Designing Effective Technologies Through the Use Of Personas

Designing Effective Technologies Through the Use of Personas as Developed in AAC Research and at Microsoft, Inc.

Presenters: Jeff Higginbotham, Ph.D. Professor, Dept. Communicative Disorders & Sciences, SUNY at Buffalo

                       Annuska Perkins, Senior Program Manager for Microsoft Accessible Technology Group

Webinar Held on: Tue. April 24, 2012

Time: 1:00 – 2:30 PM Eastern
 

ARCHIVE FOR WEBINAR HELD ON 4/24/2012  -  There is no fee for this webinar.
 

Description:

Join the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) Research Committee for a discussion of the development and application of user descriptions, or user personalities, to help guide in the design of effective technologies and user interfaces. For individuals with disabilities this can lead to the incorporation of adaptive strategies that can result in improved product performance.

Personas are frequently developed for use in product design, especially for consumer-based products and user interfaces. A user persona consists of the goals, values and behavior of a group based on the behavior patterns of individuals. Dr. Higginbotham will address using personas of individuals with ALS for use in designing new AAC technologies and AAC interfaces. Annuska Perkins will talk about Microsoft’s approach to using inclusive personas. She will address the benefits and challenges of applying personas throughout the software development lifecycle.
 

Learning Goals:

As a result of this webinar participants will be able to:

1.      Define what a Persona is and identify examples.

2.      Identify the value of using Personas in product design.

3.      Explore how personas have been used in products design and research.

4.      Describe how to construct a Persona.
 

Who should attend?

• Development, marketing, and design staff of learning and assistive technology companies interested in understanding the power of Personas to address key questions about their consumers and products.
• University researchers interested in learning how Personas have been used in other research or may be considering using personas in upcoming projects.
   

Biographies:

Annuska Perkins is a Senior Program Manager for Microsoft, Inc. As a member of the Trustworthy Computing Accessibility group, she consults with Microsoft product groups on accessible technology. Her focus is on making products more useable and intuitive for people with disabilities and situational impediments. She has extensive experience in research and design for Natural User Interfaces built upon a deep knowledge of accessibility user needs and expertise in accessible technology. She helped redesign the Windows operating system Ease of Access settings based upon market research. She is a renowned industry resource for insights into accessibility and usability. She was on the Advisory Board for the National Center for Technology Innovation, and is now a member of the Cloud4All project.
 

Dr. Jeff Higginbotham is the director of the Center for Excellence in Augmented Communication (CEAC) at the University of Buffalo, and a partner in the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Communication Enhancement (AAC-RERC). He is involved with several projects that focus on how AAC communication technologies can be designed to improve performance, and also the development of new technology to enable augmented communicators to access the internet as a vocabulary source. The University of Buffalo, along with several other schools and agencies including Duke University, Temple University, Penn State University, University of Nebraska, and Boston’s Children’s hospital and Augmentative Communication, Inc. are all members of the AAC-RERC, a collaborative research group committed to the development of effective AAC technology. The AAC-RERC is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR).