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Articles With Authors

[email protected] | Huyen Tue Dao
post authorHuyen Tue Dao

Huyen Tue Dao

Huyen Tue Dao is a developer with Universal Mind. Coming from a background of Computer and Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, she has spent the last several years working on applications for web, desktop, and mobile, ranging from independent to enterprise projects. In the last few years she has started speaking at developer conferences as part of her enthusiasm and love for the community.

[email protected] | Stephen P. Anderson
post authorStephen P. Anderson

Stephen P. Anderson
Stephen P. Anderson is a speaker and consultant based out of Dallas, Texas. He spends unhealthy amounts of time thinking about design, psychology and leading intrapreneurial teams—topics he frequently speaks about at national and international events. Stephen recently published the Mental Notes card deck, a tool to help businesses use psychology to design better experiences. He’s also writing a book on "Seductive Interactions" that will explore this topic of psychology and design in more detail. Prior to venturing out on his own, Stephen spent more than a decade building and leading teams of information architects, interaction designers and UI developers. He’s designed Web applications for businesses such as Nokia, Frito-Lay, Sabre Travel Network, and Chesapeake Energy as well as a number of smaller technology startups. Stephen likes to believe that someday he’ll have the time to start blogging again at PoetPainter.com

[email protected] | Ron George
post authorRon George

Ron George
I've been in the design business for over 15 years and specialize in NUI (Natural User Interfaces). I worked in the consumer space designing software for Microsoft and most recently designing professional software for Bloomberg. I have presented at CHI and hold over 20 design patents. I am currently writing a book about Designing Modern Interfaces, but it is going very slowly.

[email protected] | Alan Tifford
post authorAlan Tifford

Alan Tifford
Alan Tifford is a mobile experience design leader with 15 years experience. He's designed 5-star productivity apps for iOS and Android for Intuit, which have been profiled in numerous reviews, books, and magazines. He is the lead designer for TurboTax SnapTax, the mobile industry’s first ever start-to-finish tax preparation application for the iPhone and Android, reinventing the way people do their taxes. He focuses his energy on driving innovation and design thinking for complex projects from ideation to implementation. He's known as a problem solver and inventor with 9 patents and 20 pending in the areas of financial management and tax preparation.

[email protected] | James Breeze
post authorJames Breeze

James Breeze

James Breeze has a Masters of Organizational Psychology and his goal is to improve people's lives through improved design and usability of things. He runs Objective Asia and Eye Tracking consultancy in Singapore and SE Asia. Objective Asia was set up in Feruary 2013 and is a subsidiary of Objective Digital, a UX consultancy in Sydney, Australia. An eye tracking evangelist, he is also a Tobii Eye Tracker partner in Asia Pacific.

Objective Asia is SE Asia's only customer research consultancy sepcialising in Eye Tracking to uncover people's conscious and unconscious experiences in online and mobile UX and Usability Testing. We work in Telecommunications, Banking and Finance, Travel, Government and many more industries. Objective Asia also apply these methods in Shopper Research and Market Research in retail and FMCG contexts.

 

[email protected] | Jonathan Anderson | UX Magazine
post authorJonathan Anderson  |  UX Magazine

Jonathan Anderson | UX Magazine

I am a tech-focused jack of all trades and the editor-in-chief of UX Magazine. I'm also the author of Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software, published by O'Reilly Media. Through its partnership with UX Magazine, I am also a senior advisor to Didus, a recruiting and career development company focused on user-centered professionals. As well, I'm engaged as the Managing Director, Product Strategy & Design for Dapperly, a fashion-oriented software product startup, and am the Principal of First Day, a small private equity and consulting company. From 2005 to 2009, I helped found EffectiveUI, a leading UX strategy, design, and development agency focused on web, desktop, and mobile systems.

I’ve been fortunate to participate in work that’s on the leading edge of user-centered strategy and design, customer experience, and software development. Everything is converging around an increased attention to the quality of user experiences, around web-enabled or web-like software, and around technologies that can create unified experiences across multiple platforms, devices, and applications. I’ve built on my experience at UX Magazine, EffectiveUI, and in writing my book to undertake a major project to find ways to make dramatic improvements to the user-centered field and to increase the perception of user-centered design, research, and technology as being core strategic values.

My work can be very hard to explain because what I do day-to-day is extremely varied since my role is usually to be a jack-of-all-trades. If I’m performing any one job function this week or month, it’s always in the broader context of fulfilling the needs of that business (whatever they might be) and in the even broader context of the private equity holding and management activities of First Day. 

My primary value has been to be an adaptable, fearless, fast-learning manager of and versatile resource to a large number of small businesses, where I hold the line in diverse functions while the companies are too small to hire specialized professionals for any given part of their business. This means I’ve had my hands in almost every aspect of starting, growing, and managing a small business, including finance, accounting, legal, management, HR, marketing/brand, PR, IT, resource management, facilities, general operations, corporate governance, project management, product development, change management, and many others.

[email protected] | UX Magazine Staff
post authorUX Magazine Staff

UX Magazine Staff
UX Magazine was created to be a central, one-stop resource for everything related to user experience. Our primary goal is to provide a steady stream of current, informative, and credible information about UX and related fields to enhance the professional and creative lives of UX practitioners and those exploring the field. Our content is driven and created by an impressive roster of experienced professionals who work in all areas of UX and cover the field from diverse angles and perspectives.

[email protected] | Mads Soegaard
post authorMads Soegaard

Mads Soegaard
I'm currently editor at Interaction-Design.org. Until recently, I've worked at The Danish National Technological Institute working with research in industry. Until March 2000 I was one of three partners in Csite.com, a web development company of about 11 people. It went out of business in 2009. I've worked in the eBusiness Think Tank of Daimler in the corporate headquarters in Berlin (DaimlerChrysler Financial Services). I've worked as a lecturer at the Department of Information and Media Studies at the University of Aarhus. I've been a PHD student at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Aarhus and spent a semester in Paul Dourish's research group at University of California at Irvine. I've spent six months at University of Tasmania's School of Psychology. I lived six months in Paris while working at La Maison du Danemark. I spent one back-breaking year in the Danish infantry back in '95. I lived one year in Gladstone, Manitoba, Canada, back in '92-'93.

[email protected] | Hana Schank
post authorHana Schank

Hana Schank
Hana Schank has been in Information Architecture for 14 years. She began her career at Andersen Consulting where she designed an award-winning interactive training program, and went on to work on designing the first website for CBS News. As the first hands-on Information Architect at OgilvyInteractive, Hana helped to establish a detailed documentation methodology and information architecture process which led to successful engagements for several clients who were designing and building sites for the first time. In her role as Director of Information Architecture at Zentropy Partners, she developed an IA process for the global organization, as well as leading the information architecture development for a range of high profile clients. Hana founded Collective User Experience in 2003, and now oversees all IA and UX work in addition to working directly with a range of clients to help make their web sites and applications more usable. Hana and several of the team members from CollectiveUX blog about IA in the real world at beautifulbutdumb.blogspot.com. She has finally broken down and started tweeting @hanaschank. Hana lives in Brooklyn, NY.

[email protected] | Method, Inc.
post authorMethod, Inc.

Method, Inc.
Method is an integrated design firm focused on the entire customer journey: delivering outstanding experiences through products, services, and brands.We collaborate to create extraordinary solutions that drive business value for our clients and improve their customers’ lives. Our clients are best described as owners of progressive, era-defining brands, including Google, Comcast, MoMA, Samsung, Nordstrom, Microsoft, Time Warner Cable, TED, the BBC, and many others. The team that designed the new TeachingChannel.org includes: Baykal Askar, Katie Beneicke, Ben Fullerton, Derek Hunt, Paul Miller, Mario Porto, and Mark Roudebush.    

[email protected] | Sean Rintel
post authorSean Rintel

Sean Rintel
I help people understand communication and technology. My research focuses on how the affordances and constraints of communication technologies interact with language, social action, and culture. My teaching focuses on facilitating students’ discovery of the practical strategic opportunities for making principled choices across a range of communication contexts. 

My specialisation is in the relationship between technology and practices of interaction and social presence. I have investigated videochat, Instant Messaging, online forums, and other platforms in contexts ranging from the personal to the institutional. 

 I am especially interested in how people deal with trouble arising from communication technology, ranging from design difficulties, through operational problems, to the separation of interactional perspectives. My interests also extend to social media strategy, internet culture, and social representations of communication technologies. I am also interested more broadly in language and social interaction, especially strategic interaction, persuasive presentations using slideware and video, and interpersonal interaction.

[email protected] | Christopher Roosen
post authorChristopher Roosen

Christopher Roosen
I am a Principal UX, Usability Consultant and Axure trainer with 10 years experience in exploring complex UX problems, engaging users, developing strategy and designing multi-channel solutions. 

I specialise in mobile, apps and transactional systems. I focus on delivering measurable and radical improvements to usability, user experience and engagement by: 
- Focusing on both needs and delights
- Simplifying complex business processes and technology
- Identifying influential (and often latent) requirements
- Prototyping Axure based interactive wireframes early
- Testing with end users often
- Delivering concepts via an Agile UX framework 

I have consulted with some of the largest and most innovative companies in Oceania, including Westpac, Optus, Telstra and News Digital Media. Recent projects include: 

- UX design for www.therocks.com.au - Created a modern and engaging experience for a frontline Sydney cultural icon. 
- UX design for a complex business portal - A year-long project to create a usable and high performance transactional system. 
- Founding member and Principal UX Designer for Demibooks Inc (www.demibooks.com), creators of the world’s first iPad-based tool for creating interactive books.

I am the Founder of Cognitive Ink, which offers cutting edge UX consulting and business analysis support as well as hands on Axure training at all levels. Cognitive Ink is also one of the few Axure Approved trainers has delivered Axure courses in Australia and New Zealand for four years across hundreds of training sessions. 

[email protected] | Alan Colville
post authorAlan Colville

Alan Colville

I'm a Product Experience consultant, speaker, author, husband, and father of two beautiful girls, living in Bristol, UK. Recently, I co-founded Analog Coop and Mapalong.

I've previously worked as a UX consultant for RIM, Visa, Nokia and Vodafone. I've also been head of UX for BT Vision. A senior commercial manager for digital TV at Virgin Media, where I led the design of video on demand, and personal video recorder services used by millions of people.

Most recently, I spoke at UX Bristol and Agile Cambridge. I've published on 52 Weeks of UX, and UX Booth. I've had the pleasure of featuring in Simple and Usable by Giles Colborne. This is where I share my thoughts - alancolville.org.

When I'm not designing, you might catch a glimpse of me biking up mountains or running down them, not necessarily sequentially.

[email protected] | Lis Hubert
post authorLis Hubert

Lis Hubert

Lis is an independent consultant in Strategy & User Experience with extensive experience in website strategy design, interaction design and information architecture. She works with clients on many different levels ranging from Fortune 500 businesses to startups. Most recently she's had the amazing opportunity to work as a part of the 8coupons team as their Chief Experience Officer. In this role, Lis is not only responsible for the user experience design of the product, but also works to integrate user experience design methodologies and thinking into our product development and strategy. While partnering with 8coupons, she has also had the pleasure of working with Naviscent on the user testing and analysis of 3 high profile entertainment mobile sites. Before these opportunities she had the chance to work as part of the LBi team, doing taxonomy work for their well known search engine client, and has also recently worked with Moment Design, Inc on the creation of a high profile sports and entertainment iPad application, the redesign of their sports & entertainment client, as well as additional site redesigns and updates. With each client Lis works to make user experiences more pleasant and enjoyable.

Before going independent, Lis worked with industry leader Weight Watchers International to create and enhance their online product. Prior to moving to New York, she spent time in San Antonio, where she worked as a User Experience strategist for the United Services Automobile Association (USAA), a Fortune 200 financial services company focused on serving the United States Military and their families. There Lis lead a team of information architects and graphic designers in a 4500 page redesign and was also responsible for defining 18 – 24 month strategic visions for the website. Before working in the user experience industry, she was a web programmer at national insurance leader The Hartford Financial Services Group based in Hartford, CT. In order to stay active and contribute to the user experience community, Lis volunteers as a local leader for the Interaction Design Association New York City chapter.

Lis' undergraduate degree from the University of Connecticut is in business; more specifically Management Information Systems.

[email protected] | Andrew Turrell
post authorAndrew Turrell

Andrew Turrell

Andrew Turrell lives in Los Angeles and is Director of User Experience at RED Interactive Agency. He is also an adjunct professor of Interaction Design at the University of Baltimore M.S. in Interaction Design and Information Architecture program. Andrew has also earned his M.S. from that program.  

Previously, he was the Director of User Experience at Trippy.com, and has worked at several design companies, leading web and mobile projects for clients such as PayPal, AOL, Sprint, US News and World Report, Sears, USA Today, and others.

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewturrell, or check out his LinkedIn profile.

[email protected], [email protected] | Suely Fragoso, Gabriela Trindade Perry
post authorSuely Fragoso

Suely Fragoso
Suely Fragoso holds a Ph.D. in Communications (Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds), a Master in Communications and Semiotics (Pontifícia Universidade Catolica de Sao Paulo) and a Bachelor Degree in Architecture and Urbanism (Universidade de Sao Paulo). Presently working at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Interested in many different aspects of the intersection between digital technology, social sciences and humanities.    

post authorGabriela Trindade Perry

Gabriela Trindade Perry
Dr. Perry is a designer, with a Msc degree in Human Factors and a PhD in Computers and Education. Her academic interests are related to HCI and educational software. When it comes to the digital interfaces, she's interested in the cognitive aspects of the design task - how do we solve design problems, and how do you design in collaboration with others.

[email protected] | Jim Lindstrom
post authorJim Lindstrom

Jim Lindstrom
Jim Lindstrom is a Senior Product Manager at Case Commons, Inc., where he helps lead the Casebook® product team.   He is passionate about scaling product teams and making UX design, Agile development, and government 2.0 work together. He started his career working in product development at Motorola, where he developed wireless products for public safety clients. In 2008, he left to pursue an MBA at Columbia University and found a start-up that specialized in crowd-sourced market research.

[email protected] | Jeremy Olson
post authorJeremy Olson

Jeremy Olson
Jeremy has always been right at the intersection of design and software. As a homeschooled kid, he always loved art and was delighted to discover software development as an outlet for his creativity. After ten years of building software, Jeremy landed his first big success at the age of 19 as a Sophomore at UNC Charlotte when he built an iPhone app called Grades. Apple not only featured Grades on the App Store homepage, but awarded the second version the coveted Apple Design Award in 2011 and Grades has since become one of the most popular Education apps on the App Store, being featured in national press such as Fox News and the Huffington Post. Now a senior, Jeremy has transformed his company Tapity into a full time business and his team works with startups and big brands alike to craft delightful apps for iOS.

[email protected] | Dorian Peters
post authorDorian Peters

Dorian Peters

Dorian is an author, tech designer and Creative Leader at the Wellbeing Technology Lab at the University of Sydney where she specialize in UX, IxD and UI design for learning and wellbeing.  Her books include Positive Computing: Technology for Wellbeing and Human Potential (MIT Press), and Interface Design for Learning (New Riders).  She enjoys plundering the smarts of philosophy and the social sciences to enrich design practice and rescues wombats in her spare time.  You can find out more at her website: dorian-peters.com.

 

 

[email protected] | Teresa Brazen
post authorTeresa Brazen

Teresa Brazen

As Design Education Strategist for Cooper, Teresa Brazen pulls from her experience across many disciplines (film, design, journalism) to inspire curriculum, teach, and build community. Her passion is teaching others how to cultivate healthy, inspired cultures within projects, teams and organizations—no matter what their role. Through her current work as a trainer (Cooper) and previous experience in program management (Adaptive Path), she's had the unique privilege of collaborating with, nurturing, and empowering teams from a broad range of industries: global financial institutions, Silicon Valley startups, and everything in-between. She also created and programs the Cooper Parlor event series, a monthly gathering of designers and design advocates to exchange ideas and push the potential for design.

In her free time, she also continue her work as an artist. In her short films and artwork, she explores how people navigate experiences like love, secrecy, and judgment. In her podcast series, she interviews people at the edges of industry and culture. She's obsessed with uncovering what makes people tick and exposing our shared humanity…in service of fostering a bit more empathy in the world. More about Teresa at TeresaBrazen.com and @TeresaBrazen.

[email protected] | Lynne Polischuik
post authorLynne Polischuik

Lynne Polischuik
Lynne Polischuik is a user experience strategist and interaction designer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. With nearly ten years of industry experience, Lynne held roles in digital marketing before specializing in web analytics and further refining her skills in user experience and interaction design.   Lynne has worked on a variety of projects for companies such as Happy Cog, ADP, Electronic Arts, Stanford School of Medicine, Disney Interactive, CSL Hong Kong, as well as the Government of British Columbia and several Vancouver and San Francisco-based start-ups. In 2007, Lynne received an Award of Achievement in Web Analytics from the University of British Columbia and she is both a Google Analytics and Omniture certified consultant. Lynne is currently a Local Leader for IxDA Vancouver, co-organizer of UX Book Club Vancouver and serves in an advisory capacity for The Designer Fund, a community of designers who invest in designer start-up founders through mentorship, angel funding and access to the wider design and venture capital communities.

[email protected] | Eduard Martini
post authorEduard Martini

Eduard Martini
Eduard Martini is currently a lead developer for mobile websites for Nokia Berlin. He's been a writer for O'Reilly's InsideRIA and a contributor to several open source projects, and holds four patentns related to client-side security on mobile devices. He holds an engineering undergraduate degree, a Master's degree in Business Arts, and is currently working on a PhD in Telecommunications.

[email protected] | Brady Donnelly
post authorBrady Donnelly

Brady Donnelly
Brady Donnelly is an editor at Fueled, a New York-based design and development agency that specializes in engineering mobile applications. Since 2009, Fueled has been working with brands and start-ups with a focus on creative and developmental execution, partnering with the likes of Porsche, Gilt, Procter & Gamble, Fashism, and UrbanDaddy. In addition to his work at Fueled, Brady is a contributor at the Next Web and the assistant editor of the Last Magazine, a biannual design and culture publication. Follow him on Twitter at @bradydonnelly, or read more from him on the Fueled blog.

[email protected] | Cassandra Moore
post authorCassandra Moore

Cassandra Moore
Cassandra Moore is the Director of User Experience at Piehead. With over a decade of experience in information architecture, user-centered design and usability evaluation, Cassandra is a true master at understanding how web audiences act, react and consume information. She began her career in information architecture at Microsoft, where she designed and tested new functionality for Microsoft Office, and has since led teams with deliverables to pharmaceutical, finance and eCommerce. Cassandra conducts user research, constructs taxonomies and designs navigation to create browser-based as well as traditional desktop applications that are built for the way people think and learn.

[email protected] | Christine B. Whittemore
post authorChristine B. Whittemore

Christine B. Whittemore

Christine B. Whittemore is Chief Simplifier of Simple Marketing Now LLC, a marketing communications consultancy that helps organizations better connect with customers through social media and content marketing.

Formerly Director of In-Store Innovation for Solutia’s Wear-Dated carpet fiber, Christine has been active in the social media space since June 2006 when she launched her marketing blog, Flooring The Consumer, about the customer retail experience, marketing to women and social media marketing. It is ranked in the AdAge Marketing Power 150 Blogs and listed on AllTop.

She also writes the Simple Marketing Now Blog, a Junta42 Top 42 Content Marketing Blog and an eCairn Top 150 Social Media Marketing Blog, about marketing with social media and content.

Since 2006, Whittemore has embraced the yearly Bathroom Blogfest, when bloggers from around the globe come together to write about the importance of bathrooms in the customer experience. As chief organization & inspiration officer for the event, she ensures that the event encompasses perspectives ranging from sociology, marketing, research, psychology, environmental, customer experience, and user experience design.

Whittemore is a columnist for Floor Covering Weekly where she writes about the customer retail experience. She contributes to MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute and is a frequent speaker on the topic of customer experience and marketing with social media.

Christine serves on the Columbia Business School’s Alumni Club of New York Board of Directors and is a member of the Surfaces Education Advisory Council. She earned her undergraduate degree from Smith College and her MBA from Columbia University.

[email protected] | Jen Hocko
post authorJen Hocko

Jen Hocko

Jen has been a web developer, technical writer, interaction designer, usability specialist, and manager at both large and small organizations. She has a B.S. in Computer Science and Professional & Technical Writing from the University of Hartford, and an M.S. in Human Factors from Bentley University. She currently works at MathWorks, where she manages a team that focuses on improving the usability of both custom-developed and procured business software for internal users.

[email protected] | Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.
post authorSusan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.
Susan Weinschenk first used a computer in the mid-1970’s, in graduate school. "I wrote and ran my first computer program, and the printer spit out a piece of paper that said 'JOB ABORTED.' Rather than being discouraged I was fascinated! What would happen when 'normal people,' not computer scientists, interacted with these things called computers?" She thus started a 30-year career in applying psychology to the design of technology. Susan has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is the author of How to Get People To Do Stuff, 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People, and Neuro Web Design: What makes them click.  She is a presenter, speaker, and consulting, writes a popular popular blog at her website, and also writes the Brain Wise blog at Psychology Today.

[email protected] | Jonathan Anderson | UX Magazine
post authorJonathan Anderson  |  UX Magazine

Jonathan Anderson | UX Magazine

I am a tech-focused jack of all trades and the editor-in-chief of UX Magazine. I'm also the author of Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software, published by O'Reilly Media. Through its partnership with UX Magazine, I am also a senior advisor to Didus, a recruiting and career development company focused on user-centered professionals. As well, I'm engaged as the Managing Director, Product Strategy & Design for Dapperly, a fashion-oriented software product startup, and am the Principal of First Day, a small private equity and consulting company. From 2005 to 2009, I helped found EffectiveUI, a leading UX strategy, design, and development agency focused on web, desktop, and mobile systems.

I’ve been fortunate to participate in work that’s on the leading edge of user-centered strategy and design, customer experience, and software development. Everything is converging around an increased attention to the quality of user experiences, around web-enabled or web-like software, and around technologies that can create unified experiences across multiple platforms, devices, and applications. I’ve built on my experience at UX Magazine, EffectiveUI, and in writing my book to undertake a major project to find ways to make dramatic improvements to the user-centered field and to increase the perception of user-centered design, research, and technology as being core strategic values.

My work can be very hard to explain because what I do day-to-day is extremely varied since my role is usually to be a jack-of-all-trades. If I’m performing any one job function this week or month, it’s always in the broader context of fulfilling the needs of that business (whatever they might be) and in the even broader context of the private equity holding and management activities of First Day. 

My primary value has been to be an adaptable, fearless, fast-learning manager of and versatile resource to a large number of small businesses, where I hold the line in diverse functions while the companies are too small to hire specialized professionals for any given part of their business. This means I’ve had my hands in almost every aspect of starting, growing, and managing a small business, including finance, accounting, legal, management, HR, marketing/brand, PR, IT, resource management, facilities, general operations, corporate governance, project management, product development, change management, and many others.

[email protected] | Doug Hopkins
post authorDoug Hopkins

Doug Hopkins

Doug Hopkins provides strategic and creative direction to a stable of Fortune 1000 clients for Rosetta. He directs a multidisciplinary team covering user experience, information architecture, content strategy, user research and usability services. Doug has more than 20 years of established leadership in the direction and development of interactive marketing solutions of all kinds. From complex ecommerce platform implementations to leading-edge Rich Internet Application/Web 2.0 design initiatives for high profile consumer brands, Doug has led clients in automotive, consumer products, health, and financial services (among others) apply interactive marketing solutions to generate tangible, quantifiable business results.

[email protected] | Jonathan Anderson | UX Magazine
post authorJonathan Anderson  |  UX Magazine

Jonathan Anderson | UX Magazine

I am a tech-focused jack of all trades and the editor-in-chief of UX Magazine. I'm also the author of Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software, published by O'Reilly Media. Through its partnership with UX Magazine, I am also a senior advisor to Didus, a recruiting and career development company focused on user-centered professionals. As well, I'm engaged as the Managing Director, Product Strategy & Design for Dapperly, a fashion-oriented software product startup, and am the Principal of First Day, a small private equity and consulting company. From 2005 to 2009, I helped found EffectiveUI, a leading UX strategy, design, and development agency focused on web, desktop, and mobile systems.

I’ve been fortunate to participate in work that’s on the leading edge of user-centered strategy and design, customer experience, and software development. Everything is converging around an increased attention to the quality of user experiences, around web-enabled or web-like software, and around technologies that can create unified experiences across multiple platforms, devices, and applications. I’ve built on my experience at UX Magazine, EffectiveUI, and in writing my book to undertake a major project to find ways to make dramatic improvements to the user-centered field and to increase the perception of user-centered design, research, and technology as being core strategic values.

My work can be very hard to explain because what I do day-to-day is extremely varied since my role is usually to be a jack-of-all-trades. If I’m performing any one job function this week or month, it’s always in the broader context of fulfilling the needs of that business (whatever they might be) and in the even broader context of the private equity holding and management activities of First Day. 

My primary value has been to be an adaptable, fearless, fast-learning manager of and versatile resource to a large number of small businesses, where I hold the line in diverse functions while the companies are too small to hire specialized professionals for any given part of their business. This means I’ve had my hands in almost every aspect of starting, growing, and managing a small business, including finance, accounting, legal, management, HR, marketing/brand, PR, IT, resource management, facilities, general operations, corporate governance, project management, product development, change management, and many others.

[email protected] | Chris Griffith
post authorChris Griffith

Chris Griffith
Chris Griffith is a Staff Engineer in the User Experience group at Qualcomm. He has over 15 years experience in developing a wide range of prototypes for a variety of clients. He currently works with the full spectrum of the Flash Platform from mobile devices to web/desktop, as well as HTML/CSS/JS solutions. He is also an Adobe Community Professional and is presently the manager of the San Diego Flash User Group. He also has regularly been invited to speak at conferences such as Adobe MAX, 360Flex, D2WC, and various user groups. He also has been involved with the National Science Foundation's National Science Digital Library project. [Opinions and thoughts that are his own and  are not necessarily shared by the company that he works for.]

[email protected] | Peter Eckert
post authorPeter Eckert

Peter Eckert
Peter is regarded as one of the UI Design visionaries and best UX design leader by some of the top product companies in the world. As co-founder and chief creative officer of projekt202, Peter has helped many Fortune 500 companies to implement a meaningful UI design process into their organizations. He has directed efforts at projekt202 for SAP, Charles Schwab, PayPal, Sabre Airlines, Motorola, Dell, Microsoft, Agresso, Thomson Financials, Open Text, Buffalo Technologies, LeGrand, Logitech, Tektronix, Deloitte and many more. Peter co-founded projekt202 to build a unique environment that fosters creativity, provides a platform for innovation while delivering world class and award winning design solutions. During his five years at frog design, Peter directed efforts for SAP, i2 Technologies, Microsoft, Motorola, Symantec, Halliburton, Hire.com and many other well-known companies. While studying in Germany, Peter was president of WATCH GMBH, a design firm he founded in Cologne, Germany. His client list included DaimlerChrysler, SMART, ZDF, Spiegel, the Swiss bank SBG, and a number of other prominent companies throughout Europe. A graduate of Köln International School of Design in Cologne, Germany, Peter also studied Design at Arizona State University and he holds a degree in electrical engineering.

[email protected] | Aaron Howell
post authorAaron Howell

Aaron Howell

Aaron is technical director at Code d'Azur, an interactive agency in Amsterdam. Here he leads a team of developers and also tries to focus on user experience and design. Aaron was originally educated as an architect and has a passion for design, logic and order. He worked for many years as a designer at Commarts in Boulder, CO before giving up bricks for pixels. He is a creative realist who likes to understand relationships and create solid, lasting solutions. He has more than 12 years experience in digital media and although he still thinks mainly in spatial abstraction, he now does so in crisp and clean code structures. Aaron has completed projects for The Rijksmuseam, Schiphol Airport, Tommy Hilfiger, KPN, Nikon, Shell, Sanex, Smart, LG, Campina, Chiquita, KLM, Philips, Grolsch, Médecins San Frontières and many more.

Aaron is an American who calls Amsterdam home with his wife and daughter.

Bring him an idea and he'll help you make it better.

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] | Antti Oulasvirta, Pertti Saariluoma, Rebekah Rousi, Jaana Leikas
post authorAntti Oulasvirta

Antti Oulasvirta

Antti Oulasvirta is a Senior Researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Institute for Information Technology HIIT where he co-directs the Ubiquitous Interaction group. His research focus lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction, mobile and ubiquitous computing, and cognitive psychology. He received his doctorate in Cognitive Science from the University of Helsinki in 2006, after which he was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Information in UC Berkeley. During his postgraduate studies, he was an exchange student at UC Berkeley’s Neuropsychology Lab and did an internship at T-Labs in Berlin. Dr. Oulasvirta is a docent (adjunct faculty) of computer science at the University of Helsinki and a docent of cognitive science at the University of Jyväskylä.

post authorPertti Saariluoma

Pertti Saariluoma

Pertti Saariluoma is professor of cognitive science in the university of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has studied with Alan Allport in Oxford, Herbert Simon in Carnegie-Mellon and Alan baddeley in Cambridge. He presented his thesis on experts' thinking 1984 in the university of Turku.

post authorRebekah Rousi

Rebekah Rousi

Rebekah Rousi is a researcher of user psychology and PhD candidate of Cognitive Science at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. With a background in visual arts and cultural studies, Rousi has brought a Humanities perspective to several projects of human-systems interaction and user psychology, these include: the ITEA2 Easy Interactions project, Theseus and Theseus II. In nature, Rousi's work synthesises problems, challenges and innovations with scientific investigations, aiming at devising consistent methods for measuring factors such as user experience. In 2010, Rousi undertook a 3 month researcher exchange at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Rousi is particularly interested in the psychology of user experience, affective human-technology interactions and the mental factors of design encounters.

post authorJaana Leikas

Jaana Leikas
Jaana Leikas is Senior Researcher Technical Research Center of Finland.

[email protected] | Eduard Martini
post authorEduard Martini

Eduard Martini
Eduard Martini is currently a lead developer for mobile websites for Nokia Berlin. He's been a writer for O'Reilly's InsideRIA and a contributor to several open source projects, and holds four patentns related to client-side security on mobile devices. He holds an engineering undergraduate degree, a Master's degree in Business Arts, and is currently working on a PhD in Telecommunications.

[email protected] | Hunter Whitney
post authorHunter Whitney

Hunter Whitney
Hunter Whitney is a consultant, author, and instructor who brings a distinct UX design perspective to data visualization. He has advised corporations, start-ups, government agencies, and NGOs to achieve their goals through a thoughtful, strategic design approach to digital products and services. Hunter is the author of "Data Insights: New Ways to Visualize and Make Sense of Data”. He was also asked to contribute a chapter in the book, “Designing for Emerging Technologies: UX for Genomics, Robotics, and the Internet of Things”. Additionally, Hunter has written numerous articles covering a range of subjects for various online and print publications including UX Magazine.

[email protected] | Mike Heydlauf
post authorMike Heydlauf

Mike Heydlauf

Mike Heydlauf is a Principal Informatics Engineer and Software Development Manager for Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. At Siemens, he also serves as a user experience evangelist and the head of the UX Center of Excellence in Cary, NC.

Mike is also a father, a fisherman, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu purple belt, a computer science hobbyist, a mixed martial arts fight promoter, and a heck of a nice guy.

In his free time he enjoys spending time with his family and writing about himself in the third person.

A couple of Mike's personal software projects:

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