In this issue

Upcoming events

World Usability Day events: November 13th, 2008

Thursday November 13th is World Usability Day. In this annual event, usability professionals and others around the world raise awareness and encourage people to create products and services that are accessible and easy to use. This year, there are local events in Ottawa and world-wide, on-line and in the 'Real World':

Free Customer Carewords webinar, 10am
Gerry McGovern and Gord Hopkins will present a free webinar 'Designing Website Navigation based on Top Task Management' at 10am (Eastern Time). Register now for this free webinar. See the Customer Carewords website for background information.

Neo Insight presentation for World Usability Day 2008, 7pm
For this special CapCHI event, our own Gord Hopkins will present the 'live' version of Designing Website Navigation based on Top Task Management, 7pm at The Code Factory, 246 Queen St., Ottawa.

Software Usability: Listening to the voice of the user, 8am
Hear Scott McEwen (Cognos), Michael Baynger (March Networks)
and Scott Plewes (Macadamian) discuss how software companies can find the right way to bring user research into the development process. 8-10am, Brookstreet Hotel, Kanata. See more details of the 'Software Usability' panel discussion.

World Usability Day in Canada and Worldwide
There are many other World Usability Day events in Canada, from Richmond, BC, to Montreal and Quebec, and more than one hundred usability events worldwide.

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Websites are becoming more interactive and more responsive every day, dynamically pulling in data from multiple sources and using AJAX, Flash, Flex, and other technologies for interaction. We are also seeing more and more powerful and complete web applications beginning to replace out desktop products. This rapid evolution creates significant challenges for designers who want to provide accessible websites and applications. However, standards groups and experts are rising to the challenge, and there are promising new approaches emerging.

We recently had the opportunity to discuss these topics with Derek Featherstone, a well-known speaker and - more more importantly - practitioner in web accessibility. So here are some highlights of our discussion, plus some resources and references we hope you'll find useful.

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Resources to track the future of accessibility

Derek Featherstone recommends some resources that anyone interested in accessibility should tap into, especially with respect to the future of accessibility and Rich Internet Applications. We've listed his recommended resources and added some key ones. In addition, we've included Derek’s own sites and blogs, and some sites he views as leading the way in information visualization on the Web.

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Partner, consult, or work with us on Customer Experience

This has been an amazing year for us! Our business has more than doubled in the last year. If you have been part of that, thank you!

The growth has come because usability has become a strategic objective for many of our clients. And we look forward to continued growth. Our new partnership with Gerry McGovern and Customer Carewords has brought us new techniques, new data and experience to build on. It has also brought us new partners: we're working closely with Rolf Molich and Bob Johnson on two major projects, for example.

We expect demand for our services to continue to grow, especially those focused on Intranet tasks and productivity, Customer Carewords, and Task Performance Indicators, for example.

We need more sub-contractors, consultants, partner organizations and employees who can help with Expert Usability Evaluations, Remote Usability Testing, Comparative Usability Evaluations, Visual Design and User Interface Design for websites and applications. There are also opportunities to grow with us into new usability techniques, especially those related to our Customer Carewords partnership, and to establish business relationships for our mutual benefit.

If you're interested in working with us on short-term contracts, in partnering with us, or looking for a longer-lasting relationship, send us an email, or call us: (613) 271-3001.

Quote of the month

[To assess accessibility] "One thing that is absolutely critical is not just are we meeting these checkpoints, but can people perform the tasks that they need to complete?"

Derek Featherstone

If you have any comments on The Insighter, or ideas on usability topics you'd like to hear about, fill out our feedback form, or send us an email with your comments.

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