Hi Juan, as a PhD student with a background in usability in Turkey, I can say that although the usability concept is fairly new in Turkey it is increasingly gaining importance. I have been studying usability for seven years, since the establishment of the first independent usability lab UTEST in 2002. We have been giving consultancy to the industry partners in the university and conducting academic studies and courses at the same time. During the years, our background covered quite a broad area from white goods to military and automotive industries, depending on the increasing demand. Although not very up-to-date, UTEST's webpage is http://www.utest.metu.edu.tr/usiteng/ I had been working in UTEST as a contract-based researcher until a week before, then I had to move to The Netherlands, therefore I expect I can't be of much help to you other than giving some information. But you can contact Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cigdem Erbug from the Department of Industrial Design at Middle East Technical University.
Apart from this, one of my ex-colleagues, Ali Berkman holds quite a lot of experience in usability. He established a usability lab named UTRLAB and I know that he is quite busy with usability projects nowadays. He is also the local representative of UPA. You can reach more information from his blog http://aliberkman.blogspot.com/. Although I can say that we had some hard time trying to explain what usability is to many people, things changed quite fast, happily :) I hope these would be of help. If you like to get more information I would like to help. good luck with your studies. Pelin ATASOY PhD Student, Research Assistant Middle East Technical University Faculty of Architecture Department of Industrial Design www.id.metu.edu.tr METU-BILTIR-UTEST Product Usability Unit www.utest.metu.edu.tr tel: +90 312 210 4220 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
