About Whitney

I am a user experience researcher with a passion for clear communication.

I work with organizations including the National Cancer Institute (cancer.gov), IEEE, The Open University and Sage Software to help them create better user experiences. Most of all I enjoy learning about people around the world and using those insights to design products where people matter.

As the daughter of a librarian and an English professor, I came by my interest in communication, plain language, and design honestly.

I have written two books:

• Storytelling for User Experience: Crafting stories for better design, with Kevin Brooks
  
  
• Global UX: Design and research in a connected world, with Daniel Szuc, is based on interviews with more than 60 UX practitioners around the world. (Due out November 1, 2011)

I lead the Usability in Civic Life project, mobilizing UX professionals to participate in civic design projects. Our usability testing has helped improve ballots and other election materials in New York, Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire and more.

I served on two US government advisory committees: f

• For the U.S. Access Board (TEITAC) to update the “Section 508” accessibilty regulations
• Chair for Human Factors and Privacy on the Elections Assistance Commission's advisory committee (TGDC) creating requirements for voting systems for US elections.

I have also been president of the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA), on am currently on the board of the Center for Plain Language. And, I'm a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).

Before I was seduced by a little beige computer into software, usability, and interface design, I was a theatrical lighting designer on and off Broadway, learning about storytelling from some of the masters. The lessons from the theatre stay with me in creating user experiences.

Some of my favorite productions were Poppie Nongena, a South-African musical theatre hit, Brecht's A Man's A Man with Bill Murray and assisting on Laurie Anderson's United States I-IV. I taught lighting for several years at Bard College, where I developed her skills in on-the-job mentoring.

I was in the first generation of people trained on computerize lighting control boards, and thought that all computers were carefully designed to fit the needs of those who worked with them. My first experience with personal computers was working on a theatrical lighting data management system for the Apollo Theatre in New York.

My early work at Cognetics centered around Hyperties, a pre-Web hypertext program. I earned my credit as a technical writer on the user manual, and designed reference databases, online books, safety manuals and the HP Laser-Jet 4 online documentation. Work with large information sets, especially her work on library reference CD-ROMs for The Gale Group, Primary Source Media and Macmillan Library Reference, gave me practical experience in search and structuring information for easy access.

A few awards and accomplishments I'm proud of are:

• A 2011 NCI Director's Award for AccrualNet
• The 1996 Best of Show in the STC International Online Competition for a multimedia CD-ROM on the benefits of non-traditional documentation for AT&T/Lucent
• A 2001 Frank R. Smith Outstanding Journal Article wared for "On Beyond Help - User Assistance and the User Interface" in STC's Technical Communication journal
• That "Dimensions of Usability” from the anthology Content and Complexity turns up on so many course reading lists.

 

"It's exciting when my work changes people's lives for better."

Roles: User exerience research, usability, accessibility, plain language

Goals: Usable accessibility for every product, web site and application

Objectives: Get everyone to listen to the stories that people tell, and use them in their designs

Contact

Whitney Quesenbery
78 Washington Avenue
High Bridge, NJ 08829

whitneyq at wqusability dot com
phone: 908-638-5467
www.WQusability.com

Whitney is an associate of