CHI 2005 Workshop Focus on the Individual: The Future of Web-Based Product Support Organizers: & Design Technologies, Inc. 4435 SW Carl Place Portland, OR 97239 USA +1 503 497-9082 , , & Intel Corporation Hillsboro, Oregon 97123 USA Overview Call for Participation CHI 2005 Workshop Abstract Workshop Format Plan Organizers' Background Call for Participation This one-day workshop will focus on issues of personalization in technical product support sites, identify the rationale for these personalization efforts, and start to find trends and strategies for future research and development of personalization to aid current customers. Product support site web design, specifically in the realm of personalization, has unique characteristics since the user has already made an investment in the product and is now in a partnership with the product's manufacturer and in a potential community with other owners. The many potential forms of personalization present tradeoffs in terms of complexity, competitiveness, customer characterization, and cost while the efficacy of the effort is not always measurable or an improvement. Thus, it is critical to develop strategies for pinpointing the appropriate level of personalization for customers and future research efforts needed. Participants will be selected based on their experience in support site personalization. Experiences illuminating the failure of personalization attempts are just as valuable to this workshop as successful experiences. Prospective participants are invited to submit a 2-3 page position statement that includes: (1) Background: Your background in the area and a short description of some pertinent projects you have worked on. (2) Position: Describe your position in terms of the following 3 questions: What are the forms of personalization you currently or plan to provide to your end customer? What was the rationale for these personalization efforts? If possible, what level of success have these personalization efforts achieved, and how was the success or failure measured? (3) Sample Materials: Product support web sites with personalization attributes or plans for them. Submit position papers to by January 17, 2005. Back to Top CHI 2005 Workshop Abstract The abstract is the 2 page document that will be available in the CHI'2005 Proceedings. Back to Top Workshop Format Plan Pre-Workshop Attendees will be invited to submit 2-3 page position papers prior to the workshop that answer the key 3 questions of the workshop outlines below. Invited attendees will be culled from CHI members as well as members of the Association of Support Professionals organization who often attend CHI conferences. Twelve to 15 individuals will be selected in addition to the workshop organizers to attend. Once selected, the position papers will be shared among selected attendees on the workshop web site hosted at www.designtech.com prior to the workshop. Workshop Day This one-day workshop will consist of a series of activities targeted at examining personalization of product support site content. In the morning, workshop participants will make a very short presentation of their reasons for attending the workshop, strictly limited to three slides, five minutes total. The last slide is strictly limited to answering the following three questions that summarize the materials and experience brought by the participant, related to this workshop's focus. The questions are: 1. What are the forms of personalization you currently employ or plan to provide to your end customer? 2. What was the rationale for these personalization efforts? 3. If possible, what levels of success have these personalization efforts achieved, and how was the success or failure measured? In the afternoon, workshop participants will identify strategies, trends, variations, and issues in the personalization of support web sites. This examination will shed light on the future of research and development efforts required to provide personalized services to the community of product owners. Post-Workshop Notes from the full-day workshop will be published to the www.designtech.com web site for general consumption. Results of the workshop will most likely take the form of an article for interactions or another suitable publication appropriate to the audience. Back to Top Organizers' Background Susan Palmiter has 13 years experience consulting with start-up firms to Fortune 100 corporations in the areas of user interface design, customer requirements definition, product planning, usability walkthroughs and testing, process improvement, and competitive analysis. Specifically, she has consulted with Intel's eSupport organization for the past 5 years in the areas of personalization & notification, search, online communities, live support agent processes, and support data tools. She has numerous publications and has presented tutorials related to Human Computer Interaction. She teaches a graduate course in Scenario-based Usability Engineering at Portland State University. Gene Lynch has 15 years experience consulting on usability and product design and 16 years industry experience in product development and in leading the research, development, and implementation of a 3-phased customer-centered design process for interactive products. He is experienced in tailoring these processes to specific product and organizational needs. Prior to the founding of Design Technologies, Dr. Lynch was the Director of Tektronix Design Technology Laboratory, where he was responsible for Corporate Customer-Centered Research & Design, Software Tools, Software Process Improvement Program, and Corporate Industrial Design. He chaired the ANSI/HFS 100 Committee, Co-Chaired CHI'90, and has been a frequent technical contributor to the CHI conferences as author, presenter, panelist, tutorial instructor, workshop leader and participant. He was a technical co-chair for CHI '92, and was ACM/SIGCHI¹s Vice-Chair for Conferences from 1993-1998. In 2004, Gene received SIGCHI's Lifetime Service Award. Jennifer Day is a Product Web Site Program Manager and Web Strategist in Intel's eSupport organization. She works with content authors and Web application owners to post and manage technical support content on support.intel.com. She has performed regular analysis from customer surveys and usability studies to drive site improvements. As Web Strategist she is researching and developing seed projects for future Web technologies and capabilities implementation. Melinda Geist is a Product Manager and Business Analyst for Intel's eSupport organization. She is responsible for several of the support tools and Web services used by Intel business and consumer customers. Prior to her position in eSupport, Melinda provided project and design management for various Intel consumer products and Web services. Bryan Rhoads is Web Strategist for Intel's support web systems and has introduced innovative and forward-looking online experiences that are committed to driving stronger online relationships with Intel's customers. Bryan has lead teams that design systems and Web-based tools that are adaptive to users. His team has collaborated with the Center for eBusiness at MIT to research how online tools increase user trust and how that increased trust can affect customer experience on Intel's support site. His most recent research involves implicit personalization and web-usage mining. Bryan has enjoyed a unique career that encompasses media development, imaging, digital watermarking, and encryption. Back to Top Design Technologies Portland, OR Copyright © 2009 by Design Technologies