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Usability Associates Copyright © 2001-2008 Usability Associates |
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 | The consortium will consist of up to 10 non-competing member companies. |
| Consulting firms will be excluded. |
| Members will convene twice each year for 1 ½ - 2 days. Each meeting will be hosted by a member at his/her company or be held at a non-company location of special interest. |
| Additional group discussions will be held via teleconference. Also, individual members are free to contact each other as they see fit. |
| The consortium membership fee covers (1) arrangement and facilitation of meetings and teleconferences, (2) one joint research project defined by member and agreed to by UA and (3) Expenses associated with meeting held at non-member sites. Members can opt for additional UA services in lieu of joint research. |
Improved management effectiveness and cost savings are the two outcomes you can realize from consortium membership. These benefits derive from
| Intimate networking with "birds of a feather" that offers the opportunity to share best practices, float new ideas, and discuss pressing issues |
| Sharing of costs and results from joint research of common interest to multiple members |
| Exposure to outside speakers and venues that inform members about state-of-the-art research, new methodologies, and innovative ideas. |
Many issues face product design and usability managers. Some seem to be perpetual while others are temporary hot buttons, but important nonetheless. Examples of the former are:
| Defining and measuring organizational success |
| Localization of product design |
| Ways to institutionalize Industrial Design, Graphic Design, and Human Factors in the product development process rather than rely on sympathetic project managers |
| Organizational and other means to focus product development on the total user experience |
| Ideas to help Human Factors and Industrial Design personnel understand each other and work together cooperatively |
| Effective utilization of PDU resources |
| Ways to prioritize work requests |
| Effective ways to achieve a high level of PDU recognition internally |
| Comparing vision and/or mission statements |
Usability Associates is responsible for design, execution, data analysis, and reporting for joint research. The actual projects will be determined by the participating members. These examples illustrate the diversity of possible projects.
Within Membership: Information can be collected from member companies and condensed into a report protecting company anonymity.
| Compile qualitative PDU information such as organizational relationships, organizational practices, and future vision |
| Benchmark specific quantitative PDU data such as headcount ratios and financial ratios that are comparable across companies |
| Benchmark the process of establishing and applying a common look and feel across products |
| Conduct third-party survey/interviews of upper-level management’s perceptions about product design and usability in their respective companies |
External to Membership: Relevant topics can be researched in any of several forms including company surveys, surveys of ongoing university research, literature searches, guidelines, regulatory searches, state-of-the-art technology assessments, and other special studies. A starter list of topics is provided below.
| Globalization |
| Eye tracking |
| Transcription analysis techniques |
| Usability metrics |
| Remote usability testing |
| Repeatability of usability testing results |
| Future user interface trends/modalities, e.g., eye gaze, haptics, gestures |
| New software being developed for computer aided design |
| New methods being developed for producing prototypes and models |
| Identification and contact information of U.S. and foreign usability labs for hire |
| Product accessibility |
| User experience model |
| Affective usability |
| Global co-development |
| Universal design |
