You are here: Home / Archives for usability

May 10th Meeting: Facebook Open Graph & Building a Usability and Analytics Toolkit

May 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Howdy everyone, we have two great topics this month that will get your mind working and provide great ideas that you can put into practice.

Event Details

7:00 – 9:00p.m. Tuesday, May 10th
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos

Let us know you’re coming! RSVP on Facebook (it’s not required, you’re always welcome). While you’re at it, check out the new Refresh Austin Facebook page!

Building a Usability and Analytics Toolkit

Judd Lyon, Partner/Technical Director at Trifecta Interactive

Most of us probably agree that getting user feedback is important, yet why do many of our projects go without it? Judd will explore combining techniques and online tools that can help you drive improvements to your site/app.

Among the topics covered will be:

  • Web Analytics
  • Online Surveys
  • Remote User Testing
  • A/B Testing
  • Search Engine and Social Media Tracking
  • Reporting Dashboards

Using Facebook Social Plugins and OpenGraph for Fun and Profit

Jon Loyens, Director of Bazaarvoice Labs

Sure it’s easy to add a Like button to your website but what do you do with it once it’s there? How can you use Facebook Login to make registration for your site easier and get more user information all at the same time? What kind of data can you mine out of Facebook OpenGraph? In this presentation, I’ll take everyone a step beyond the basics of Facebook’s social plugins and demonstrate how to use the more advanced features of the Facebook platform and give everyone a glimpse of how much data is really there to be had and used.

Filed Under: Events, Presentations Tagged With: , , , , ,

July Meeting: An Overview of Usability + Two Short Demos

July 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Event Details

7:00 – 9:00p.m. July 14th
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos

An Overview of Usability

The newly restarted Austin chapter of the Usability Professionals Association will present on Usability and how it fits into business and development processes. There will be a brief overview of usability followed by an open discussion where we will take audience questions, share strategies, and learn from each other.

Demo Slots

We’re going to try a small experiment during this meeting – giving two members a chance to demo their product and gather feedback from other members. Each demo will last up to 5 minutes and will be followed by 10 minutes for questions and suggestions. The key here is that you’ll have a chance to gather the thoughts and ideas of your colleagues, this isn’t a pitch session.

Interested in presenting? E-mail me off list with the name of the product and the type of feedback you are seeking and we’ll set things up. If you can’t demo during this meeting, don’t worry, if we get a lot of responses we’ll use this format for a longer meeting.

Books

We will also have a couple of books to give away courtesy of O’Reilly and Peachpit.

RSVP on Facebook

Filed Under: Events, Presentations Tagged With: , , ,

January Meeting: Google Analytics & User Experience

December 31, 2008 By 2 Comments

Date: January 13th, 7pm
Location: Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos

View the event details on Upcoming

Translating Google Analytics Data Into Marketing Metrics

Presented by Chad Brustin
Are you having difficulty making sense of all the data contained in your website report? In this presentation we will make the connection between website data and marketing goals. We will share a variety of goals to help you create a dashboard for monitoring your site and making ‘data driven’ updates. We will also look at a few good ‘off the shelf’ tools that can help you make better sense of the data including: goal creation, custom reports.

Presentation Slides: Translating Google Analytics Into Marketing Metrics

Kickstarting User Experience: Tools and Practices

Presented by Alex Jones
The term “user experience” is bandied about a lot these days, and while every aspect of Web sites and apps have an impact on the experience, it can be hard to plan ahead if you don’t know the tools that are available. We’ll cover the general concepts of the process I use when working on a new project and discuss alternate methods and tools throughout. As we wrap up the presentation, we’ll cover useful methods for integrating the process into development cycles and how to balance the needs of the user with those of the business.

Presentation Slides: Kickstarting UX

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

HFI Barbecue

August 12, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I wanted to let the group know about an event taking place on August 19th at County Line. Human Factors International is bringing in our Eye Tracking Specialist, Andrew Schall, to demo the latest hardware, software and analytics techniques. It’s fascinating to watch… and the food’s good! See details below and let us know if you can make it–we want to get an idea of how much food to order!

Official invite starts here…

You are warmly invited to a complimentary dinner reception in Austin hosted by Human Factors International (HFI). HFI’s Andrew Schall will speak on:

“Gazing into a more usable design”

Complimentary dinner provided by HFI

Date: Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 from 6:00-8:00 pm

Location: The County Line Smokehouse & Grill, 6500 Bee Caves Road, Austin, TX 78746

Contact:Sheryll Ryan, 512.433.5916

Attendance is by advance reservation only and space is limited. Please register online:

http://www.humanfactors.com/austinBQ.asp

User experience designers have an array of tools and techniques to help them understand how users interact with websites. Eye tracking complements these tools and offers objective insight into what people actually see — and what they don’t. Eye tracking shows how people move visually through a page and how long they linger on various spots. It’s a powerful tool for developing an effective design that will engage your customers.

Used properly, advanced eye tracking methodology and analysis help you uncover specific usability issues in a highly targeted manner. You can see clearly why prominently featured product links can be overlooked, why flash banners are not always effective, and how other usability issues inhibit website performance. Eye tracking is also a key part of HFI’s new approach to designing for Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust (PET).

In Andrew’s presentation, you’ll learn how eye tracking can help you:

  • Get real-time design feedback
  • Test visual hierarchy
  • Compare different versions of a design
  • Understand what attracts (or distracts) users
  • Watch as users learn to use your interface

Special offer!

Be one of 5 companies selected to have free eye tracking analysis done at the event! If you wish to have your home page evaluated, please contact us by Friday, August 8th at hfi@humanfactors.com.

Hope to see you there!

Noel Holmes

VP Central Region

noel.holmes@humanfactors.com

940-230-1288

Sheryll Ryan

Director ofBusiness Development

Central Region and Mexico

sryan@humanfactors.com

512-433-9148

Human Factors International, Inc.

www.humanfactors.com

Usable. Experience. Design.

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: , ,

April Meeting: True Picture of Usability, SXSWi Recap

March 27, 2008 By 1 Comment


April 8th, 7:00 p.m.
Buffalo Billiards, 6th and Brazos

Draw a True Picture Of Usability by Combining Various Data Sources

Annette Priest will discuss the different types of information and metrics that can be used to gain insight into the usability of your Web site so you can determine what works and what needs to be improved.

Group Discussion: SXSW Interactive

For those unable to attend South by Southwest Interactive, here’s a chance to hear what was good. For those who were there, here’s a chance to hear about panels you may have missed.

Anyone who went to SXSW is encouraged to jump into this one! The format is straightforward, each person will answer:

1. What were your three favorite panels and why?
2. What is one thing that you took from SXSW and implemented?

3. What would you like to see change prior to next year?

View the event on Upcoming.org

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: , , ,

Contact Us



What is 3 + 2? 

Already on the mailing list, but you'd like to do more? We're always looking for speakers, so drop us a line if you have a presentation in mind!

We love to hear ideas for improving Refresh Austin and happily welcome those who want to volunteer to help.

Want to Sponsor?

We don't take a lot of sponsorships, but we do have a few opportunities for the right fit.