“Why doesn’t this work right? What am I supposed to do with this now?”
World Usability Day, November 14, 2006, is for everyone who’s ever asked these questions. This Earth Day style event, focused on raising awareness and visibility of usability engineering and user centered design, is currently being organized by volunteers and local event coordinators from around the world. Whether a usability professional or just an enthusiastic (or frustrated) user, each participant is making a contribution to “making life easy”.
World Usability Day 2006 promotes the value of usability engineering and user-centered design and the belief that every user has the responsibility to ask for things that work better. The Usability Professionals’ Association is doing that by encouraging, organizing, and sponsoring 36 hours of activities at the local level around the globe, all occurring on November 14, 2006.
The UPA, UPA chapters, and allied organisations will all hold events, revolving around a common theme - “Making life easy!” - with a focus this year on accessibility and inclusion.
The importance of usability is not trivial; it is connected to important everyday things such as education, healthcare and safety. Tools and systems that are usable are more effective in teaching students. Healthcare professionals can be more confident with safer and understandable tools providing better quality healthcare to their patients. Government institutions can rely on easy to use and understandable voting machines to insure accurate and democratic elections. Usable technology makes a difference to everyone, everywhere around the world.
