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Presentation: "The Cognitive Abilities of Human Beings - Why Some Things are Just so Darn Hard!"

Track: Experience Design / Time: Wednesday 13:20 - 14:10 / Location: Kammermusiksalen, Musikhuset

The focus in usability is often on guidelines, do's and don'ts etc., the reason being, that if these guidelines are broken, the user usually has difficulties using the system. And then the explanation stops there. Rarely/never is it discussed, why this makes it hard for the user. Why are some things just so darn hard for the user? What exactly is it, that makes it so hard?

This talk will go into the psychological theories and explanations, that lie behind the difficulties the user experiences when guidelines are broken. By understanding these psychological explanations, we in turn become better at understanding what to strive for and what to avoid, when designing interfaces, because we understand why.

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Janne Jul Jensen, Interaction Designer and Usability Specialist

Janne Jul Jensen

Biography: Janne Jul Jensen

Janne Jul Jensen is an interaction designer at Trifork A/S. She specialises in usability, human-computer interaction and interaction design, and applies her expertise to the mobile app projects within Trifork, most recently the Danske Bank mobilbank project. She also gives courses internally and externally on her topics of expertise and has recently started a series of GOTO-nights on UX for mobile apps, where peers can meet, get inspired, share experiences and learn from eachother.

Previously she was a researcher at Aalborg University for seven years, successfully collaborating nationally and internationally with academia and privately held companies on a number of projects spanning from web accessibility for motor handicapped users to design and evaluation of usability for children. This research resulted in a number of publications. Furthermore, she reviewed for conferences and journals and co-organized smaller conferences. Apart from her research, she taught HCI to undergraduate and graduate students and supervised student projects on these topics. She earned her Ph.D. degree in 2009 and a M.Sc. in Software Engineering in 2003, both from Aalborg University.

Twitter: @jjjtrifork
Ph.D. thesis
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