STC Washington, DC Chapter, Past Chapter Event

Registration is required for this event and
must be made by 9 p.m., Wednesday, 7 February 2007 (for luncheon) and to 9 p.m., Thursday, 8 February 2007 (for workshop).
To register, complete the online Event Registration form.

Share the Awards Banquet Flyer (115.3 K PDF) with family and co-workers.

Don't forget your business cards for networking!

About the Event • About the Speaker • Event Schedule • Food • Fees
Directions • Registration, Payment & Cancellations • Questions

2006-2007 Competition Awards Celebration

Technical Publications and Online Communication Competitions

Whether or not you participated in the competition this year, come out and see the winning entries, meet the judges, cheer on the winners, and enjoy a delicious lunch. This is a perfect opportunity not only for networking but for getting your eyes and hands on the state of the art in technical communication. Documentation managers, bring your teams to encourage their competitive spirit. Maybe you'll be encouraged to enter the competition next year!

Keynote Address: "Writing (and Designing) for Diverse Audiences: Content, Culture, and Usability"

Whitney Quesenbery will deliver the keynote address—Two current themes in technical communication are the globalisation of our work and personal lives, and the push to provide universal usability and accessibility. We find ourselves writing and designing for increasingly diverse audiences – people from many different cultures and with many different usability needs. Can one size fit all, and if not, how do you sort out conflicting requirements? We will look at these issues, some of the user research in the field, and some approaches to universal usability that bridge gaps in content, culture, and usability.

Choosing the Right Usability Technique Workshop

Whitney Quesenbery will facilitate the workshop—There are many usability techniques, from heuristic reviews to remote testing. Each has it's own advantages and requirements. Selecting the right techniques is critical to a successful project. That first decision affects the resources and budget needed, and can determine whether you can provide useful and effective information to improve a product. This workshop will review different options for usability evaluations and look at how they can be used most effectively. Whether you are planning your first usability research or your hundredth, this workshop will help you match the right usability technique to your goals, to get the answers you need to improve your products, documentation and web sites.

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About the Speaker

photo of Whitney Quesenbery Whitney Quesenbery is a user researcher, user experience practitioner, and usability expert with a passion for clear communication. She has been in the field since 1989, helping companies from The Open University to the National Cancer Institute develop usable web sites and applications.

She has worked on standards and methodologies more than she cares to admit. She is currently working on a project to develop guidelines for usability test reporting. As chair for a subcommittee on Human Factors and Privacy for the Elections Assistance Commission, she works to improve the usability and accessibility of voting systems. She is also a member of the advisory committee working with the Access Board to update Section 508.

Her most recent publication is a chapter on "Storytelling and Narrative" in a new book on personas, The Personas Lifecycle, by Pruitt and Adlin. She's also proud that one of her articles won an award as a Society for Technical Communication (STC) Outstanding Journal Article, and that her chapter "Dimensions of Usability" in Content and Complexity turns up on so many course reading lists. Her column, "People Matter", appears in UXmatters (http://www.uxmatters.com).

Whitney has served as President of the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA), and manager for the STC Usability SIG. She manages a popular usability web site at http://www.stcsig.org/usability. She helped launch World Usability Day on 3 November 2005, bringing together people at over 100 sites around the world to highlight the need to "make it easy".

Before she was seduced by a little beige computer into software, usability, and interface design, Whitney was a theatrical lighting designer on and off Broadway. She has a degree from Bryn Mawr College and attended the National Theatre Institute.

You can find her online at http://www.WQusability.com

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Event Schedule

Date: Saturday, 10 February 2007

Time

Description

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Workshop registration and display of winning entries

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Workshop: "Choosing the Right Usability Technique" Facilitator: Whitney Quesenbery

11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Banquet registration and display of winning entries

12:15 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Lunch, Introductions,
Keynote: "Writing (and Designing) for Diverse Audiences: Content, Culture, and Usability" Speaker: Whitney Quesenbery

1:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Awards Ceremony

For more information about the awards banquet or workshop, please contact the Events Committee Manager, Vacant , at .

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Salad: Traditional Greek Salad—Vine Ripe Tomatoes, Feta Cheese, Kalamata Olives, Cucumbers, Sliced Onions with a Red Wine/Oregano Vinaigrette
Option 1 (Chicken): Pesto Seared Chicken Carbonara—A Breast of Chicken Marinated in Basil Pesto and Seared till Golden. Served over Linguini with a Bacon, Egg & Parmesan Cream Sauce
Option 2 (Fish): Potato Crusted Costa Rican Tilapia—Served with Roasted Tomato Orzo with a Smokey Chipotle Remoulade & Seasonal Vegetables
Option 3 (Vegetarian): Four Cheese Ravioli—Served in a Gorgonzola Cream Sauce with Tomato Concassé & Fresh Herbs
Dessert: Chocolate Pyramid—Rich Chocolate Mousse Enrobed in Dark Chocolate with Whipped Cream
Beverages: Freshly Brewed Coffee
Decaffeinated Coffee
Tea

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Fees

Chapter officers may attend the awards ceremony and workshop for free. Please complete the online Event Registration form. so that we know which entrée to order for you.

Choose one of the following two fee structures.

1. Attendance at either the Awards Ceremony Luncheon OR the Workshop:

$30

Judges, entrants, students, Competition Committee members, and event volunteers **

$50

STC Members

$70

Nonmembers

2. Combo: Attendance at the Awards Ceremony Luncheon AND the Workshop
(a savings of $20-$60):

$40

Judges, entrants, students, Competition Committee members, and event volunteers **

$60

STC Members

$80

Nonmembers

** Please contact if you are interested in volunteering for this event to confirm your volunteer role. Only confirmed volunteers are eligible for the event volunteer rate.

Registration

All attendees must register and pay in advance. To register for this event, complete the online Event Registrationform.

Registration and cancellation deadline: 9 p.m., Wednesday, 7 February 2007 (for luncheon) and to 9 p.m., Thursday, 8 February 2007 (for workshop). Payments by check or PayPal must be received by this date.

Admission fees help to offset the costs of our events. Fees may vary from time to time because of the costs of food and beverages, room rental, and other services. Our attendees pay slightly different fees depending on whether they are STC members, nonmembers, students, chapter volunteers, or walk-ins. We also sometimes offer a program-only option for programs that are not held in restaurants.

If your presence is necessary at the event, you are entitled to a reduced admission fee for that event. If you would like to help and thereby qualify for this discount, contact the Events Committee Manager, Vacant , at . Note that we do not accept last-minute volunteers unless we have an unanticipated need for extra help.

Payment

You may pay by sending a check through the U.S. Mail or by making a secure online payment through our PayPal page using your credit card, debit card, bank account, or by paying money from a funded PayPal account. (Using PayPal allows you to make purchases without revealing your credit card number or financial information to us.)

If you have already registered and would like to submit a payment by check or through our PayPal page, see the Event Registration page for more detailed information about making a payment.

Cancellations

To cancel a registration, contact the Events Committee Manager, Vacant , at by 9 p.m., Wednesday, 7 February 2007 (for luncheon) and to 9 p.m., Thursday, 8 February 2007 (for workshop). No shows who do not notify us that they need to cancel will be billed.

Questions

Program topics may be substituted without notice because of unforeseen circumstances. If you have questions about this, or any other questions about this event, please contact the Events Committee Manager, Vacant , at .

Current Chapter Volunteers

Your STC chapter is able to provide excellent events in part because of its many volunteers. A chapter volunteer is a member of the Washington DC chapter who is actively providing time and talents to events held in the current chapter year. The chapter year begins on July 1 of each year and ends on June 30 of the following year.

For some events, a reduced fee is available to current chapter volunteers. To be eligible for this reduced rate, you must be someone who meets at least one condition in the following definition of current chapter volunteers:

People who arrange in advance to help organize and run the event that they attend at the volunteer rate
Active committee managers and members
Judges in the current year's competitions
Members of the current year's administrative council

We also offer a volunteer rate to fellows and associate fellows in recognition of their years of service to STC.

Directions

photo of the Embassy Suites - Convention Center Hotel

historic Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR) Bacon House
1801 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202-682-0500
URL: (for information and pictures): http://dacorbacon.org/DACOR/DACOR_MAIN.htm

Map and directions to the historic Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR) Bacon House in Washington, D.C.

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