[Sigia-l] Usability Invitation

[Filipp Anthony Sapienza]

This coming semester (beginning January 2003) the M.S. in Technical
Communication Program at the University of Colorado at Denver will again
offer a semester-length course in Usability Testing (at the graduate
level).

In past courses we provided valuable usability testing for diverse
clients, including (among others) TargetSmart, Inc. (specializing in
marketing software), for the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL)
Website, BioStar (manfacturers of human virus detection equipment), and
for J. D. Edwards Company, specializing in accounting software, among
others. One of the areas we emphasize in our M.S. curriculum, and that we
particularly focus in this course, is the testing and improvement of a
broad range of online/interactive and hard copy documentation and
instructional material, including (but not limited to) such things as:

- web sites
- software documentation (including interfaces & help systems),
tutorials & instructions
- documentation for consumer electronics,
appliances (VCRs, stereos, voice messaging answering machines, etc.)
- health hazard/risk disclosures and documentation
- government & consumer legal documentation
- tax documentation
- real estate documentation/forms
- securities prospecti
- banking/loan transactions
- insurance policies/forms

Note that we are interested both in consumer-type documents as well as
documents for more specialized audiences/technicians.  We are equally
interested in online and traditional hard-copy documents, and in
electro-mechanical as well as computer technology documentation.

For the Spring 2003 course, we are again inviting both public and private
sector organizations to participate.  We invite such organizations to
provide actual documents, software, and/or other technology for which they
would like user-testing and related comprehensibility evaluations to be
performed in our labs.

All experimental participants that we recruit must sign non-disclosure
agreements as well as participation consent forms for the university.
Organizations who participate are also required to sign a written letter
of agreement with the department and students at CU-Denver. Organizations
must also provide monetary support for securing and paying user-test
participants and for transcribing audio and/or video data.  There is also
a nominal participation contribution of US 500.00 which helps support
upgrades in our lab facilities and scholarships for students enrolled in
the program in technical communication. While it is difficult to provide
an exact estimate of your total costs, you should know that historically,
it has been *far* lower than the minimum costs for professional usability
services in the Denver Colorado area. Past clients have also been
impressed with the professional-level quality of testing done by our
students and the opportunity to work with a university community committed
to researching the latest methods in usability.

If you or your organization think you might be interested in
participating, please contact me, Dr. Filipp Sapienza, at the address
below.

Filipp Sapienza
Assistant Professor - Technical Communication
University of Colorado - Denver
Communication Department
Plaza Building 102P
Campus Box 176, P.O. Box 173364
Denver, CO 80217-3364

http://comm.cudenver.edu/~sapief
Phone: 303-556-2609
Fax: 303-556-6018