[Asis-l] Fidelity Specialists Present on Discount Usability Tools, Web Accessibility and User Experience

[Rong Tang]

Dear all,

If you are in the new England area and close to Boston, I’d like to invite
you to attend an event sponsored by SUPA (Simmons Usability Professional
Association) student group on this Thursday (4/19/12) 4:30-5:30. The event
is free, and please follow the link below to register for the event:

http://fidelityuxtalks.eventbrite.com/



WHAT: Discount Usability Tools, Web Accessibility and User Experience
WHO: Laura Bowden and Marguerite Bergel, Fidelity Investments
WHEN: Thursday, 4/19/2012, 4:30-5:30
WHERE: Main College Building, C103

The event will feature two presentations on the topic of discount usability
tools and web accessibility. Below are details:

Lab Research Schmab Schmesmearch by Laura Bowden
You don't need a fancy lab to do good user experience research. We'll demo
an online card sorting tool, a tool that lets you test the information
architecture of your site without visual distractions, and a remote
usability testing tool that lets you collect videos and feedback from users
without even being in the room. We'll discuss recent projects on which we've
used these tools, and some of what we have learned in using them.
 
Can One Site Really Fit All? By Marguerite Bergel
How can we move beyond "standards compliance" to incorporate Accessibility
in a way that actually improves the user experience for everyone? This is
the main question we try to ask on every Fidelity Web design project. We'll
discuss what Web Accessibility is, why we care, and what we've learned about
it through our research with older users, those with disabilities, and even
those on the lower end of the financial literacy scale. Then we'll look at a
real-life Web designs, evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, and things we
might have done differently in an effort to achieve a more universally
usable experience for all users. 

Laura Bowden is a Research Director at Fidelity Investments, where she is
part of Fidelity's User Experience Design team. She covers research on
Fidelity's products for financial professionals such as brokers and
advisors. She also covers products used by "active traders", and most
recently she has started covering research on all of Fidelity's mobile
products on the iPad, iPhone and Android. Laura has done ABD (all but a
dissertation) in Cognitive Psychology from Tufts University.

Margy Bergel is a Senior Accessibility/Usability Analyst at Fidelity
Investments, where she is part of Fidelity's User Experience Design team and
oversees Fidelity's Web Accessibility program. She researches and has
presented on topics related to accessibility and universal design at
numerous conferences including Aging by Design, CSUN's International
Technology & Persons with Disabilities, CHI, HCII, UPA, and World Usability
Day. She has numerous publications in the field, teaches at the John Slatin
Access U Web Accessibility Conference each year, and has co-taught a course
on 'Universal Usability' at Bentley University's Human Factors and
Information Design Master's Program. Margy wishes to thank Boston's Visually
Impaired - Blind Users' Group, who taught her most of what she knows about
applied Web accessibility. 


Hope to see you there!

Rong
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Rong Tang, PhD
Associate Professor
Director, GSLIS Usability Lab
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Simmons College
300 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115
(T) 617-521-2880
(F) 617-521-3192
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