Author: Alisa Hamai, Usability Engineer - Oracle User Experience Co-Chair, Oracle Usability Advisory Board, Anna Wichansky, Senior Director - Oracle User Experience Chair, Oracle Usability Advisory Board
October 23, 2008

Anna Wichansky

Alisa Hamai

The Oracle Usability Advisory Board hosted its first User Experience SIG at Oracle OpenWorld on Sunday, September 21, 2008. The advisory board consists of a network of committed customers who are willing to work on joint usability projects in concert with Oracle’s User Experience groups. The agenda for the meeting included: background about the Oracle Usability Advisory Board, working groups’ progress and activities, and a dialogue with the audience about customers’ user experiences with Applications Unlimited and other enterprise computing products.

The session was run by a panel of board members representing the three board working groups, and Anna Wichansky, Senior Director of Oracle and Chair of the Board. Working group panelists were: Carrie Medders (San Jose State University), Pat Dues (City of Las Vegas), Steven Canter (Berlin Packaging), Nick Popovic (Agilent Technologies, Inc.), and Sarah Gatenby (Santa Clara University).

Anna Wichansky provided background on why the board was founded, its current membership, requirements for members, and current goals. The board consists of 35 members in 25 diverse organizations who are dedicated to bringing the usability of enterprise software to a whole new level.

Carrie Medders (San Jose State University) and Pat Dues (City of Las Vegas) were the panel presenters for the Consistency & Design Working Group presentation. This working group consists of 10 active members and is developing ways to provide feedback to Oracle on current product offerings’ user interfaces, include mobile applications.

Steven Canter (Berlin Packaging) and Nick Popovic (Agilent Technologies, Inc.) were the panel presenters for the Integration & Performance Working Group. This group is currently addressing topics such as integration challenges (for example, user interface integration and navigation), potential integration solutions (master data management), and performance challenges (for example, performance should be use-case dependent).

Following the Integration & Performance Working Group presentation, Sarah Gatenby (Santa Clara University) was the panel presenter for the Web 2.0 Technologies Working Group presentation. This group is looking ahead to potential uses and integration with Web 2.0 features such as social networking and tagging. Comments made by the audience and panel members throughout these discussions included the following topics:

• The audience and panel members were tied in terms of number of smartphone users with Apple iPhones vs. RIM Blackberries.
• Benchmark performance time targets were discussed for queries and crawls of search engines.
• Customers are having internal discussions about Web 2.0 features and slowly implementing wikis and instant messaging.
• Social networks are seen to have tremendous potential for expanding online learning and professional business collaboration.

A copy of the presentation can be found on the Usable Apps Web site.

More information about the Oracle Usability Advisory Board can be found on the Usable Apps Web site.