…or, a user experience designer, interaction designer……maybe a usability engineer? I have discovered that there are many titles that permeate this field of practice. I am in the process of finding the title that best suits me.

Currently, I am an instructional support specialist at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). Eighty percent of our class sections are conducted online using our home grown Learning Management System (LMS), known as WebTycho. This LMS was designed sometime in the late 90’s, and it suffers from some extremely poor interaction design on both the student and administration side. WebTycho is currently being overhauled. My fear is that the new design will be decided by a committee and designed from what I like to call the “ivory tower”. I am taking it upon myself to be an advocate for user centered design as this process commences. My immediate supervisor has promised to put me on the committees that handle these issues. Hopefully I will be able to help UMUC create a better user experience for our students, faculty, and staff.

I have started my first project here at UMUC that is based upon user centered design principles. The project is a website for the Masters of Distance Education program at UMUC. The techniques I will be using include research into the business goals of the organization, goal and task analysis of the users, an evaluation of the content, an iterative design process including rapid prototyping and testing, deliverables of site maps and wire frames, and formal usability testing of an implemented prototype.

Jakob Neilson has said that a successful usability program in an organization typically start small and grow as it achieves more and more buy in from the higher stakeholders. This is my plan: start small. Sprinkle the goodness of the usability lifecycle where ever I can.

I will keep you posted as to my successes and failures. Buy the ticket, take the ride.