World Usability Day

Held on 2nd Thursday of November

Technology today is complex and too hard to use for an average person. All around us technology dominates with it's widespread reach in areas of education, healthcare, transportation, government, communication, entertainment and other work areas. All gadgets which are meant to make human life easy should in reality, do so. But more often than not these gadgets themselves become a task to solve. Thus, World Usability Day was founded to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use. WUD promotes the value of usability, usability engineering, user-centred design, universal usability, and every user's responsibility to ask for things that work better. It's objective is to make technology easy and user friendly.

It was initiated, and is still sponsored by, the Usability Professionals' Association, a group dedicated to "those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience."  Elizabeth Rosenzweig is Founder and Director of World Usability Day, which she started on 2004 and has grown to include 43 countries with over 200 events. World Usability Day is held annually on the second Thursday of November.

In 2008, there were over 200 events in over 43 countries. Each year, it has a specific focus and is honoured around the world

Theme - Each year focuses on a different theme. For 2009 the theme was "Designing for a Sustainable World" using the "Cradle to Cradle" approach.

Holiday Status - It is not a Public Holiday

Alternate Name - Make Things Easier Day