Jared Spool is an American writer,

researcher Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...

, educator, and an expert on the subjects of

usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a sof ...

, software, design, and research.Ward, Mark
"The long and winding road of e-commerce"
''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'', November 18, 2011. Retrieved December 7, 2011. He is the founding principal of User Interface Engineering (UIE), a research, training, and consulting firm that specializes in website and product usability.User Interface Engineering
. Retrieved December 5, 2011. He is also an amateur

magician Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-ce ...

. Spool attended Niskayuna High School in

Niskayuna, NY Niskayuna is a town in Schenectady County, New York, United States. The population was 23,278 at the 2020 census. The town is located in the southeast part of the county, east of the city of Schenectady, and is the easternmost town in the county. ...

."From Our Mailbag"
, "Niskayuna Warrior", June 1979. Retrieved July 12, 2011. Spool has been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term usability was ever associated with computers.

Achievements and awards

Under Spool's leadership, in 1996 UIE launched the ''User Interface Conference'', an annual user experience research and design conference, which he chairs and delivers the keynotes for.UX London Speakers - Jared Spool
Retrieved December 7, 2011 From 1998 until 2008, as an adjunct faculty member at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learnin ...

, Spool created and taught a unique curriculum for the Experience Design Management course at the

Tufts Gordon Institute The School of Engineering is one of the ten schools that comprise Tufts University. The school offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in several engineering disciplines and computer science fields. Along with the School of Arts and Sciences ...

. Spool has delivered the keynote presentations for The National Association of Government Webmasters, The National Association of Online Librarians, Higher Ed Webmasters, Agile 2009,

South by Southwest Interactive South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

, Web Advertising, Web Visions, the

Usability Professionals Association Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

CHI (conference) The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) series of academic conferences is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of human–computer interaction and is one of the top-ranked conferences in computer science. ...

, the Information Architecture Summit, UX Australia, UX Lisbon, UX London,

Drupal Con Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide a ...

2011, An Event Apart, Designing for People Amsterdam, UPA China, the Norwegian Computer Society, the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

, the

Society for Technical Communication The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is a professional association dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practice of technical communication with more than 4,500 members in the United States, Canada, and the world. The society pu ...

, and the Federal Webmasters Society. In 2011, the

Stevens Award The Stevens Award is a software engineering lecture award given by the Reengineering Forum, an industry association. The international Stevens Award was created to recognize outstanding contributions to the literature or practice of methods for s ...

was given to Spool, "whose quiet evangelism of usability and the practical outcomes of methods and tools had a wide-ranging influence on how we think about making systems effective."Stevens Award Recipients
. Retrieved December 7, 2011.

Current activities

Spool spends time working with research teams, consults with organizations so they can better understand how to solve their design problems, and works with reporters and industry analysts on the state of design. In addition to being a speaker at more than 20 conferences every year,UX London Speakers - Jared Spool
Retrieved December 7, 2011. Spool presents almost weekly for various groups.Lanyrd Profile for Jared M. Spool
Retrieved December 8, 2011.
Retrieved December 8, 2011. Spool also sits on the editorial board for

Rosenfeld Media Rosenfeld is a German name meaning "rose field" or "field of roses" It may refer to: Places * Rosenfeld, Germany, a town in Baden-Württemberg * Rosenfeld, Manitoba, a Canadian village in the Rural Municipality of Rhineland * Rosenfeld (Melk), ...

, a user experience publishing house.Editorial Board - Rosenfeld Media
Retrieved December 6, 2011.

The Center Centre

With the help of a successful

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

campaign,Unicorn Institute: Courses to shape the future of UX design
Retrieved June 9, 2014. in 2014, Jared co-founded the

Center Centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

, "a new, bricks-and-mortar user experience design school for adults,"Center Centre
Retrieved June 9, 2014. with

Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...

Bibliography

;Books * Spool, Jared M. & Robert Hoekman, Jr. ''Web Anatomy: Interaction Design Frameworks that Work'' (). * Spool, Jared M., Rosalee J. Wolfe & Daniel M. McCracken. ''User-Centered Web Site Development: A Human-Computer Interaction Approach'' (). * Spool, Jared M., Carolyn Snyder, Tara Scanlon & Terri DeAngelo. ''Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide'' (). * Jeffrey Rubin & Dana Chisnell, Spool, Jared M. (Forward), ''Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests'' (). ;Articles *1993. "User involvement in the design process: why, when & how?" INTERCHI 1993: 251-254 *1994. "ProductUsability: survival techniques." CHI Conference Companion 1994: 365-366 *1994. "Using a game to teach a design process." CHI Conference Companion 1994: 117-118 *1995. "CHI 95 Conference Companion" 1995: 395-396 *1995. "User Interface Engineering: fostering creative product development." CHI 95 Conference Companion 1995: 166-167 *1997. "Product Usability: Survival Techniques." CHI Extended Abstracts 1997: 154-155 *1997. "Measuring Website Usability." CHI Extended Abstracts 1997: 125 *2002. "Usability in practice: alternatives to formative evaluations-evolution and revolution." CHI Extended Abstracts 2002: 891-897 *2002. "Usability in practice: formative usability evaluations - evolution and revolution." CHI Extended Abstracts 2002: 885-890 *2003. " Evaluating globally: how to conduct international or intercultural usability research." CHI Extended Abstracts 2003: 704-705 *2003. "The "magic number 5": is it enough for web testing?" CHI Extended Abstracts 2003: 698-699 *2005. "The great debate: can usability scale up?" CHI Extended Abstracts 2005: 1174-1175 *2007. "Get real!": what's wrong with hci prototyping and how can we fix it? CHI Extended Abstracts 2007: 1913-1916

References

External links

User Interface Engineering (UIE) official website

Jared Spool on Slideshare

The Magic of Jared Spool

The Center Centre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spool, Jared M. Living people 1960 births Usability Web design Web developers Computer programmers Human–computer interaction researchers American bloggers American technology writers American designers American podcasters 21st-century American non-fiction writers