March, 2002 – HFI Certification – Fulfilling your needs as a practitioner

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Hi. I am Dr. Eric Schaffer and I am the CEO of Human Factors International. I have with me today Dr. Phil Goddard: who's our head of training. We're going to talk in a continuing series here about usability and particularly our new certification program. I want to tell you something. About 25 years ago when I started in the field, I was with AT&T Long Lines and my job was interviewing people to see whether they'd be good usability staff. And I remembered this one woman came in to be interviewed and I said that I am going to ask you do you do usability, we called it human performance engineering. And she said oh, yes, yes. I'm an expert in that field. And I said okay. Well, if you wanted to figure out how big a character needed to be on the screen, what would you do? She just said, well, I would run a group focus session on it. And actually I think she called it a sensitivity session. I was like wow. And then everybody has different ideas and then what do you do? I mean, the real answer about it is you want to build the character that (inaudible) 70 minutes (inaudible) phobia, right? Do we get a way of testing that? But in any case we want to use the technology and not just have people with different kinds of angles. And that's part of why I think certification is so important and why I have really supported it here at HFI moving forward to make it part of our offering. So why don't, Phil why don't you give an overview about what we are going to chat about today?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Well, thank you, Eric. I am very excited to be here. I'm chief of training here and over the last 4 or 5 years as I teach throughout the United States and the world on courses on graphical interface design, I've gotten a kind of an overwhelming response and enthusiasm for people requesting some form of credential or certification for the skills and the knowledge they are learning as they take our courses. And so let me (inaudible) the empathies for this program has been a need in the field for practitioners currently designing websites and web applications to credentialize the skills and competences that they have. So that's one of the driving factors that's the basis for this program I think. And so let me set back a little bit and talk about the things that we want to cover briefly in this web cast. Let's talk about what certification is and what's available out there today. Secondly, I want to talk about human factor international certification program for the certified usability analyst and how it can fulfill one of the needs of the time. Thirdly, I'd like to talk about why human factors international is in a good position to offer this kind of certification program. And finally, I'd like to talk about what our commitment is to you. Alright. Next.

First let's talk about certification in general. Historically, it's kind of an interesting process. It always begins when some valuable skill in the market place emerges. And there are many people that claim to have that skill, many people that aspire to have that skill. And the market is looking for a means to authenticate who has that skill set. And what results is there's an establishment that's formed. People that feel they have the skill set. And there's a process that goes on by which these establishments go through a process of self definition trying to find out what the core competencies are that really define that skill. And at the essence of this is a development of a standards of practice. The standards of practice is that definition of the core competencies for any certification program. And when that's done what happens is some regulatory body is eventually formed and they come up with a means to deliver that material and to authenticate it through some exam process. And it's through that authentication, through that certification program that the market can differentiate those individuals that have the skill and those that don't.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So really in a sense, it's critical for the good of the usability field that we can distinguish who really understands this material and who doesn't.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Exactly.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: You see cases and I think one of the things that worries me as a long-time practitioner in the field is we see so many cases of people who present themselves as usability experts and then we find that they don't understand at all the basics even of how to do this work.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: There are how many times that you worked on a project may be with partners and asked them show me the methodology. And what do they say?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: It's scared. I mean, well, look at their classic mistake things like somebody said, oh usability, that means you do usability test at the end, right? And that's a disaster of course. (inaudible) to understand how to do the usability test. I have one client. And I meet with the client and they said you know we just spent $100,000 running usability test. And I thought, well, wow, that's a lot of money, but it sounds very useful. And he said that, that company that had represented themselves as usability experts, what they did was they brought in users and they sat them down in front of the screens. It was a financial planning application. And then he would say, okay, now in order to start planning you click on that button. Go ahead, click on the button. User clicked on the button. And then he'd say, was that easy? And they didn't open that.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right, you know, and the criticism that we get so often is everything in our field is common sense, right? The problem is as there is no methodology or clear use of similar designed framework that everyone is part of and has mastery of.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So what we're going to do is from now on anybody who says the field is all common sense, well, come in take this test.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Ha ha that's a good idea.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And so let's talk about what that means.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Yeah, okay. First, I want to just talk about briefly what programs are available out there for certification. Just briefly, there's 3 types. We have a software and products focus. Example would be CISCO and network administration skills. Secondly we have the very, very established human factors and ergonomics society certified professional ergonomist, the CPE program. That program has a very broad range of focus on ergonomics in general, right? Characteristic of CPE.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Absolutely. CPE has a very heavy weight. That sort of like be the Sergeant General, the surgeon of a field and it's a great program. And it's taken a long time to work out, but it is so good to have it and absolutely makes a huge difference for me when I'd be going to the client and say I'm board certified, it makes a big difference. That certification takes a lot to do and it also is a general certification. It's not, you know if you think about human factors engineering, it's a huge field that goes everywhere from cockpit design to automobiles to consumer products and software is a little part of it. I mean it's really full ergonomics certification.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right. And then actually it leads me to the third type of program which is your institutional credential, your graduate program. So there's a lot of good new human factors programs out.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And doing a Ph.D is a good thing too.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Yeah. But the kind of training that you get, that tends to be broad, theoretical, historical, and focused. And so let's talk about a little bit of the limitations of these three programs. For the software and products certification that obviously is of very little value to user interface.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: That's not on topic at all.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: It's not on topic at all. The CPE program on the other hand is a very effective program, however, the investment is very large there. As you suggested, it requires a master's degree. It requires 4 years of work in the field. It requires review of samples of work by the CPE body. And it requires a doctorate exam. So quite a few (inaudible).

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Now, we at Human Factors International endorse all of you doing that.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Yes, and I should say (inaudible) it's not (inaudible) or any other certification programs that are available in the field.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Absolutely.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: And thirdly the college degree program. It has it's power. It has it's relevance especially it's for people young in their career who are ready to focus on the discipline.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And if you're going to be a usability specialist for the rest of your life, the more education you get, the deeper your understanding of the underlying cognitive models, the underlying biomechanics and kinesiology, the underlying visual processes, the more depth you can get into, the better. No question. But certainly not everybody can go and get a master's degree. Not everybody can go and get that kind of depth. And in a sense the way I think about it, you know, if you look at what's happened in medicine, you have different levels. You have surgeons. You have GPs. You have paramedics. You have people who have first aid CPR. And that's an appropriate use of their certifications, appropriate use of their technology, because it's a way of managing things. If you have a dire situation which is absolutely critical, you're not going to go to the paramedic and say oh my gosh! I have kidney stones. Can you blast them for me? That's not going to work. You need to go to a surgeon urologist who specializes in that. Just so, if you are developing a website that's absolutely critical and you got a major problem in search, you ought to go find somebody who has a doctorate specializing in human factors and a whole lot of experience looking at search. Right. But then again there is also a role for the paramedic. And I think it is the paramedic level that we really haven't gotten in this field. There isn't a way of getting a certification that says you really know how to do a decent job using human factors research, using the methods to do the bulk of the work really.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And then hopefully knowing to next time to call in the doctor.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: There are also times to call in (inaudible).

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Well, I love to think of it in terms of a balance of specialization and generalizations, yeah. What we're missing in the field if we look at this slide at six says current programs lack relevance. What we're trying to summarize on that slide is the fact that the broad focus of ergonomics in general is a very powerful program, but it's missing some of the more pages of primary nature of software ergonomics. So the program that we're trying to target is the person who is generally trained in a very specific field, and that's our focus. It's a special form of Generals. The General does core interface design for the web. Right. So that's the audience that we are targeting here.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And that user interface design specialty however it is applied, whether you are applying it to a hand-held device or it is still very much a special kind of set of knowledge, set of skills and it's very different from somebody who'd say a forensic psychologist. Forensic psychologist goes out and deals with legal situations and product liability. That's not really what we do. People who deal with cockpit design, again it's a similar skill set. It's a similar area. If you get your CPE, it deals with all those kinds of things. But what we're doing in our CUA certification is focusing specifically on that user interface.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Exact aspect, yeah. And there are really three elements if I can talk about those. What does the web developer need? I see it as three things. First thing needs a user-centered design mindset. A framework for understanding the design process for web development here, okay. The second thing they need to have is the knowledge, the latest knowledge of the field that's relevant to interface design, right? So they need to have knowledge of what are the best techniques for navigation design? How do I create compelling content organizations that make sense for the user in a visually appealing way, right? How do I create an interaction style that maximizes input for the web? So knowledge, mostly it's knowledge. And also the tools and techniques. I think of them as tools for data gathering and for testing. So process, an overarching process framework, the latest knowledge of web design, and the techniques and tools for a assessing and gathering the right kind of information to be successful in the web.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I know that I, you know very often I am called in to look at an application. And lot of times I feel like I don't even have to look. I mean I'll come in and I'll in many cases just be able to ask a couple of questions about the skill set and methods and what they know. And if you go okay you know have you done a test analysis, and they go what's that? And you say something like well, are you going to do a usability test. And they go, well, we're doing customer acceptance. We'll just ask the customers. What do you do about that? Right? You know pretty much that they're not going to be successful so we can validate the people can do that.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right, right. Okay, good. So the next slide that I'd like to present is our CUA program. HFI Solution. And for those of you that are watching, we have a chart that I'd like to just talk to you about what we feel are the critical competencies that are important for this special usability analyst. If you look at this chart, what you'll see is it's basically organized around a user-centered design framework. A framework based on Eric's methodology the Schaffer method. Okay. Lot of people out there practicing user-centered designing realize that, that the devil is in the details. And it's this methodology uniquely implemented that we teach in our courses and it is what our exam tests.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: You have to have the Schaffer method in hand and went through that, but that's our representation of user-centered design and that's something that I think any practitioner would look at and go okay, yeah, I feel comfortable with that. I first created user-centered design, thank goodness, after what was really 25 years of solid work in systems, has gotten pretty well understood and pretty much everybody knows that there are certain things that have to be done and if you don't do your test analysis up we call it. Similarly (inaudible) but if you don't do a test analysis, you don't understand what people do, if you don't understand who they are, if you don't plan (inaudible) the test design, then you're not going to have a very good design. And so that methodology is our way of really pulling that off together with the tricks that we have in the trade.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Exactly. And I would expect that anyone watching today sees themselves in this methodology. This is not, we're not expressing anything new, but perhaps the framework and the wholeness that's coming out of this methodology is expressed in a way that you might not have seen before. One of the things that I get from the students that take our courses, thank you so much for showing me something that pulls all of the desperate types of knowledge in our discipline together in one way that I've never seen so clearly done before.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah, it is scary. Because a lot of times in the usability field I think it is very common to get a lot of individual insights. And then you might have somebody that says, look here's an insight about how color vision works. And then here's an insight about whether to use a left (inaudible). Here's an insight about makes, but holding it together into a whole view is very, very important. And we want to make sure that people do get that.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right. For e.g. Eric, out there now with those of us that have been training traditional face-to-face usability testing now have a new technology available for us, remote testing. And I see people in the field say, oh okay, why should I use that? (inaudible) my usability testing techniques are so effective. When do you use that technique? This is something that we feel people should understand in a field well. So if you look at the graph that we're talking about here, you see what we are talking about are data gathering techniques. When to use focus groups? When to use surveys? When to use a personal interview? When to use a (inaudible)? How do those come together? These are the kinds of core competencies that we feel are important for any kind of user-centered analysis. When you look at the areas of web design, we expect that the people who demonstrate the competencies of web design know about navigation designs, know about the basic navigation models and the hybrid navigation models which we are faced with designing everyday. And know when to do navigation design and know kinds of tests to employ when you finish a navigation design. Is it an exploratory test, a paper prototype, or functioning prototype? Is it a remote test? These are the kinds of competencies that we expect someone to understand to have that level of authenticity in web user interface designs. Some of the things that we have lined here are the user presentation guidelines such as effective color match, you know. How to use graphics functionally and in a usable way? The use of typography in page layout. These are all content areas under the group of presentation design.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So they are on the test.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: They are all on the test. Okay. So if you look at this framework, what we are basically outlining are the core areas that we are going to have in the certification exam.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So we believe that these are the things that if you're going to do this kind of work, then you'd better have this knowledge at your hands or it's not going to be very successful.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: So that gets us to basically summarizing what the core areas of the certification program are. For those of you that have training in this discipline, you don't have to take any more training. You can come right now and take the exam when we're offering it in April. For those of you that would like to gain a little bit more depth of understanding in these areas, we have the training programs available, we have the courses, user-centered analysis, the science and art of reflective web design, practical usability testing, and our yearly annual review of the research, okay. But the basic core kind of test is the certification exam. And I'd like to just …

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Can you take those classes (inaudible) all the tests?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: You can't.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I thought so (inaudible).

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Yes you can't. But you get a couple of …

Dr. Eric Schaffer: If that happens (inaudible). You have to work on the process.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: That's right. Well, we've made the exam in a very sophisticated, validated way so it does test these competencies. So when you are expecting all these competencies, and there are some things that anyone should know about our exam. First of all, it's available to anyone. There are no prerequisites. The test, as I mentioned, tests the core concepts that we've outlined in our user-centered design framework. It's a timed test, okay. So we're timing it to 2.5 hours and we're presenting it only four times a year in a very short, fixed time window, 24-hour period you have to take the exam.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: No one is going to understand why we are doing that.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Well, the reason for that is because we've tried to make the exam accessible by (inaudible) in a special location so (inaudible) so it's available over the web. But we understand that at any time people can get on the web and get access to the questions. And we understand people will want to do that. And what we've decided to do is in this 24-hour time period we expect that to be a narrow-enough time window such that anyone can once they actually copy the exam, try to study for it, get answers for it, whatever they can try to do and then succeed in the exam in that 24-hour period will have a hard time doing it.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So we figure the 24-hour gap is too narrow.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Exactly. And the third thing I wanted to say is elaborate measurements, its offered every quarter. So the outcome of taking the exam is to have a very, very detailed summary of your score. And …

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So it's nothing like pass, fail if we can actually say here's a diagnostic of the areas that you know all and the areas that you need to work on.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Exactly, I mean, that's the whole crux if this is an education tool. So if you see here the slide that shows becoming an HFI certified usability analyst, it has a sample of, the summary of your scores. And what you see here is it's organized by the different core competency areas. You get a summary of the score that you have, the score that's the passing score, and we're also going to include the average score of all the people who took the exam during that time window.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: So you can actually look at how you sit as compared to the other people taking the exam.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Exactly. And that's the whole thrust of this. You see where you stand in usability against your peers. So that's basically the summary of the results. And I think lastly, Eric, we should talk about like why HFI has the position to offer the certification program. I know people are asking that question. And I believe it's a result of the fact that we have the clear standards for practice. And we're not trying to compete with the CPA programs. We're not trying to compete with the other certification programs that might be in the making. We know that the Usability Professional Association UPA is in the process of forming a certification exam. We feel that this will complement any other certification program going on out there. But what we are offering is to the people that want to take our exam we're offering them a way to test their competencies. And it's based on basically four areas of our standards for practice that we think merit the foundation to our program. And the first one is that we believe we have a very effective framework for user-centered design. The Schaffer method has been time tested over the last 20 years with a lot of competent field practitioners with CPEs and Ph.Ds and its been fine tuned to an art and tailored to the practitioner in the field. And I think that's something that we haven't emphasized enough. But this methodology is tailored to the practitioner. Secondly, it's been tested by a large group of practitioners in the field, I said that already. Thirdly, it's encapsulated in our training program. So we teach what we do. And fourthly, the exam is defined to test all those core competencies. So what are the outcomes, the possible outcomes of this certification program? Firstly, we can demonstrate those individuals who have ownership of the competencies of the user-centered design method. And secondly, this provides a means to authenticate those individuals who can demonstrate competencies in these areas. So we believe it's a very powerful means of pushing forward professional certification for the web practitioner, (inaudible) designer in the field today.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I think one of the things that I see is that sometimes it's hard to get listened to as a usability specialist. There is a feeling that everybody is a human, so everybody is a human factor specialist. Everybody has got an opinion. And isn't a lot of clarity about who really understands this field and who doesn't. And there are a lot of pretenders. And so now we have a way of - based on very practical things that really apply to this kind of work, we have a way of validating, yes, I am a certified usability analyst. I understand these things and going to a developer, going to a manager saying, here, these are the kinds of decisions that I am recommending, this is going to help get you listened to at work.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: I think so too. And again, I'd just like to say that this program didn't begin with a desire to be a certifying body of any way. Never in our mission. And it didn't originate from people thinking that how could we make more money. Oh, certification, that's a great idea. That's just not in our standard operating practice. It came from the man in the field. The man in the field and people who have seen what we taught and said I appreciate this and I'd like to be recognized for it.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I think HFI has had it's goal for 20 years now spreading usability engineering techniques around the world. And we have a tradition of giving out as much as we can, in every way we can. We never hold back anything. We don't keep things secret. We want to spread this knowledge. And this certification is just one very powerful way of spreading that knowledge. Of making it standard and communicating that there is really a field here and that it's not just a lot of peoples' opinions. But there is real research. There is real science. There is real methodology. And you can gather that and validate that yes you have that knowledge.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: I'd like to invite everyone who is watching today and those in our field to come and scrutinize our program and give us feedback on our program, and share with you your user-centered design process. And we will listen. This is just the beginning I believe of an effort in our community to bring certification to those people that deserve it.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And going to a whole another level in the field.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Good.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Should we take some questions?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Let's take some questions.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Questions, are they coming in?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Do you want to read it?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Sure. How long does the test take? Is it timed?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: It is times. Actually the software will time out at 2.5 hours. There is a little leeway built in by (inaudible)

Dr. Eric Schaffer: How much leeway?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: I don't know.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: So if the clock doesn't stop at 2.5 hours, you can keep going, alright?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: But it will turn off.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: But it will turn off.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Is it open book?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: It is open book, obviously. It's an online exam. You can take it you know in the cafeteria, at school. You can take it in your library at home. And you can be surrounded with all the text that make you feel comfortable.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: But you know what, from my point of view, user interface design is an open book exam too, so.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Yeah, it's okay. We're not trying to create a stressful environment here. Those people that have taken our training obviously will have their books coming through that …

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Oh, and there's a huge literature in the field and certainly you'll have the material that you would use in a design situation. And if you have a question is red text okay on a black background, you can go and look it up. And that's fine, right?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: That is fine.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Because you'll be able to look it up later. Are there ongoing cost for activities for somebody who is being certified? I believe will it have like that CPA has an annual $100 fee.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: No. There are no renewal fees required and the certification lasts for a life time.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: However, there is a user interface update class that you may take every year. And we advice it. And that's a class. It's entirely new every year. And it just contains all the new research and the new insights and the new methodology that comes out just during the last 12 or 18 months. And if you do that, you'll get a little endorsement for doing that. But, no, the certification lasts for ever.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: We forgot to show.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Oh, the actual, yeah.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: When you take the exam and you pass, you'll get a certification.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: And another one in 12 months.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: No. It's built on time lasting and time …

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Archival paper.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Archival paperless and it has your name on it and a CUA certification number and it's good for as long as you wish it to be.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Are there open ended questions or only objective style questions on it?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: We've wrestled with this. We have basically decided to go with three types of questions. There are multiple choice, true or false questions, and fill in the blank questions which get at that kind of open question. So we will be tapping analogy base there.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: But we're looking at the objective scientific, scientific issues in the field and not wide open issues of how well you can describe things as a kind of …

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Right. But we will, we understand the value of presenting an interesting case problem and how people evaluate it. But in truth, we're looking for a mechanism that can be scored quickly and effectively. And so we will be reducing the questions down to multiple choice, true or false, and fill in the blank like. Are there more questions?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: So, Eric, what other usability certifications are out there and what about international certification?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. In the usability field, there are very few certifications available. In terms of large organizations, they (inaudible) provide any certification. The only really major one is the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics, and it's a good outfit with a good process. I carry that on my card it says CPE and I am proud of it. And that is the heavy duty surgeon level, you know, expert level certification. And that is something that we recommend and it's great and everybody should get theirselves a masters' degree with that and get that kind of certification who wants to be really in the field full time and as powerful as it could be. The practitioner level certification, the HFI one is really the only one from a large organization that is international as well and we are making it available on an international basis. So you can take this test. I know there are people – someone signed up from India this morning I heard. So great. We've got plenty of people around the world. Good. So you're deciding (inaudible)

Dr. Phil Goddard:: We're alternating that.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. So you are saying there is no level of HF certification available that's appropriate for someone like me. A trained computer scientist and software designer builder who wants to incorporate better interfaces into my products without essentially going back to school and getting another degree. That's what the HFI is, right. It's for you.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: That's … So the answer to this question is yes.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yeah, there is, from HFI.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: From HFI.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: It's for somebody who doesn't have time to go back to school, who doesn't have time to go and get a doctorate in field, and yet is going to put themselves above the masses in terms of – so many people like, yeah I read a book. You're going to have to do more than just read a book. But this is practical. If you took our training classes, if you took just art certification pack, it's 10 days of training. That's manageable even for somebody who's a busy professional in the field.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Good. If we were unable to attend the courses, is there anybody who can access the material needed to take the exam?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: In terms of the HFI material, the only way it's available is through the classes. Certainly, there's a wide set of books you can read. There's the literature in the field you can read. The Human Factor Journal you can read. The proceedings of (inaudible). There are so many places you can get it from. There are other courses as well, competing courses from other organizations. And that's good. You can take those as well and those will help prepare you for our certification.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: And perhaps we should do that, Eric. We should put a list of references out there for suggested reading.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Our website has a bibliography on it.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: It does have a (inaudible) bibliography.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I'll read this one.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Okay.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Our company has an extensive usability testing training program. Do I have to take your class to pass the test?

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Good question. Usability testing and training we feel is only one part of the competency set that a web interface designer needs. It's one thing to be able to say yes, there's problems with the interface training. There's another skill set entirely that says here's how to solve that problem. When I first started at HFI, I was a usability tester.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: That's right.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Do you remember?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I do remember.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: And so I went off, and I did my testing, and I came back, and they said, well, you did a good job, Phil. But the next thing you need to know is how to design to solve the problem. And so to answer your question, I believe that it's only one of the skill sets. And again that the test will actually evaluate four primary skill sets, user-centered analysis skills, that is data gathering coming up with the right information to design user requirements and then design from that. Web design skills including navigation, presentation, content, and interaction design. And thirdly, usability testing. And fourthly, to be current with the latest research in the field. So those are the four areas that we are targeting in our exam.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Now, it's really scary for me when somebody talks about usability as just doing usability testing, because what ends up happening is you build this whole application, then you find oh that's wrong. Well, okay, how do I do that right? We want to send it out. We'll stop. We'll do it again. Actually most of the time they just get rid of the usability testing group and put it out on the street anyway.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Here's a tough one, Eric. Are you up on a graduate program? What are some of the good graduate programs in the eastern US that do not focus solely on the theoretical but more so on the applied principles?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I think that there are numbered, but the very best one I think is VPI, Virginia Polytechnic Institute. It's got a really good program. I know, my son, he is going there for grad school.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Really?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: I could feel it coming.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Yes.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: But there is a book from the Human Factors Ergonomics Society that lists all the graduate programs in the whole United States.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Great.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: It gives you a synopsis on it and you can order it from them for about 7 bucks.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Certainly, (inaudible) would be another good check.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Very good. Texas (inaudible) so there are several there who are good. But more and more is (inaudible). When I first went to school over 25 years ago there wasn't one (inaudible) New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut there was one program and that was it. So …

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Oh really?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: (Inaudible) Okay, so why should I expect developers to listen to me more if I have your certification? They don't now. Do your customers listen to you when you tell them how to make their sites useful? That's a good question.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: There are two questions there.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Yes, there is. Firstly the power of certification question. (inaudible) has really good cartoons in it (inaudible) the power of certification.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: I believe that anyone who evaluates the competencies that we said we've laid out in our white paper, it makes a compelling case for the generalist nature of the skill set that the web user interface designer needs. And anyone that's able to pass that exam must by definition have demonstrated those generalist competencies.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: But will they really listen? The answer is may be. Certainly certification helps. And do they (inaudible), yeah. I had breakfast at 7:30 in the morning this week with the Chief Technology Officer from one of the biggest banks in Florida. And he sat down with me and he said, you know, last year we spent over half a million dollars on HFI building our next generation banking site. And it just came up. And I said well, he said the users love it. I said are you making money? He said yeah. And so we see again and again that yes, not only the people listen to us and implement what we do but it makes a difference, a measurable business difference, not just only do users like it, but they are making more money. And so that's really what it's about, that's what we're here to do. We're here to make a difference.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Last question. How does individual certification advance our field? Won't it make it harder for more people to practice usability?

Dr. Eric Schaffer: It will make it harder for more people to pretend that they are practicing usability and do a bunch of nonsense instead. Okay, that's all I've got today.

Dr. Phil Goddard:: Thank you, Eric, for joining me today.

Dr. Eric Schaffer: Okay. Thank you and thanks for being with us for the web cast.

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