Web Usability, Software User Experience, and Social Media: by Michel Ann Sharritt, VP of Situated Research

Topics include: How usability affects social media marketing; How placement and quantity of social media buttons affect their usage; Strategies for an effective social media marketing plan, specific to your industry; Measurement of your web marketing effectiveness; Quantifying social media conversations and social media efforts; Gauging the tone of blog posts, video views, search results and comments; Measuring the return on your effort.

Topics include: Designing usability into mobile applications (apps); Mobile users vs. traditional users; Point and click vs. gestures, swiping and flipping orientation; Designing simplicity and clear calls to action on mobile devices; Content simplicity vs. complexity: determining how much mobile content to present; Choosing between responsive website design (layout) and custom mobile websites; Maintaining good usability and functionality across mobile phones, tablets and computers; Guidelines for font size, content, alerts and registration; Usability research methods to understand users' workflows and tasks; Conducting longitudinal studies to assess how users adapt over time; Contextualizing 'situated' use to see actual usage scenarios in real-life contexts.

Topics include: Designing usability into dashboards; Differences between actionable dashboards and customized homepages; Creating simplicity and clear calls to action; Compromising between simplicity for novice users and complexity for power users; Choosing data visualizations and appropriate color psychology that makes sense; Distinguishing good user interfaces (UI) from good usability (functionality); Usability research methods to understand users' workflows and tasks; Prioritizing different usage scenarios to display the most relevant information; Contextualizing use to see actual usage scenarios.

Topics include: Evaluate whether you need to redesign, update, or make changes to your current website; Decide if working with a website firm is your best option; Reach new clients through better Search Engine Optimization; Understand the steps involved in redesigning a website; What to look for when hiring a web design firm; Learn about accurate pricing for a website; How to write content that matters.

Topics include: Differentiating Quality Assurance (QA) from usability research; Problems with starting usability research at the end of the development life cycle; Modeling gamer psychology and gamer challenges; Designing engagement to motivate players through goals and failures; Problems with standard usability tests such as the RITE method.

Topics include: How interfaces affect users; Conceptualizing user interaction to design meaningful use; Designing for collaboration; Users' activity and performance; Comparing your software with competitive products; Methods to incorporate usability into the design process.

Topics include: Defining social networking and social media; How to utilize the power of the most popular social networks; How to use each social network most effectively; How to develop a basic marketing plan; Long-term benefits of participation.

Topics include: Qualitative vs. Quantitative usability research; When to use expert reviews; Conducting usability tests in-house and when to bring in independent experts; How many users to test; Sizing up your competition via competitive benchmarking; Improving efficiency vs. improving the quality of interaction.

Topics include: Examining user interaction, collaboration, and engagement with human-computer interfaces; Benefits of usability research, such as increased sales, better customer loyalty, higher user productivity and lower maintenance costs; Basics of Interaction Design, and how it affects everyday products you use; Designing products for collaborative use and happy users; Qualitative vs. quantitative usability research; Different types of testing and research for particular products and design situations; How your product's usability directly impacts your brand image, and your bottom line.

Topics include: How to turn your business into a social enterprise; Effective blogging practices to get your content shared, and start positive discussions about your product or business; Generating leads through social media and visits to your website; Pushing your message out to pull clients in; Research-proven best practices for selecting interactive, usable website content; Integration of your brand on your website, ads, apps, social media pages, and company blog.