Connecticut Chapter of the Usability Professionals Association

1. CONNECTICUT CHAPTER OF USABILITY PROFESSIONALS! MARCH 22, 2009
www.ctupa.org
NEWSLETTER
Our March Meeting The 2009 Drive for
Mad*Pow is one of America’s premiere user experience firms... Members Continues!
As 2009 continues, CT UPA
will continue to provide more and
Amy Cueva,
more quality programs to our
Co!founder and members. Our membership
Chief Experiencquot; numbers are up quot; even in this tight
economy. We are dedicated to
O#cer of
provide our growing community of
Mad*Pow i$ usability professionals with
Portsmouth, opportunities to network, present
and share ideas, and learn from our
New Hampshire.
diverse professional network. Our
PayPal account is an easy way to
remit your 2009 dues quot; %25.00
Our next Chapter meeting will customer needs, and technology &%10.00 for students'. You can also
be held Thursday evening, March 26, requirements. She is the secretary send your dues snailquot;mail to
2009 at the Hartford. A map to the and one of the charter members of ctusability@gmail.com.
Hartford's Asylum Street location is the NH UPA, is speaking at UPA If you are not familiar with
provided below for your convenience. 2009, and was selected as one of PayPal, please note you don’t even
Mass High Tech’s Women to Watch
Our guest speaker for this need a PayPal account to use their
in 2009.
meeting will be Amy Cueva, Coquot; service. You can still pay your dues
founder and Chief Experience Amy will touch upon a number right from the PayPal web site by
O#cer of Mad*Pow in Portsmouth, of topics including, Turning Your using your Visa, Master Card,
New Hampshire. Mad*Pow is an Customer Experience into a Discover or American Express. Be
experience design agency that Competitive Di$erentiator, Social assured that the transaction is
specializes in developing intuitive Media for Corporate Websites: secure quot; PayPal has a spotless
user experiences for internal systems, Valuable or a Waste of Time? and reputation for protecting customer
customer facing applications, Bridging the Gap from Useful and data and employing the very
marketing sites, ecommerce sites and Usable to Visually Appealing. With a strongest encryption and data
interactive media. lively Question & Answer session, transmission technology.
there should truly be something for
Amy partners with clients like ! Michael Rawlins
everybody here. This promises to be
Google, Aetna, Fidelity, and Monster President, CT UPA
one of our liveliest and most
to create strong crossquot;channel digital michael.rawlins@gmail.com
engaging discussions ever!
strategies, first class user
experiences, and streamlined internal
! Paul Linton
processes. She built Mad*Pow's userquot;
Treasurer, CT UPA
centered design methodology as the
paul.linton@pb.com
vehicle to synergize business goals,
http://www.ctupa.org
! PAGE 1

2. CONNECTICUT CHAPTER OF USABILITY PROFESSIONALS! MARCH 22, 2009
March Meeting location:
The Hartford,
As is our custom, light refreshments will be available at 6:30, and
informal networking will ensue until the meeting commences at 7:00.
http://www.thehartford.com/
Important:
When you arrive please indicate
to the guard that you are
attending the CT UPA meeting.
He/she will direct you to park in
the Ramp Garage and to the
Tower building entrance. The
meeting will be held in the
Tower Building, Atrium
Conference Room. A Hartford
employee will be waiting for
people at the door to direct you.
A Great February Meeting...
Ride Share Program
In 2009, we are going to
be reaching out to our growing
membership for more
http://www.speedreadingpeople.com/
participation. One thought is
to “ride share” to our monthly The February meeting was extremely
meetings. It is a great way to enlightening. Polly Maglio of SpeedReading
meet fellow usability People captivated the room quot; providing new
professionals quot;quot; and cut down insights in recognizing personality types and
on the expense of traveling to responding to individual temperaments.
a chapter meeting.
These skillquot;sets are directly applicable to
If you are interested in
our usability practices and critical to
learning more about the
understanding to better connect with our
program quot;quot; please send me a
sta$s, peers, and funding stakeholders.
note, or introduce yourself to
In addition to providing a set of very useful
me at the next meeting.
job aids quot; Polly ra(ed o$ a few books
! Herb Wexler,
&example: The Art of SpeedReading People'.
Vice President CT UPA
Thank you Polly for a wonderful evening.
herbwexler@optonline.ne%
! Michael Rawlins
! PAGE 2

3. CONNECTICUT CHAPTER OF USABILITY PROFESSIONALS! MARCH 22, 2009
TOOL TIPS...
Have you heard of Twitter? Interested in talking usability on Twitter?
With over 4 million unique visitors a month There are several usability and user experience
Twitter is experiencing phenomenal growth &5) daily professionals and organizations on twitter interested
growth' and is quickly becoming the hottest in hearing from you.
technology in Silicon Valley.
What is Twitter?
Boston UPA chapter http://www.twitter.com/upaboston
Think of it as an instant messaging tool where Adaptive Path http://twitter.com/AdaptivePath
your 1quot;toquot;1 messages are made available to the public.
Jared M. Spool http://twitter.com/jmspool
It is a web service where anybody can post short
Dan Sa$er http://twitter.com/odannyboy
messages &140 character or less' and describe what
Je$rey Veen http://twitter.com/veen
they are doing/interested in. Users follow other users'
posts and engage into conversations by replying to
posts. Various topics are discussed including work
Twitter do's and don'ts
projects, politics, business deals, news items and …
user experience design and usability issues.
There are no written rules or Twitter etiquette,
Is Twitter right for You?
but I found the following guidelines helpful.
Twitter is definitely not for everybody. I love
opening it every morning to see what the rest of the
world is up to and keep glancing at it throughout the o Listen first, tweet second
day. However, it does take a good 30 minutes of my
o Engage in conversation
day to stay connected, to follow the conversation and
o Add value with compelling content
to chime in from time to time. Is that time well
spent? It absolutely is for me. As a result of Twitter r o Help out whenever you can
I have access to latest research finding from o Be honest and transparent
Forrester, Gartner and other major research firms, I
o Respect your followers &don't spam them
can ask for help if I have a question, I can exchange
ideas with true leaders in my industry and get upquot;toquot; ! with tweets of little value aka: I am
! getting co$ee'
the minute breaking news from local and national
news networks. Here is the list of common usages o Build relationships
for Twitter: o Respect others privacy
o Selfquot;expression o Be authentic
o staying in touch o Don’t exist as another version of corporate
o getting noticed, sharing ideas ! promotion. Be a person.
o building a network of likequot;minded individuals o Don’t spam, advertise or sell
o business networking o Don’t share sensitive info.
o polling others quickly for information
o Venting &there are a lot of brands on Twitter
! that are listening in and ready to help'
Continued on page 4
! PAGE 3

4. CONNECTICUT CHAPTER OF USABILITY PROFESSIONALS! MARCH 22, 2009
How do I get started with
Twitter?
b. Twitter Email Alerts
1. Set up an account by going
www.Tweetbeep.com is the
to www.twitter.com.
Google Alerts for Twitter. It allows
Remember to add your photo
you to monitor conversations that
and a onequot;line bio. Don't click
mention you, your brand, related
the box that says quot;Protect my
or competitive products, as well as
updatesquot; which means other
links to your website or blog, even
people will not be able to
if they use a shortened URL, such
follow you or see your updates
as www.tinyurl.com. You're alerted
without your permission
as your keywords appear, reducing
&defeats the purpose of having
Call for Volunteers
the need to manually search for
a Twitter account'
them.
We are seeking members to
help coordinate the monthly
2. Find twitter accounts to
Other Twitter Resources meetings.
follow and build your network
Twitter Goes Mainstream from
Check out www.Twellow.com,
WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/ We are also looking for
a service of WebProNews to
SB122461906719455335.html volunteers to present at
find people who matter to
upcoming Chapter meetings
your business or industry.
as well as write newsletter
Another similar directory
Twitter for Newbies from Barbara
articles.
service is www.wefollow.com
Gibson &IABC Chair' http://
barbgibson.x.iabc.com/2008/11/22/
If you are interested, please
3. Start by listening rather than twitterquot;tipsquot;forquot;newbies/
send a note to any of the
jumping into the conversation
Chapter O#cers.
first.
Twitter 101 from Dave Fleet
http://davefleet.com/2008/10/
4. Install a desktop application practicalquot;101squot;gettingquot;startedquot;
withquot;twitter/
to help you manage tweets
&I use www.TweetDeck.com'
and a mobile phone
application &such as
by Aneta Hall
TwitterBerry http://
&www.twitter.com/anetah '
orangatame.com/products/
twitterberry/ for Blackberries'
Not ready to jump in yet?
a. Twitter Search
There is a Twitter search
http://search.twitter.com
where you can access and
monitor certain keywords of
interest to you without setting
up your Twitter account.
! PAGE 4