New Media Institutes, Usability Testing, A Photo Booth, and More: Preview of AIDS.gov's Activities at the U.S. Conference on AIDS

By Jennie Anderson

What do new media institutes, usability, and a BIG RED photo booth have in common?

They are some of activities we're planning for later this month at the U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA) . This annual conference, hosted by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) , will take place October 29-31st in San Francisco and will bring together public health experts, people living with HIV, government employees, activists, and community leaders from across the country (and a few from around the world!). We're so grateful to the organizers of USCA — they've put together a packed agenda for the conference, and we look forward to taking part.

Taking Our Own Advice: Usability in Practice

We have completed a number of usability assessments for the AIDS.gov website. However, when we were writing our latest blog post about usability, we realized we neglected to check in with our readers on the blog site. We had not assessed the usability of our own blog. Yikes!

But the great thing about a blog is that it is easy to test usability--all you have to do is ask your readers, and it's never too late to ask!

Usability - Websites and Beyond

We designed AIDS.gov knowing that visitors only spend up to 30 seconds scanning a webpage. People look for trustworthy, updated, and easy-to-read information. If they can't find it, they leave the page quickly.

Question: So how do we provide our users with what they want and in the way they want it?

Answer: Ask them!