Each year, on the second Thursday of November, events are organized in more than 44 countries around the world to raise the public’s awareness, and to train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.
According to the Usability Professionals’ Association:
It’s about making our world work better.
It’s about "Making Life Easy" and user friendly. Technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy to access as a doorknob. In order to humanize a world that uses technology as an infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, government, communication, entertainment, work and other areas, we must develop these technologies in a way that serves people first…
World Usability Day was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, on the second Thursday of November, over 200 events are organized in over 43 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.
This year’s Honorary Chairman for World Usability Day is John Hockenberry, an American journalist best known for his work on NPR. Asked for his thoughts on communication and usability, Hockenberry said:
The essence of good design is communication. Our relationship with objects and systems is a measure of how well they communicate our needs and feed back information. Usability is all about widening the channels of information so that our tools are designed to function effectively over the widest possible lifespan. Distinguishing between short-term individual wants and long-term community needs is the intelligent alternative to the prevailing strategy of growth for its own sake. The alternative to usability is uselessness.
Learn more about World Usability Day and find events near you by visiting http://www.worldusabilityday.org/