Information for Our Presenters

We invite you to share your ideas and experiences with fellow practitioners by submitting proposals for conference sessions. If you are thinking about doing a UPA, STC, IA Summit, or CHI presentation in 2008, this is a good chance to practice and get some feedback on your presentation. Students are also encouraged to present on practical subjects of interest to the professional community, since this is a good way for building up resumes and practicing your presentation skills.

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Submission Types

Here is the list of submission types for the conference. If you have another idea for a session, please contact us. We invite you to be as hands-on as possible and use creative techniques for involving your audience.

Presentations

• 40-minute sessions.
• Present ideas and experiences related to usability methods, skills, philosophy, design or other relevant, emerging or unresolved issues.
• Talks should include time for questions or other interaction with the audience.
• REGISTRATION FEES: The conference fee is waived for one presenter. Additional presenters will need to register and pay the registration fee.

Panels

• 40-minute sessions.
• Panels feature three or four people presenting their ideas and experiences on a common theme.
• Panels should include time for questions or other interaction with the audience.
• REGISTRATION FEES: The conference fee is waived for one panel member. Additional panelists will need to register and pay the registration fee.

Tutorials/Workshops

• 90-minute sessions.
• Tutorials provide a forum for new or experienced usability practitioners to learn a new method, skill, or topic.
• Workshops provide an active discussion forum for advancements in the field of usability and design, and the opportunity for experienced practitioners to develop new ideas about a topic of common interest and experience.
• Tutorials and workshops should be highly interactive, with participatory exercises or other learning opportunities.
• REGISTRATION FEES: The conference fee is waived for one presenter of the workshop/tutorial. Additional presenters will need to register and pay the registration fee.

10-Minute Talks

• Short presentations where the speaker gets exactly 10 minutes to present a very narrow topic or nugget of usability wisdom.
• 10-minute talks will be scheduled within a 40-minute or 90-minute facilitated session.
• Following each 10-minute talk, the audience gets to ask a few questions of the presenter.
• REGISTRATION FEES: The conference fee is not waived for presenters of 10-minute talks.

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Deadlines & Procedures

All submissions are due by the end of the day on July 1 (midnight Eastern time). Note: The Call for Presentations is now closed.

Use the proposal template (Microsoft Word doc) to submit your topic for consideration. You will be asked to submit the following information:

• Contact information (name, email, phone number, address, company)
• Title of session
• Type of session (presentation, panel, tutorial, workshop, or 10-minute talk)
• Length of session (40-minutes, 90-minutes, 10-minutes)
• Intended audience (new or experienced practitioners)
• Names and short bios of presenters (indicate the primary presenter if more than one person will be presenting)
• Summary of your presentation (250-1000 words).
• Describe how you will involve the audience (for example, questions/answers, hands-on exercises, interactive discussions, role-playing, demonstrations, etc.)
• Audio-visual support needed

Please send proposals to .

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Ideas for Topics

You are encouraged to suggest presentations on themes and emerging trends that are relevant to your work. The list below contains a few ideas for general topics to help you get started. If you want feedback on an idea before you submit a proposal, email and the conference planning committee will provide quick feedback.

Methods for:

• Finding out what your users really need
• Facilitating design sessions with real users
• Usability testing with remote users
• Measuring usability improvements
• Interpreting web usage statistics
• Making usability techniques more agile
• Gathering and documenting usability requirements

Design:

• Case studies and success stories
• How to go from requirements and user data to design
• Organizing information for easy retrieval
• Personas and scenarios in design
• Design of mobile products

Making usability work in your organization:

• Fitting usability into the product lifecycle
• Working with multidisciplinary teams
• Starting up a usability program in your organization
• Growing a usability team
• Return on Investment (ROI) for usability