Cia Romano, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Interface Guru®, is a respected evangelist for end users, researching and reporting on why user-centered design is mandatory for success on the Web, in intranets, in software and in kiosks. A hands-on user interface expert, Cia developed the widely disseminated Usable Times 5™ criteria for ranking computer screen effectiveness. The metric, based on her usability lab studies, focuses on user response to five consistently observed factors: Orientation, Permission, Interactivity, Relevance, and Speed. "Every one of our user tests validates Usable Times 5," says Cia. "The criteria are relevant across differences in age, gender, education and technical expertise."

Cia and her team have also developed guidelines for user interface on kiosks in public spaces. These Digital Interactive Guidelines were accepted for presentation at the 2007 international Visitor Studies Association conference in Ottawa, Canada. This work led to a recent “visualizing the future” engagement for a major service branch of the United States military.

Interface Guru, Cia’s consulting group, focuses on the impact of user-friendly design on profitability and branding in environments ranging from enterprise-level IT “planets” to software, intranets, and interactive museum kiosks, providing usability and information design services for a national clientele. The company’s work includes projects for IEEE, TV Guide Online, Shedd Aquarium, The Sharper Image, the Higher Learning Commission, Penton Media, The Chicago History Museum, Kiplinger Washington Editors, the Magazine Publishers of America, the American Society of Magazine Editors, Clickability Inc., Trex Company, and Go Daddy Software. Interface Guru has provided pro-bono services to projects such as the Mars Phoenix 2007 Mission and Flandrau Planetarium/University of Arizona Science Center.

Cia is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Usability Professionals Association (co-chair, 2004 conference).

A frequent presenter at national conferences, Cia’s highly-rated sessions have been featured at Seybold Seminars (San Francisco), Internet World (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles), the Folio: Shows (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles), and other industry trade shows such as COMDEX (Las Vegas) and Internet Planet (New York). She has also trained hundreds of people in the fundamentals of usability.

Cia's lifelong interest on visual arts, anthropology, and technology led her to a 15-year career in traditional media; she began to develop full-scale Web sites supporting e-commerce in 1994 with Arizona Highways Online and the Arizona Department of Transportation super-site. She founded Interface Guru in December 1999. A native of Havana, Cuba, Cia is based in Tucson, Arizona US.

Download her bio (PDF).