IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM

7:00 PM, Thursday, January 21, 2010

IBM Innovation Center, 404 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA

Revealing Design Treasures from The Amazon

Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

On its surface, Amazon.com just seems like a large e-commerce site, albeit a successful one. Its design isn't flashy, nor is it much to write home about. But deep within its pages are hidden secrets -- secrets that every designer should know about. If one looks closely at what the team at Amazon has built, it's filled with innovative functionality and clever designs, all of which creates a delightful experience for its users and directly produces regular profits for its shareholders. But not all is perfect. Some design changes in the last few years have not been the success that the team had hoped for. Amazon's exceptional qualities and imperfections are critical knowledge for any designer that wants to dig deep into what makes the site tick. In this entertaining presentation, Jared will share some of UIE's latest research into the hidden treasures of (the) Amazon. You'll learn:

• The simple Yes/No question that increased revenues by more than $1 billion
• The elegant subtlety of Amazon's security system
• Why Amazon's business model is more than meets the eye (and why designers need to care)
• The wins and losses that Amazon has had with social media functionality

If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers. Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.

The IBM Innovation Center < https://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/isv/spc/waltham.pdf> is located at 404 Wyman Street, Waltham. There is free parking in the garage at the north end of the building. To reach the meeting room, walk out the front of the garage and around to your right to the front door of the building. Directions to the room will be available when you sign in at the front desk.

We will be taking Jared to dinner at the Green Papaya after the talk at about 9pm.

Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at https://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.

For more information contact Peter Mager (p.mager at computer.org)

Updated: November 18, 2009.