Despite my doubts and anxiety about the exam, I proved once again that I’m up for anything I set my mind to: I have successfully passed the Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) exam yesterday!
I waited till today to write about it because it took a little while to sink in. I mean, it’s over! The ambitious plan that started early this year with my attempt to get into the field of usability and gain some credentials has now been realized.
For new readers of this blog, Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) is a certification offered by the world-renowned usability consulting company called Human Factors International as an entry-level certification for usability professionals. It’s the perfect kick-start for people who are passionate about this field of science like me.
My plan to achieve this certification involved traveling all the way to India for a 10-days training course in July. That went pretty well. I came back and had about 2 months to study for and prepare for the certification exam. I wasted no effort reviewing all the course materials and reading lots of online and offline literature on this subject. Finally, I devised a strategy for taking the exam that involved creating a reference sheet (PDF) to lookup any piece of information I may need during the exam (it’s an open-book one). The latter proved very useful during the 2.5 hours, 100 questions exam.
With this certification under my belt, I’m now ready to delve into the world of usability and human-computer interaction. As a matter of fact, I already have a blueprint for a usability career plan. The steps of this plan go something like this:
- Establish professional credibility by way of certification and actual practice.
- Work towards bringing usability knowledge and practices into my workplace.
- Start a dedicated blog and write regularly about different topics in usability such as user-centered design.
- When I feel confident with enough usability work to back me up, I will start giving public speeches and training sessions.
What I’m really hoping to achieve is something bigger which is to bring the science of usability into this part of the world and make people (especially those involved in IT) aware of it’s critical importance. I honestly hope to look back on this post one day and say with confidence that I’m at least one step closer to achieving this grand plan of mine. It’s not completely selfless, as I’ll hopefully become famous for this effort. But in doing so, I’ll also make the lives of many, many people easier since the institutionalization of usability means we will start making (and using) many products that are usable, useful and effective. Everybody’s life will be easier. It’s what computers were always meant to do, and it’s up to us to make them do just that.
This week is going to be a silent one at Alaeddin’s Blog as the countdown begins for my long-awaited Certified Usability Analyst exam. If you guys remember, the whole point of my trip to India in July was to take a bunch of courses to prepare me for this exam.
I’ve already been through the courses’ material twice. I read countless articles and white papers, and I’ve been through couple of fantastic books about the subject. It only seems fair to believe that I’m well-prepared for taking on and passing the exam.
However, no matter what I do I can’t seem to shake off the feeling of anxiety and anticipation. It seems that no matter what you do, exams usually have their dreadful sensation which you can’t get rid of. For me, this is mainly caused by the fear of failing. Although I do have the option of retaking the exam after 3 days in case of failure, failing this exam does a couple of things to me:
- It shakes my confidence in the career path I’ve decided upon and chose to begin with this certification.
- It sends a bad message to my friends and coworkers, possibly lowering the credibility I’m trying to establish in the field of usability.
Not to sound pessimistic, I do however believe in my knowledge and ability to pass the exam with flying colors. I’m just skeptic, that’s all. A healthy dose of skepticism is important to ground our egos in reality and level-off our expectations, don’t you think?
Posted in Career and Personal
I’m back from India!
I’ve been on a 2-week trip to India attending a 10-day course series offered by the renowned usability consulting firm called Human Factors International (HFI) (read more in my original post).
So I’m now in Dubai airport with 8 hours of waiting time till my connecting flight back home. That’s plenty of time to reflect on the whole trip and that’s what I’m going to try and do here.
Overall, I’m really glad to say that objective of the trip was achieved in excess of what I’ve expected. I got out of the courses with such solid foundation of the material that it feels like money well spent. But what’s more important is that it reaffirmed my passion for this field since it was my first official exposure to the principles and methodologies followed in the world of usability and human-computer interaction design. I can safely say now that I’ve truly found my career passion!
For the rest of this post, I’m going to make a quick run through some of my observations and experiences during the trip in general. The outline will be as follows:
- Training courses
- First impressions
- Hotel
- Food
- City (Bangalore)
- People
- Funniest moments
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It’s official: I’m taking my first step towards building my career in human-computer interaction (HCI) by attending a 4-part 10-day course series offered by the internationally renowned usability consulting firm called Human Factors International (HFI).
The courses will take place in Bangalore, India and will span 10 days from July 16-26. Taking these courses will prepare me for my ultimate objective which is to obtain their highly regarded Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) certification, which I figured is a great kick-start for me in this path. The certification exam will be done online on September 13 this year, so I’ll have plenty of time to prepare and read more resources.
I had the option of doing this training in Washington, DC but the total cost of travel and training was more than double what I’m paying now, so I chose to go with Bangalore. Besides, it’s the same certificate from the same institute here and there.
Truth be told, the hardest part about this endeavor is having to explain to people and friends what software usability is and why it’s a relevant skill to have and an awesome field of science. Without formal training though, it’s really hard form me to concisely present a case-in-point for of how sofware usability is very important consideration for software vendors. However, if I had to quote a line that best says it all, it would be this:
Software usability today is what hardware was for the 80s and software was for the 90s.
There is a lot more to be said here but this is not the subject of this post. The bottom line is that I’m very excited and looking forward to attending this training series. The arrangements for the travel are almost final and I even ordered a relevant book to read on the plane.
Wish me luck :)
I can hear people saying ‘NO’, and ‘HELL NO’ for the second question. Hey I totally agree with the first, but when it comes to ENSO, well I could argue otherwise!
First of all, for those who are not familiar with ENSO, it’s a software by Humanized that currently encompasses a program launcher and universal spellchecker/dictionary. Actually each one of those is sold separately. I gave quite a detailed overview of ENSO in a previous post, so read that if you want to find out what’s quite different and interesting about this software. But if you want to know whether the software is really worth buying, then read on.
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So I wanted to give my last post a practical sense and apply it to myself to show you a good example of how you might plan to focus your attention on the skills that matter.
As a recap, last time we came out with a conclusion that it’s neither practical nor possible to be a “jack of all trades”. We talked about the “T” model and then I showed you my version of that model where the skills are divided into 4 broad categories in order to better reflect the required depth of knowledge you need to have in each category of skills. Here’s that diagram again for reference:
Now let’s see how we can use this as a point of reference to brainstorm our relevant skills and put them all in perspective. As a bonus, I’ll be doing this exercise on myself and everybody will get to know, for the first time on this blog, what is my true passion!
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This is the second post in a series that aims to explore the potential for making our computer interactions a little less “digital” and a little more “humanized”. Specifically, I’m discussing ways to improve upon our usage of the mouse and keyboard to make them truly “human interface devices“. The first part explored our everyday usage of the computer mouse, what improvements can be made to make it more usable, and concluded by suggesting that mouse gestures can greatly aid in both making this device more usable and closer to our hearts and minds, that is, more natural!
In this part, we’ll turn our attention to the computer keyboard. This mildly sophisticated device has received the least amount of innovation in the brief history of the computing era. This is understandable, given the simple purpose of this device which is either typing or sending commands. In the typing department, one of the most notable innovations, in my opinion, was the introduction of the natural keyboard layout in 1992 by Apple and then later in 1994 by Microsoft. The latter has gained wide popularity and adoption which proved that overall people were concerned about the ergonomics and fitness of their computer usage experience. For me, I never really bought into this layout, I guess because it kind of broke my natural typing orientation.
But what I really want to bring to your attention today is a key innovation regarding the second purpose which is sending commands. Historically, most of the improvements in this area have been on fitting bunch of extra keys around the keyboard to act as shortcuts for commonly used commands. This is great! But the genius guys at Humanized have gone a step ahead and crafted a wonderful and versatile software that is way ahead of its league. What this software can do is something I’ve never seen before, and I’ve seen a lot on similar grounds. So read on to find out how this software promises to revamp your whole computing experience for good!
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Let’s think for a moment about the ways in which we interact with our computers in our present time. Without a doubt, the most dominating input devices are the mouse and the keyboard, right? People primarily rely on these input mechanisms as formal means to issue commands and type text. However, people vary according to their preference: geeks and IT professionals rely more heavily on the keyboard while beginners and computer naives learn to operate the mouse first and they stick to it.
Still, other people, especially in the publishing industry, use voice, or spoken words, as a means to dictate text as well as to tell the computer what to do. Voice recognition, as a technology, has evolved rapidly in the last decade that it’s now considered a very productive and feasible way for interacting and typing text given the right circumstances. Obviously, using voice is the most natural way for us to interact.
But what about the other popular mechanisms, namely the mouse and the keyboard? The question that inspired this post is: has these two mechanisms reached a point where it seems “natural” for us, as humans, to use them to interact with our computers? If no, then can we add a “human” touch to these devices to make them easier and more natural to use?
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