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  WORKSHOP ON USABILITY OF COMPUTER SYSTEMS IN ORGANISATIONS

You are invited to a workshop on Making Usability Work for Organisations
to be given by Janis McKange and Helen Kieboom
at the OZCHI'95 Conference, Wollongong on Tuesday November 28.
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Workshops are a valuable forum for exchange of ideas among individuals 
with different perspectives on a topic. One such workshop at this year's 
OZCHI'95 conference in Wollongong will be on the topic of Usability for 
Organisations and will take place on Tuesday, November 28
from 9.00am  to 5.00pm. 

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  IMPORTANT: If you wish to attend this workshop, please request the form containing
a short questionnaire from the OZCHI'95 conference organisers at the address below.
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Introduction: The issue of usability has grown in importance as greater
numbers of technically complicated products have become available to
broader groups of users. This is especially true at the organisational
level, as businesses strive to maintain and increase their market share.
They may, for example, approach this through improving customer service,
rightsizing or multi-skilling staff. It is therefore critical that systems
support users in their work.

In order to ensure that all users are capable of using a system effectively
and efficiently, the tools and methods of usability engineering have become
essential to the development of usable products. However there does not
appear to be a corresponding increase in the uptake of usability
engineering by development teams. The overriding perception within the
development and business communities that usability is a luxury that
adversely impacts on a project's schedule and budget. Not only do usability
specialists need to become better at demonstrating their ability to value
add to the development process that is, 'selling' their services, they must
be able to do so in a way that is meaningful to their 'buyer'.

Goals and Challenges: The aim of this workshop is to consider ways of
making usability engineering a natural part of software development. Rather
than something to be avoided or deliberated over whether it happens or not.
The goal of this workshop is to bring the usability and
business/development professions together to identify what is required to
make usability tasks routine parts of formal development methodologies.

The aim of this workshop is to act as a focus group bringing together views
of usability specialists, business managers and development managers to
discuss ways of getting usability working for organisations in Australia.

It is proposed that this aim be achieved by considering the following
issues:

   * The Politics of Usability: Who do we need to convince ? What Are Our
     Buyers' Needs ?
   * How can usability help business gain an increase in the market share ?
   * How can usability help project management meet projects budget and
     time schedule ?
   * How can usability help developers 'cut code' ?

   * How can usability help an Organisation meet its customers expectations
     ?
   * How can usability ensure that a quality product is produced and
     released ?

Participants Required: Our aim is to have a balanced number of participants
representing business managers, project managers, developers and usability
consultants. The desired number of participants is 16. Preferably a range
of organisations will be represented from a cross section of industry
sectors. Our emphasis is the Australian scene, but overseas input would be
beneficial and welcomed.

Selection Process: Each prospective participant is required to complete a
participant profile. Participants will be selected so as to form a group
that has a balanced number of business managers, project managers,
developers and usability consultants. This will be based on requests
received by a cut off date.

Pre-Workshop Activities: Participants will be required to complete a
pre-workshop questionnaire to help them focus their thoughts in the areas
we will be investigating.

Presenters:

Janis McKauge (B. Comm University of Qld)

Janis's background features strongly in the area of software development.
She has spent over ten years in the computer industry in roles of customer
support, analysis, user interface design and project management. She
currently freelances as a usability consultant specialising in User Centred
Design. Her company is VisionDesign, which is based in Brisbane.

She has a broad industry experience, designing finance and accounting
systems, Laboratory Management Systems, Executive Information Systems and
Customer Service systems. She is a highly skilled facilitator, not only
through her experiences in facilitating participatory design sessions, but
also as a training workshop instructor. Janis is currently authoring and
presenting a series of workshops, in conjunction with the Hiser Consulting
Group, on usability for Telstra as part of a strategic move to take on
usability as a corporate standard for development.

Helen Kieboom (BSc (Hons) Australian National University)

Helen has spent over five years in the human factors usability engineering
area. She has worked for both research and consulting organisations. As a
consultant with The Hiser Consulting Group Helen specialises in strategic
usability engineering for large organisations.

She has experience in bringing usability into organisations and working
closely with information technology groups at both the strategic and
development levels. During this time Helen has facilitated think tank
sessions that investigated the role usability engineering can play in
helping organisations reach their goals. She has also worked closely with
development teams providing them with varying levels of support and
knowledge transfer. This has ranged from running participatory design
sessions to 'telephone' or remote support, guiding development teams
through the usability process. Finally, Helen has assisted in the
development of usability tools and techniques for both usability
specialists and nonspecialists, as well as of a series of training
workshops on usability, for Telstra,

Helen is currently working towards her Master of Information Technology,
specialising in HCI, at Swinburne University. Her thesis addresses the
issue of communicating the value of usability engineering in the software
development life cycle using cost-benefit analysis techniques.

Helen Hasan
OZCHI'95 Conference Chair
Department of Business Systems
University of Wollongong
Northfields Ave
Wollongong
NSW  2522
Australia

Email:	h.hasan@uow.edu.au
Phone:	+61  42  213757
Fax:	+61  42  214474

WorldWideWeb homepage:http://www.uow.edu.au/public/ozchi/ozchi.html

OZCHI'95 Conference
27 - 30 November 1995
Department of Business Systems
University of Wollongong
(OZCHI is the annual national conference of CHISIG, devoted to the interchange
of work and ideas between researchers and practitioners in the area of 
Human-Computer Interaction. )