Arizona UPA Meeting - Thursday, June 18, 2009

Just a reminder...

Please join us for the Arizona Usability Professionals Association (AZUPA) Chapter meeting on Thursday, June 18. AZUPA President Miguel Almaraz will present a summary of this year's International UPA conference. Miguel's presentation will include industry updates, best-practices, and other insights from his experience this week in Portland, OR (http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/conference/2009/). The conference theme this year is Bringing Usability to Life: Making everyday things better.

Other chapter meeting attendees will also be welcome to informally share their experiences from the UPA conference. In addition, you'll learn about the UPA and meet local colleagues who share a passion for all things related to creating compelling user experiences.

Speaker Bio
Miguel Almaraz is currently the User Experience Project Manager for Choice Hotels International and President of the Arizona UPA. He holds a B.S. from Arizona State University and a MBA from Western International University.

Meeting Location
The Art Institute of Phoenix
2233 West Dunlap Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona

Note: The meeting will be in room 456

Map: www.artinstitutes.edu/phoenix/AboutUs/Map_Directions.aspx

Agenda
6:00 pm Arrival, networking and light snacks
6:30 pm Brief business meeting
7:00 pm Presentation - Invited Speaker
8:00 pm Adjourn

This is a free event, but space is limited. Walk-in attendees are certainly welcome, but please RSVP to this address so that we can ensure we provide the appropriate accommodations.

You do not need to be a member to attend. Feel free to come and check us out!!! Also, please feel free to forward this message to any interested colleagues.

You are receiving this e-mail because you have signed up for the Arizona UPA mailing list, have attended a previous Arizona UPA meeting, or have attended a Phoenix World Usability Day event. If you no longer wish to be on this mailing list, simply reply to this address and request to be removed.

First-Ever Arizona UPA Meeting - Thursday, April 30, 2009

Please join us for the first-ever Arizona Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Chapter meeting on Thursday, April 30. Dean T. Barker, Director of User-Centered Design at Sage Software, will speak on integrating user-centered design into various software processes.

Dean will explain why software projects fail and how user-centered design (UCD) can be used to improve and optimize your product development methodology. He will present a structured approach to tailoring and integrating UCD into the software development process. In this presentation you will also learn about the critical gaps in your software development methodology, how to unify design and development, how to express UCD in the "language" of your methodology, how to promote usability activities within development, and how to make UCD a routine part of your software processes regardless of whether you're using waterfall, agile methods, the Rational Unified Process (RUP), or other methodologies.

You'll also learn about the UPA and meet local colleagues who share a passion for all things related to creating compelling user experiences.

Speaker Bio
Dean T. Barker is the Director of User Centered Design and User Assistance for Global CRM Solutions at Sage Software. He has over fifteen years of experience in design and software product development. He has been a co-editor and author of ISO standards for Software Quality and is co-author of the book Designing Effective Speech User Interfaces. Mr. Barker has a B.A. in Business Management and Communication and a M.S. in Software Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is also the Membership Chair for the Arizona UPA Chapter and is the Phoenix-area Local Ambassador for UXnet.org, an online community connecting people, organizations, resources, and ideas to enable the growth of User Experience as a practice.

Meeting Location
The Art Institute of Phoenix
2233 West Dunlap Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona

Note: The meeting will be in room 456

Map: www.artinstitutes.edu/phoenix/AboutUs/Map_Directions.aspx

Agenda
6:00 pm Arrival, networking and snacks
6:30 pm Brief business meeting
7:00 pm Presentation - Invited Speaker
8:00 pm Adjourn

This is a free event, but space is limited. Walk-in attendees are certainly welcome, but please RSVP to this address so that we can ensure we provide the appropriate accommodations.

You do not need to be a member to attend. Feel free to come and check us out!!! We look forward to meeting you.

"Save the Date"

Hello everyone,
Well as you may have noticed, we missed our March meeting date. For that I apologize. Despite our challenges, the "transition team" has had meetings and made great strides in formalizing our local chapter of the UPA. Thanks to everyone for their effort.

So where does that leave us now? Well, now we are at the point when I ask that you "save the date" - April 30th, 2009 because that is when we will have our first full chapter meeting.

Although we are currently working to finalize the meeting location and topic of discussion, we do know that this meeting will be free to all who want to attend. So, please feel free to invite your friends and colleagues. Stay tuned for more details.

Thanks,
Miguel.

It won't be long...

Hello everyone.
I just wanted to send out a quick update for you. The core team met last week to discuss the next steps for the Arizona UPA. I'll send out information as it is finalized, but right now, let me share with you that we are planning on having our first official full chapter meeting by mid-March. I'll keep you posted.
Thank you.

Progress and Update of Arizona UPA Chapter

Hello everyone.

I wanted to pass along a note about our growth and progress in chapter formation for the Arizona UPA.

We've had a steady stream of newcomers and signups in the past month both to our distribution list found on our website and for those that have joined the Arizona UPA outright. Thanks to you all for doing so.

For those that have joined the Arizona UPA, just so you know, your membership actually starts the day we officially form the chapter. So if you've joined in November or December of 2008, when we formalize in January 2009, only then does your yearly membership clock start ticking. So don't worry about any fees not being utilized. You're going to get your value and then some.

And that alludes to our status. We've informally completed the chapter bylaws and definitions. Our "transition team" will meet in early January to sign and formalize and then it goes to the national chapter of the UPA. So our goal is to have the first "official" meeting of the Arizona UPA in February 2009. Dates/times/places and agenda will come via this list.

So, in the interim while we are dotting i's and crossing t's, if you have any topics that you'd like to see covered, or have a speaker that would be of interest for our group, please email us and let us know. We'll be setting up the next 3-4 months of meetings in January as well, so let us know what you'd like to learn, hear, see, etc.

It's OUR group. Let's define it in our way, with what we want and build this into a very robust, active organization!

I'll talk with you soon. Have a great holiday season! And pass this along to any friends or colleagues that might be interested.

Thanksgiving Arizona UPA Membership Drive

The holidays are upon us and I wanted to make mention to you are looking to all of you to get the word out to your friends and colleagues and have them join the Arizona UPA Chapter or at the very least make sure they get on our mailing list.

We had a nice turnout at the World Usability Day and had some people join up as well as sign up for the updates, but we'd like to get everybody we can involved in this chapter, either through regular email correspondence and updates or as actual Arizona UPA members.

We are finalizing the chapter paperwork and should have that resolved at the in December with the goal of having our first formal meeting in January 2009.  Place/time are obviously TBD, but anyone and everyone that joins in December will essentially get December for free as we will be extending the 12-month membership to 13 months for all of our charter members.  Just an incentinve to have you join this year and extend through December 2009.

Anyway, we'd like to hear from you as well about topics areas of focus to cover in 2009 as we will begin working on our agenda for the first 6 months of meetings this month.  Any/all information, requests and suggestions are appreciated.

Again, thanks for signing up for updates here and joining (if you've done so already.)  Keep spreading the word and sending colleagues this site link: http://www.arizonaupa.org.  

We'll see/talk to you soon!!  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Success at World Usability Day in Phoenix

Thanks to everyone who came to the World Usability Day in Phoenix last night.  Last night's event was the fourth annual global event to create awareness for usability. 

It was a great time to meet new people and network with those in our industry.  As we progress with AZ UPA chapter formation (more on that in future emails/posts), we'll likely see each other again!

Special thanks to go out to our hosts, the Art Institute of Phoenix, our guest speakers, companies that donated gifts for our raffle and Theo Mandel from Interface Design and Development for organizing another WUD event.  

We also want to thank Hillary Foose of Metro Light Rail who graciously gave a keynote for us that related transportation to usability and provided us with details on Metro Light Rail and what we can expect to see in the coming months. 

Again, a great event and thanks to all who attended.  

PS:  Be sure to tell your colleagues about Arizona UPA and to have them sign up on this site for updates or to join.  There is knowledge, strength and great networking in numbers!