Miranda Capra, Ph.D.

My first exposure to Human Factors was in 1995, when I was hired as a web programmer to help create prototypes for usability studies. After watching a few studies, I went back to school to get my Ph.D. so that I could be the one running the studies. I love that I still get to work with computers and electronic gadgets, but instead of programming them I'm helping making them easier to use. Now I spend most of my time in our usability labs, 400+ sessions in the last 3 years.

My areas of specialization include usability evaluations, comparative studies, heuristic evaluations, task analysis, one-on-one interviews, consumer products, websites, graphical interfaces, touchpads, rack-mounted server hardware, and hardware / software for remote computer administration. Since joining HumanCentric in 2006, I have worked for clients such as Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Dell, Intel, Kodak, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. My Human Factors training includes human-computer interaction, experimental design and statistical analysis, cognition, biomechanics and anthropometrics, auditory and visual perception and displays, and system analysis. Prior to attending Virginia Tech, I was a Senior Member of Technical Staff at SBC Technology Resources (now AT&T Labs) where I focused on subsidiary websites and electronic commerce.

My Favorite Games:

• Wiz War
• Settlers of Catan
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Education

• Ph.D. Industrial and Systems Engineering, with an emphasis in Human Factors, Virginia Tech, 2006
• B.S. Computer Science, Washington University in St. Louis, 1995
• B.A. Spanish, Washington University in St. Louis, 1995

Professional Involvement

• Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)
• Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI)
• Usability Professionals' Association (UPA)

Selected Publications

• Capra, M. G. (2007). Comparing Usability Problem Identification and Description by Practitioners and Students. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 51st Annual Meeting (pp. 474-478). Santa Monica, CA: HFES.
• Capra, M. G. (2006). Usability Problem Description and the Evaluator Effect in Usability Testing. Unpublished dissertation, Virginia Tech: Blacksburg, VA.
• Capra, M. G. (2005). Factor Analysis of Card Sort Data: An Alternative to Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 49th Annual Meeting (pp. 691-695). Santa Monica, CA: HFES.
• Capra, M. G. (2002). Contemporaneous versus retrospective user-reported critical incidents in usability evaluation. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 46th Annual Meeting (pp. 1973-1977). Santa Monica, CA: HFES.

More about me

• LinkedIn: Miranda Capra