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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation’s Biomedical Informatics Research Center will be hosting a World Usability Day (WUD) event to focus on ways to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.

The event will take place from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Thursday, November 12, in the Erdman Lobby and Froehlke Auditorium, Laird Center for Medical Research, Marshfield Clinic. The event is open to the public and admission is free. Light refreshments will be served.

“We’re hosting our World Usability Day event to bring awareness to the impact usability has on our lives, the importance of hassle-free technology and its connection to health care,” said Natalie Yoder, usability analyst, Biomedical Informatics Research Center. “Technology today is too hard to use. If it’s not hassle free it makes our lives more difficult. Because our world uses it as an infrastructure for health care, education, communications and much more, technology should be developed in a way that serves people first.”

The event will feature eye tracking demonstrations, educational exhibits, usability lab tours, guest speakers and hands-on activities.

Guest speakers will draw attention to the significance of usability in patient safety and the recent usability studies conducted at Marshfield Clinic. Those who attend will have the opportunity to observe and/or participant in activities such as testing of health care Web sites and an alarm clock alley rally.

Guest speakers include David Pieczkiewicz, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, Biomedical Informatics Research Center, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, who will present “Making the future of Medicine More Usable: Recent Usability Studies at Marshfield Clinic”; and Paul Micheli, interaction designer, Pharmacy OneSource, who will present “Usability in Health Care.”

WUD was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals' Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, on the second Thursday of November, Marshfield Clinic’s World Usability Day is just one of over 200 events organized in over 43 countries around the world to raise public awareness and train professionals on the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

For more information, contact Natalie Yoder, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, at 715-221-6439 or yoder.natalie@marshfieldclinic.org

The Marshfield Clinic system provides patient care, research and education with 45 locations in northern, central and western Wisconsin, making it one of the largest comprehensive medical systems in the United States.