Human Factors International Inc.

Elisa has also held positions at Optimum.web, Cambridge Technology Partners Europe, Canon Research Centre, and Digital Equipment Corporation as a consultant director, user experience (UX) lead, and researcher. She has published many research papers and articles, and presented workshops at ACM SigCHI and the BCS HCI conference, mostly on the topics of Internationalisation and the design of speech controlled user interfaces. She also contributed to and edited books on the Internationalisation of products/systems. Elisa is the co-founder and former president of Products and Systems Internationalisation Inc., which organizes the International Workshop on the Internationalisation of Products and Systems (www.IWIPS.org).

Jerome Nadel has over 22 years of applied human factors and interface design experience. While in graduate school, Jerome was awarded research fellowships through the National Scientific Research Foundation; these were conducted at the Applied Human Factors Labs at Williams Air Force Base. Jerome's professional career began at IBM's Human Factors Lab, in Charlotte, NC. Following that he held multiple job titles at Unisys, including Program Manager and Co-manager of the Corporate Human Factors group. As Vice President of Marketing of a multi-national technology start-up, he supported an acquisition by another international technology leader, Gemplus, where he also served as Vice President of Marketing driving technology partnerships and promoting usability of mobile data services. Presently, he is a fundamental component of the HFI (Human Factors International, Inc.) team as Executive Managing Director and Vice President. He has worked on, and led numerous design projects and has presented internationally on user-centered design.

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., is the Chief Technical Staff at Human Factors International (HFI). Prior to working with HFI, Susan was the owner and principal consultant with Weinschenk Consulting Group. For 25 years she has used her expertise in psychology to design technology products, including Web sites and applications, for the Fortune 500. She has three books published by John Wiley and Sons and was chosen as one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing" by Open Computing magazine. Dr. Weinschenk is a highly-rated workshop and keynote presenter at national conferences. She has recently toured the country presenting on the ROI of Usability. Susan addressed hundreds of executives in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, DC. Susan has a doctorate in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University.

Apala is a world-renowned expert on Contextual Innovation the discipline of creating breakthrough product concepts and adapting existing products, services, and technologies to new markets. HP Labs, adidas, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NCR, and Intel are just a few of the companies that have benefited from Apala's innovative, pioneering techniques in this exciting and growing field. Apala and her CI team have helped designers, marketers, product managers and ethnographers apply her innovative techniques to develop exciting new concepts and products. She systematically guides the ideation process to uncover subtle patterns in ethnographic and market data to reveal the exciting breakthrough ideas that can drive your business and generate more revenue and profit. Apala has developed a vast array of data-gathering techniques, including the Bollywood Method, Bizarre Bazaar, and the Funky Facilitator, which help understand the user experience in a variety of cultural and economic environments. She and her team pioneered the "Ecosystem Chart" which organizes vast amounts of ethnographic data into a coherent model. She is a creative and dynamic speaker who has received acclaim in USA, Canada, Europe, India, and China for her keynote talks on contextual innovation, internationalization, and designing for emerging markets.

Nigel Grace is the Managing Director for Europe. Mr. Grace has been with HFI since 1993, when he began as a regional sales manager. During this time, Mr. Grace advanced to Director of Business Development and established long-term relationships with clients throughout the western United States and Europe, including Bell Canada, Chevron Texaco, Hewlett Packard, Intel, and Sun Microsystems. He is now Managing Director for HFI's operations in Europe.

Noel Holmes is HFI's VP for the Central Region of the U.S. Noel has been in the Customer Experience field for more than 20 years beginning as a user manual writer for Apple peripheral products (where the manuals served as interface specifications). He has lead User Interface teams at Leisureplanet, Scient, Prodigy and Travelocity. He has introduced several companies to the roles of Information Architect and Front End Technologist.

Phil Goddard is HFI Executive Director, Western Region, with 14 years experience in usability, 13 of those with HFI. Phil was on the Research Faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Post Doctoral Fellow with the National Institute of Health, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology, an M.S. in Cognitive Pyschobiology, and a B.S. in Psychology/Biology. As director of training, Phil developed HFI's training curriculum and usability analyst certification program (CUA). He has published in scientific journals in the field of aging and cognitive performance, and served as reviewer for NCI's usability guidelines. Phil is expert in all facets of usability engineering and user experience design including techniques for concept design, feasibility, customer definition, sites and application design and assessment, strategic development, usability metrics, usability infrastructure development, management, consulting, and mentoring.

Dean T. Barker is an Executive Director for Human Factors International. He is a technical expert participating in ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committee responsible for developing standards for Software and Systems Engineering. He is also co-author of Designing Effective Speech User Interfaces, published by John Wiley & Sons. He has fifteen years of experience in usability and software product development, including substantial experience in international software product development for various markets in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Mr. Barker has a B.A. in Business Management and Communication and a M.S. in Software Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Dean has introduced a "pattern approach" to user interface design to several Fortune 500 companies and has written and researched User Interface Patterns extensively as part of his graduate thesis in Software Engineering.

Jeff Horvath, Ph.D. has been working in the field of usability for more than a decade. His background in psychology and his experience in the business world provide a combination of skills and perspectives that can help your organization design solutions for end users that are usable AND that meet your business goals. Jeff's customer list includes Sprint, Motorola, Lands' End, and American Family Insurance. He has helped them successfully integrate user centered design best practices at their organizations. As an Executive Director at HFI, Jeff defines and oversees solutions for clients, and manages and mentors HFI's technical staff. Jeff has a doctorate in educational psychology from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mona Patel has the knowledge and experience to help you promote and position usability throughout your organization. She is HFI's expert on turning the emotional response to a Website into conversion! She is known for her lively and engaging presentations we guarantee you'll be smiling when you leave her presentations! Mona has worked in the usability field since 1998 and specializes in the design and evaluation of healthcare, government, and insurance websites and applications. She is highly experienced in usability testing, navigation design, detailed design, expert reviews, contextual inquiry, and branding. Mona also co-develops and teaches courses as part of HFI's Certified Usability Analyst training program. As an Executive Director at HFI, Mona is involved in all aspects of diagnosing client needs and recommending appropriate solutions, for both government and commercial clients. She oversees projects and monitors the quality of HFI's deliverables.

Scott Weiss, Principal of Usable Products Company, is an Information Architect, and author of Handheld Usability (John Wiley & Sons: 2002). He is a frequent lecturer on the topic of usability and information architecture both in the U.S. and abroad. Scott's design work can be seen on more than 90 percent of computer desktops worldwide, including elements of both Macintosh and Windows 95. From 1995 1996, Scott was a Human Factors Manager for Autodesk, where he was responsible for the usability of the AutoCAD product line. He designed user interfaces and conducted usability tests for features that went into AutoCAD R14, AutoCAD LT 3.0, and AutoCAD LT 2.0. From 1992 1995, Scott was an Information Architect for Sybase. He designed and built the user interface of the Gain Momentum multimedia authoring system. Scott also designed visual controls for interactive television, a technology for which Sybase received US patent 5,900,877 in 1999. From 1990 1992, Scott worked for Microsoft, where he designed the user interface for and managed software development of the first release of Schedule+. He then designed and prototyped features for the Taskbar and Explorer for Windows 95. From 1990 1991, Scott held an internship at Apple Computer in the Macintosh group. He designed user interfaces and conducted usability tests for System 7, including the Memory control panel, the mechanism for visual selection of color icons, and the migration of the Multifinder icon to the Application Menu. Scott also helped re-write the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. In 1990, Scott received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering specializing in Human Interface Design from Stanford University.

Dick Rubinstein has worked in the professional human factors field, designing interfaces since 1975. He worked as a Senior R&D Analyst with Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., then as a Consultant Engineer with Digital Equipment Corporation. He was an Independent Consultant with Cognitive Construction Company, a member of Technical Staff with Sun Microsystems, a User Interface Architect/ Manager of the UI Team with Marcam Corporation, and the lead User Interface Designer for Time0, a Perot Systems eCommerce company. Currently he is a Managing Director with Human Factors International, Inc. His special skills include interaction design, user interface design, usability enhancement, product conceptualization and vision, team leadership, cross-function communication, and collaboration. His technical qualifications include design, task analysis, prototyping, testing, usability enhancement, and interpersonal communication. He has broad knowledge and experience in computer systems, including hardware and software architecture, the Internet, multimedia, human factors, digital typography, graphic design, computer assisted instruction, strategic planning, and technology assessment. Dick is a frequent conference committee member, including SIGCHI (Human Factors), SIGGRAPH (Graphics), EP (Electronic Publishing), RIDT (Raster Imaging and Digital Typography), and DOCPROC (Document Processing). He is known as an excellent speaker and has taught courses, seminars, and given presentations on design principals since 1975.

Jeff Lees, M.S., CUA, has worked in the professional human factors field since 1994, as a Project Director with Human Factors International, Inc. He has completed numerous projects, applying user-centered design principles to create intuitive computer interface applications. Specific areas of expertise include task flow analysis, information and navigation architecture design, screen design, screen design standards, Visual Basic programming, document creation, and management presentations. He is responsible for working directly with clients to analyze complex computer-human interface issues, and for designing systems that are more intuitive and usable. His activities require expert skills in the areas of task flow analysis, high-level architecture development, user-centered screen design, rapid prototyping, document creation, and management presentations. Jeff works effectively with client system developers and user representatives to ensure technical feasibility and satisfaction of system requirements. Jeff is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the Usability Professionals Association.

Lyle has over 10 years of experience consulting and leading design teams. He is recognized as a Web design expert, with extensive experience in Internet, intranet, extranet and corporate portal design. He is also well-versed in GUI and handheld interfaces. Lyle is a skilled facilitator who enjoys leading workshops and helping teams organize and operate in an efficient manner. He's done enough technical work in the past to be able to recommend solutions that are pragmatic and workable from a technology perspective, but will vehemently deny any ability to hack PERL code, use the scary, but powerful UNIX command line or code HTML using the vi editor. Lyle has led teams for small start-ups, and for massive multinational corporations; he enjoys the unique challenges each new project presents. Lyle is on the Board of Directors for the Usability Professionals' Association, and is past President Minnesota Chapter of the UPA.

Kim Snedaker, Manager of E-Business Services, led the effort to seek out design firms and usability specialists who could help AAA Mid-Atlantic get back on the road to usability. Happily, she says, she came across HFI. Right away, she says, "Enlightenment began to dawn."

Pat holds a Bachelor of Science degree in media communications from Webster University. He joined A.G. Edwards as a writer, focusing on instructional and promotional publications about the firm's technology. It was through this experience that Pat developed a deep understanding of how the firm's employees namely, the brokers ("financial consultants") interact with technology, what they appreciate and what frustrates them. When the usability "wake-up call" (described in this paper) came, Pat and his team were poised to take on the ensuing challenge of integrating usability practices into the firm's Web development. In 2003, Pat contributed some of his insights and experiences with initiating corporate usability practices to a new book by Human Factors International (HFI). Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-By-Step Guide was written by HFI's CEO, Dr. Eric Schaffer, and published by Addison-Wesley in February 2004.

John has worked for over 30 years as a technical writer and publications manager for software development companies, and since 1994 has specialized in documenting (and sticking his nose into designing) online and web-based applications. He has worked at large companies and small, and has seen products grow from the conception of an idea through to sunsetting. For eighteen years John taught technical communications at Harvard University Extension and University of Massachusetts, Lowell. John is also an accomplished public speaker, product demo meister, and has produced technical conferences around the world.

Mathew has been working in the areas of consulting and contracting for several years. His experience covers a broad spectrum of user-centered design work; including human factors analysis, usability testing, and interaction design. While working in the Washington, D.C. area he consulted on various military and government projects, as well as educational Web site design. After moving to Boston, he worked as a contractor for companies such as Verizon and Fidelity Investments before coming to work full-time at Human Factors International.