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The usability ticket is finished. :-) Check it out and pass it on! There are two tickets (both are in the above PDF):

* One is for **usability violations**. Ever come across something that just really bugged you? Here's your chance to gripe to folks who will feel your pain.
* The other is for products whose **usability has just amazed you**. This might take a little thinking because we tend not to think about products that just work.

So, download the ticket and follow these steps to get started:

1. Find a product or object or...whatever. Just something that either works or doesn't work.
1. Take a picture or screenshot.
1. Post the picture to flickr.com. (If you don't already have an account, you will need to create one, but it is fast and free.)
1. Tag the item with "uticket" (without the quotes). This is extremely important as we won't be able to review the item you've ticketed unless you tag it with uticket (short for usability ticket). Feel free to add other tags to the photo as well (eg "usability", "design", "broken"). Wikipedia has more information on tagging (aka folksonomies).
1. Explain yourself! Add a comment on the item that describes why you ticketed the item. Love it? Hate it? Let us know!
1. Complete the paper citation and attach it to the item so other people can discover it.
1. Repeat!

And, lastly, a big thanks to Todd Robert who designed the usability ticket for us. :-) Thanks, Todd!

Now print some tickets and get started!

We've signed up five great folks for the panel!

* Dr. Barry Beith of HumanCentric Technologies
* Heather Hesketh of hesketh.com
* Beth Khalifa of Gamil Design
* Dr. Gary Marchionini of UNC's information science program
* Dr. Chris Mayhorn of NC State's human factors program

They'll judge the interactionary design competition and review some of the usability tickets.

The agenda has finally been determined. It's amazing how everything is starting to fall into place!

* **6:00 - 6:30 Food!** We're going to have pizza and drinks in the lobby of MCNC. This will be a great time for talking with old friends and getting to know new ones. Note: Please don't take the food and drinks into the auditorium. We'll be charged for any cleaning bills!
* **6:30 - 7:30 Interactionary.** We'll migrate over to the auditorium starting around 6:25 for the interactionary. We'll announce the teams and have the coin toss to see which team goes first...and then begins the competition. (Insert oohing and ahhing.) After each team designs and presents their solution, we'll announce the winner, and then we'll have a short question and answer session with the teams.
* **7:30 - 7:40 Break.** We'll take a quick break. Please, eat more pizza.
* **7:40 - 9:00 Usability Ticketing review.** We'll take as long or as short as we need to. We'll have the panelists comment on some the items people ticketed and take comments and questions from the audience.

Hope to see you there!

We've got the classic school rivalry: NC State versus UNC.

In UNC's corner, we've got:

* Anuj Sharma
* Sam Kome
* Sayan Chakraborty
* Ric Simmons

In NC State's corner, we've got:

* David Windell
* Becca Green
* Patrick Nyeste

You'll definitely want to be there to root for your alma mater. And, if like me you didn't attend either NC State or UNC, you'll want to be there anyway--it's going to be a great fight!

Two new silver sponsors have signed on:

* hesketh.com - Thanks Heather!
* Motricity - Thanks Wendy and Brian!

We've finalized plans to **have World Usability Day at MCNC**. (Here's a great picture of the MCNC campus.)

Thanks to Steve Rutland and the gang over there for accommodating us on such short notice. :-) And thanks to our sponsors, like Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, for the donations that made renting the space possible. We still need more funds to make this event as successful as possible. Please forward the sponsorship levels and benefits on to your boss if you think he or she would be willing to donate.

While the agenda has not been finalized (we're so close, now), we do know that the event will run from 6:00 - 9:00. So, if you haven't done so already, mark November 3 from 6:00 - 9:00 on your calendar.

All that said, it feels great to see everyone's hard work paying off. We've found space, the agenda is nearly finalized, most of our panelists have confirmed, the interactionary teams are almost finalized, and the usability ticket is nearly complete.

Okay, okay, we do still have a lot of items "almost" and "nearly" finished, which means that we're going to have a lot of announcements come next week. Somebody help us if we don't get this finalized by then! ;)

We've got two events coming up next week:

* **TriUPA** is meeting on Monday, October 17th at 6:30; we're meeting at the Quorum in the Raddisson hotel. Get Directions »
* **TriUX/IA Meeting/IxDG F2F** is Tuesday, October 18th from 6:00-7:30; we're meeting at Johnny Carino's in SouthPoint. Get Directions »

Hope to see you at one of these great events!

Its official! We've got our first sponsor: Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Thank you, Amanda, Anita, and Kim!

We're so close to several really interesting announcements about the Triangle's celebration of World Usability Day. I don't want to reveal anything before it's been finalized, so this post is really just to let you know that we've made some great progress these past couple of weeks. Particularly, we've

* **almost found space for the event**. This has been my top priority over the past couple of weeks, and I'm glad to say that the search has nearly come to a close. I found a great space that's centrally located and has plenty of parking. I should have everything finalized sometime next week.
* **been working on a list of sponsorship benefits** (thanks, Kim!) that will help us communicate the value of donating money to the event. I'll post the benefits here either tomorrow or sometime next week. If you think your company might be interested in donating to the event, please let me know.

There's still much to do before November 3! We're recruiting teams for the interactionary, we're recruiting judges and panelists, and we've still got to promote the event. My goal is to get 150 people to attend! It's a lot of people, I know. With your help, though, I know we can do it.

We are moving forward with our plans to host a local World Usability Day event here in the Triangle. For those that did not attend the meeting, read more about World Usability Day here. Our event will consist of the following agenda:

* **Interactionary** - "The idea is to explode the process of design by forcing insane time constraints, and asking teams of designers to work together in front of a live audience." We'll give 2-5 teams a design problem in which they will have one hour to come up with a solution 2 teams 20 minutes to solve a design problem. For more information on this, see Scott Berkun's Web site in which he documents several interactionaries.
* **Usability Ticketing** - UX experts will "ticket" usability violations, take a picture of the ticket and post it on Flickr under a common tag. People can participate in this event anywhere in the triangle. We will create a "ticket" that you can print and use.