Science and Technology and the User Experience Professionals Association.

Join us on 01/28/2022 at noon ET to meet others passionate about research, technology, and user experience design.

The joint meeting offers students a perfect place to learn about both groups and hear how you can be involved this semester and beyond. Whether you’re just starting out at Simmons or wrapping up your time in SLIS, please take the time to engage with your virtual campus community!

For more information about Simmons ASIS&T and UXPA@Simmons:

https://slis.simmons.edu/blogs/asist/ 

https://slis.simmons.edu/blogs/uxpa/

Usability & User Experience Course offered this Fall @ Simmons GSLIS!

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I’d like to call your attention to the usability and user experience (UX) class that Rong Tang is teaching this Fall 2014. This course involves students working in teams running usability tests and user research for live websites or web systems, then subsequently making recommendations for design improvements to these systems. It establishes the basis for a new career in user research. In the past, multiple students who took the class graduated and found exciting full-time positions.

If you are interested register now! The course number is LIS 531Y.

 

Usability Student Panel

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Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013

Time: 4:15 – 5:45 pm

Location: P-207, Palace Road Building, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA

Registration: Free and open to all! Click here to register.

The User Experience Professional Association @ Simmons (UXPA) is presenting a student panel!

This is your chance to discover what your fellow students are doing in usability research! Come join us for a panel of student usability researchers, and see what kinds of work you can do as a usability researcher, and what usability research can do for you! Our panelists will be discussing four different projects:

Quick Turnaround Testing: UX Research in a Corporate Context by Dan Zavala

UX research in a company is typically performed frequently and with a quick turnaround. Often stakeholders would request results and recommendations immediately after you complete the tests. This presentation will share experiences in managing multiple projects and producing usability deliverables efficiently and effectively.

Mobile Usability Testing and Tools by Graham Herrli

How should you design and test mobile device usability? I try to answer this by reviewing the literature about mobile and the tools available for testing. Can you test a mobile device in a stationary setting?

Pilot Testing Suma: An Open Source Toolkit for Assessment by Elizabeth Quigley

Libraries often struggle with how to collect usage data and turn it into statistics for assessment projects. Suma is an open source toolkit created by NCSU that eases data collection and provides analysis. I’ve been piloting Suma at Snell Library at Northeastern this semester to determine if it is a viable solution for usage data collection long term.

Designing Usability Testing for Dataverse by Eric Gibbs and Lin Lin

Dataverse is a software application that allows researchers to upload and share data they’ve collected in their studies. Lin and Eric have been working to determine the Harvard version’s strengths and weaknesses in how it allows researchers to both upload and search for data.

Evaluating the Usability of Simmons Alumnet

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Date: Thursday, February 21, 2013

Time: 4:30 – 5:30 pm

Location: M-501/M-502, School of Management Bldg, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA

Interested in gaining experience in usability assessment? Help Simmons Alumnet evaluate the usability of their Web site!
UXPA @ Simmons is excited to announce its second event for the semester, Evaluating the Usability of the Simmons Alumnet Web Site.

User experience (UX): More than just usability testing

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Date: Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Palace Road Building P-213, Simmons College

Join us for a a presentation by J. Darcy Duke and Stephanie Hartman, UX librarians at the MIT Libraries, on UX research. The presentation will be given to Prof. Rong Tang’s LIS531Y Usability and User Experience Research class this coming Tuesday, 11/20/12, 11:00am-12:00pm. All are welcome!

RSVP: Please e-mail Prof. Rong Tang if you plan to attend, [email protected]

From Darcy Duke and Stephanie Hartman:

The web team of the MIT Libraries has been performing usability testing
on our online interfaces since the early days of our web presence back
in the late 90s. Over time, we also expanded our work to include
ethnographic studies in order to more broadly understand how our users
were accessing, using, and managing information. When the MIT Libraries
underwent a reorganization in 2010, the User Experience Group (UX) was
established in order to apply our knowledge of usability, design and
user research across our services and public spaces, in addition to user
interfaces on the web. In this talk, we will discuss projects that will
show the broad variety of our work, from a recent paper-mockup
“guerilla” testing of a web page design to a “Patron for a Day” study
meant to create empathy for our users among our staff.

J. Darcy Duke is the Web Manager and User Experience Librarian on the UX
team at the MIT Libraries. A Simmons GSLIS graduate, she started her
professional career as an engineering reference librarian in 2000 and
joined the MIT Libraries web team shortly thereafter. Her ongoing
experience and interest in web technologies, usability, and design have
led to her current position.

Stephanie Hartman is a User Experience Librarian at the MIT Libraries.
Stephanie received her MLIS from Southern Connecticut State University,
and became an outreach and information services librarian at MIT in
2005. In this position she was involved in multiple physical space
renovations, as well as developing new avenues for user feedback and
engagement. This experience, coupled with past web work, led to her
membership on the UX team where she has a focus on the UX in our
physical spaces.

 

UXPA @ Simmons: Tour of MIT IS&T Usability Lab

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Tour of MIT IS&T Usability Lab

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

4:30 – 5:30 pm

 

Greetings from the Simmons Usability group!  SUPA has recently changed its name to UXPA @ Simmons! UXPA stands for User Experience Professionals Association.

UXPA @ Simmons would like to invite you to join us for a tour of the MIT Information Service & Technology (IS&T) Usability Lab on Wednesday, October 22, 2012, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm.  The tour will include a visit to the Testing/Control Room and Observation Room.  Christopher LaRouche, Usability Consultant from the MIT Accessibility & Usability Group, will be leading the tour.

For more information on the MIT IS&T Usability Lab, please visit http://ist.mit.edu/usability.

To register for this free tour, please go to http://mittour.eventbrite.com.

We look forward to seeing you there!