WUD Recap

A Day to Explore Important Product Issues
like Trust, Ethics, and Integrity

Amy Castellani | Reading time: about 3 min

Wednesday, November 10, 2021 wasn’t just another Wednesday — it was a celebration for the CCSQ and QualityNet community. Produced by the Human-Centered Design Center of Excellence (HCD CoE,) CCSQ’s 3^rd Annual World Usability Day was a virtual, open-house style conference held to honor and explore good design and the usability of products. This year’s theme — Design of Our Online World: Trust, Ethics, and Integrity — set the stage for a day full of engaging and thought-provoking presentations, case studies, and a panel discussion delivered by a diverse group of design and technology professionals.

Digging into the Design of Our Online World

Carol J. Smith, Sr. Research Scientist in Human-Machine Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, AI Division, led us in an exploration of trust and how UX practitioners can define and measure it during her keynote presentation. After Carol’s presentation, we welcomed Morgan Taylor, Technical Advisor of the Customer-Focused Research Group (CFRG) in the Office of Burden Reduction & Health Informatics with CMS. Morgan shared some of the CFRG’s HCD work and how the cross-agency customer engagements help build customer trust and inform policymaking. Later in the day, Rob Fay, Lead Design Strategist with Tantus Technologies, moderated a panel discussion on both bad, and empathy-driven design.  

You can learn more about all of the speakers and access session materials like recordings, presentation slides, and a link to the Collaborative Note Taking Mural Board now on the event site.

An Engaging Event

A Collaborative Note Taking Mural Board allowed attendees to interact with one another during the sessions while synthesizing and deepening their understanding of the information being presented. Breakout rooms were opened after each session to allow attendees to continue the conversation with the speakers, and at lunchtime to give attendees the chance to network with one another. The breaks between sessions were filled with thematic and fun tunes from an original trust-inspired playlist. Attendees anxiously watched in between sessions as the Wheel of Names was spun and winners of Zoom Virtual Backgrounds, Avatars, and HCD Lunch n’ Learns were announced.    

Testimonials

“I loved all of it! The speakers were great, and you could tell they are all experts. The topics were interesting and engaging and inspiring. The mural board with everyone's notes and comments was an awesome idea and I enjoyed taking notes and reading other’s thoughts. THANK YOU! I am truly impressed with the event.”

“It was great to see a bigger view of how CMS sees UX and its importance.”

“The presenters were very knowledgeable, and the material was presented in easily relatable fashion, terms and situations non-HCD people could understand.”

“Very informative - great speakers. Highly organized. All the extras - music, prizes, chats.”

Looking Forward to Next Year

Look for more information next year about World Usability Day 2022 and its theme and CCSQ events.

Visit the CCSQ World Usability Day event site now to access session materials, and visit the HCD Confluence site to learn more about the HCD CoE.