Our Lightning Talks session is packed with small but perfectly formed talks and experience reports, delivered rapid-fire by a mix of experienced and brand new speakers alike.
Cultivate
I don't know about you, but we get asked this question pretty regularly. And it seems like it should be a simple answer. Most applications are mainly made up of component parts that are solved problems, like a CMS, signup, a login system, authentication, email sending etc. The expectation is that you'll give a figure, a timeframe and then deliver on time and in budget, which - when you say it like that - sounds perfectly reasonable.
Why am I talking about bathrooms?
There's something about houses that always makes me think about software. The different layers of interactivity of things, the coupling of systems, the hidden plumbing, the lock-ins of previous choices and the value decisions around improving them.
Spencer is a consultant, coach and mentor in lean UX and agile UX, speaker, ex-designer, sometimes ruby programmer and ardent proponent of visual communication.
At Cultivate, he operates at the intersection of product management, design and development to help teams make great digital products. He believes a user-focused approach, iteration, lean experiments, good metrics and honesty are the way to deliver successful and engaging digital products.
He facilitates workshops, works with teams to build products and helps companies from international banks to 2-person start-ups to understand and solve their problems better.
OXFORD COMPUTER CONSULTANTS
Ami is a non-profit with a mission to reduce loneliness and social isolation. Our first step towards this is an online service that makes it easy to find people in your local community who need a little help and support. I’ll cover some of the design decisions involved in creating an experience that tries to encourage social change, some of the challenges and early results, and a sneak peek at what’s coming next.
Ben is a user experience designer at Oxford Computer Consultants. He holds a BA in illustration & animation and previously worked as a freelance web designer. He produces clear, simple and usable websites and applications, striving to bring motion and cohesive story to projects that make a positive social impact.
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY / SHERMANUX
UX war stories. Everyone’s got one or two…or a dozen. The key is to learn lessons from them! In this lightning talk, Paul will relate one of his, and participants will be encouraged to share theirs. Note: no whining! (Or whinging, as you say over here…)
We’ll focus on lessons learned, not complaints.
SPaul Sherman has worked in user experience since the days of dial-up. He is the founder of ShermanUX, a user experience research and design consultancy. He has conducted user research, usability testing and UX design for mobile, web and desktop in many domains including accounting; banking; e-commerce; financial planning and portfolio management; healthcare; mobile gaming; mobile device hardware and software; network, server and cloud application security; tax preparation; and travel, among others. He also creates and teaches graduate courses in user experience research and design at Kent State University, where is he an assistant professor.
During the 2000s he was Senior Director of User-Centered Design at Sage Software in Atlanta, Georgia, where he led efforts to redesign the UI and workflow for Peachtree Accounting and several other business management desktop and web-based products. He was also a user-centered design manager at Intuit. In the 1990s he was a member of technical staff at Lucent Technologies. Paul received his PhD in 1997 from the University of Texas, Austin.