Dana Chisnell
Dana has helped hundreds of people learn how to make better design decisions by giving them the skills they need to gain knowledge about users.
Dana is an independent researcher and consultant who founded UsabilityWorks. She has been helping teams develop effective designs and stay focused on their customers’ experiences through creative user research and clear communication since 1982.
She has observed hundreds of study participants for dozens of clients to learn about design issues in software, hardware, web sites, online services, games, and ballots (and other things that are probably better forgotten about). She has helped companies like Yahoo!, Intuit, AARP, Wells Fargo, E*TRADE, Sun Microsystems, and RLG (now OCLC) perform usability tests and other user research to inform and improve the designs of their products and services.
Dana is a highly sought speaker and teacher, having given live and virtual talks and workshops at events ranging from the Usability Professional’s Association annual conference, to Web Design World, to the Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials.
She is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, and a long-time member of the Usability Professional’s Association and ACM’s SIGCHI. She also belongs to both IEEE and AIGA (how many people can say that?). Dana’s colleagues consider her an expert in design for older adults and plain language. (She says she’s still learning.) Lately, she has been working on issues related to ballot design and usability and accessibility in voting. She’s about to go do a deep dive into usability and security. She’s the co-author, with Jeff Rubin, of Handbook of Usability Testing Second Edition (Wiley, 2008).