Cyd Harrell is UX Evangelist at Code for America, where she gets to spend all day helping create better experiences for citizens. She encourages like-minded UXers to apply for the 2014 CfA Fellowship. Before its acquisition in June 2012, she was VP of UX Research at Bolt Peters in San Francisco.
Tom Bran
Tom Bran is an Interface Developer based in London, England. He has 6 years experience under his belt in crafting usable, dynamic interfaces, working on projects for clients such as WWF UK, Skoda UK, and Danone Activia. During the last three years he has worked within digital agencies, and recently joined Agency Republic. With a keen interest in diverse fields across the digital spectrum, from UX to Web Standards to typography, Tom enjoys discussing and writing about the many issues that affect web development today from a front-end perspective, and shares his thoughts on his blog. Follow Tom now on Twitter @tommy_b, or connect with him on LinkedIn.
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.
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.
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.
David Nickelson
As Director of Digital Engagement at Siteworx, David’s team integrates and applies extensive digital, marketing, communications, and behavioral learning and expertise to all aspects of Web design and development, including mobile applications, social media strategies, CMS, enterprise search, e-commerce and analytics. Prior to Siteworx, David served as the Director of Internet Strategy & Operations at the American Diabetes Association, a $200 million voluntary health association. David transformed the way online visitors connected and engaged with the organization, and the way the organization stewarded its constituents into deeper, multivariate and multichannel relationships. He was responsible for all aspects of national eCRM, online content management, ecommerce, email/electronic marketing and online success measurement metrics. Trained as a behavioral scientist and attorney, David provides a unique, multichannel digital marketing approach that draws on social science and web usability research to create powerful electronic experiences that engage customers and forge long-term relationships. David’s team of skilled interactive marketing specialists systematically determines where digital customer experiences lack critical alignment and provides thoughtful, detailed recommendations that significantly improve awareness, acquisition, retention, and overall lifetime engagement per customer. Drawing on the interplay between technological and human systems, David and the Siteworx team can provide a road-map and support for driving critically needed digital change, growth and cross-channel alignment.
Kevin O’Connor is the President of User Insight, where he is responsible for all aspects of the company’s marketing and client relations. With a focus on creating new and innovative services, Kevin helped grow User Insight to a firm that provides user experience research and strategy for more than 300 clients in 25 industries. Since 2004, Kevin has expanded User Insight’s international capabilities with the establishment of various international partnerships and projects that span 15 countries.
Jeremiah Lee Cohick is a software developer with a design and product background. He currently works at Fitbit helping developers make the world a healthier, happier place. He can be reached on Twitter @JeremiahLee.
David Gillis
David Gillis is an Interaction Designer at Teehan+Lax, a Toronto-based
company that helps clients define and design great user experiences in
the digital channel. There, he's done award-winning information
architecture and design work for clients like AOL, AIR MILES, John
Hancock and Virgin Mobile. David's passion for interaction design has been informed by a wide
range of interests and experiences, both academic and professional. In
school, he took a multi-disciplinary approach, combining studies in
communication, cognitive science and systems design. He holds Bachelor
Degrees in Math and English, and a Masters Degree in Information
Systems and Knowledge Media Design. Areas of ongoing interest and investigation for David are
evidence-based design (how can designers strike a better balance
between intuition and formal inquiry), participatory design (how can
designers better engage their clients and end-users in collaborative
processes), and holistic design (how can we better design experiences
that span across multiple modes, touch points and platforms). David is a regular contributor on the Teehan+Lax blog and you can follow him on Twitter @davegillis.
Bryan Rieger
Bryan (@bryanrieger) is a designer, writer and reluctant developer with a background in theatre design and classical animation. Bryan has worked across various media including print, broadcast, web and mobile, and with clients such as Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and the Symbian Foundation. Most days, Bryan can be found designing and prototyping a diverse range of experiences, and every once in a while, he can also be found organising a Mobile Design UK event in London.
Stephanie Rieger
Stephanie (@stephanierieger) is a designer and closet anthropologist with a passion for the many ways people interact with technology. With a diverse background, Stephanie's expertise lies in marrying design, technology and business goals to craft simple, elegant experiences. A compulsive researcher, Stephanie is always keen to discover and share insights on the mobile web and mobility trends in emerging economies.
Shaun Smith
Over the last decade, Shaun has been a key catalyst in expanding management focus from the tactical issues of customer service to the much wider and strategic issue of customer experience. He has developed some of the latest thinking and practice around this subject, helping organisations world-wide create compelling customer experiences that achieve brand differentiation and long-term customer loyalty. He has featured a number of times on the ‘Ask the Expert’ programme on CNBC and is co-author of three critically-acclaimed business books. His first book ‘Uncommon Practice- people who deliver a great brand experience’ examines those companies that create exceptional customer experiences. His second book ‘Managing the Customer Experience – turning customers into advocates’, reveals how leaders can build this kind of competitive advantage for their own organisations. His last book, ‘See, Feel, Think, Do – the power of instinct in business’ also co-authored with Andy Milligan, explores how highly successful business leaders and entrepreneurs use the power of instinct to achieve results. Shaun is founder and partner in the customer experience consultancy smith+co which works with leading brands around the world. Shaun is a Fellow of the Professional Speakers Association and rated as one the top business speakers; he doesn’t talk about complex methodologies or seven magic bullets; instead his approach is refreshingly straightforward, engaging, always pragmatic and at times, controversial. Visit https://.smithcoconsultancy.com/ for more information.
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.
Lawrence Kitson
Lawrence is an interaction designer with 5 years solid experience. Currently at ustwo studio based in London and Malmö, Sweden, working on products ranging from complex trading systems for financial markets to creative mobile applications. Passionate about people, design and psychology, he applies his skills and knowledge to trying to improve people’s lives when they interact with digital products. Lawrence believes that interaction design is a key link between business, software and users, and that user experience is everyone’s responsibility achieved through collaboration. Previously as a designer for Sony Ericsson, Lawrence worked on interaction paradigms and core apps for smart mobile devices and feature phones. At the University of Lancaster, UK, he gained a masters degree in HCI & also holds Bachelors degree in Design Studies. Twitter: @lawkitson LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/lawrencekitson Blog: seasonandtaste.com
Patrick Malecek
Patrick Malecek lives and works in St. Louis, MO. He worked in the user experience field for over ten years as a frontline resource and team lead for A.G. Edwards (now Wells Fargo Advisors), MasterCard, and Monsanto. Very recently, he left the UX field and is now Global Account Manager for Dell, bringing technology solutions and services to his clients MasterCard and State Farm. He contributed to the book Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-by-Step Guide (Schaffer, 2004), and authored the white paper From Inspiration to Action at A.G. Edwards: the Prescription and Practice for Institutionalizing Usability. He is an HFI-certified usability analyst and occasional freelance writer. You can find him on LinkedIn and Twitter (@pmalecek).
Sean Scott
Sean Scott is an active and passionate UX practitioner in the world of digital marketing. Proven experience managing multiple technically complex and large-scale projects. He is a highly regarded problem solver in both the technical and creative arena. His previous work roles have included director, technical lead, product manager and business analyst. Sean's first passion however is creativity. On a daily basis, he seeks to find creative ways to translate insights into relevant, usable and useful engagements. He writes at sothisisthefuture.posterous.com about those engagements and other musings. Clients serviced include Microsoft Game Studios, Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division, Rover (by Clear), CISCO, Nike, NVIDIA, Adobe, Subaru, Harley-Davidson and Porsche, E-Trade, Jack Links, Genuity, SFX, the World Bank, Phillip Morris, SunTrust Bank and AG Edwards.
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.
Constantinos Demetriadis is a full time freelancer working from his personal digital design studio "Lovely Productions", basd in Athens, Greece.
In 1998 he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design, but at the same time he got acquainted to the internet, which ultimately won his heart.
His professional career started when, in 1999, he started working for HellasNet as a Web Designer, and in a very short period he obtained the position of Art Director for FUTURENEED, a business unit of the same company. Since then he has been actively involved in numerous award winning projects, with the highlight in 2002 when he won the Ermis Gold and Grand Ermis for the site of Naftemporiki. Other awarded projects include the personal site of Demis Nikolaides (2003), FORTHnet’s portal site (2004) and the Ermis Awards site (2005).
His client roster includes BP, Coca-Cola, Lenovo, DHL, Interamerican, Naftemporiki and OTENET among others.
On a personal level, he has been involved in the creation and development of ProjectNeo, a Greek design community which launched in November 2000. In 2003 it was awarded an Ermis Gold in the Amateur / Non Commercial Sites category. ProjectNeo ended its journey in November 2005, when it reached a full 5 years in operation.
Alex Schleifer
Alex is CEO of Sideshow , an award winning creative agency. You can read his blog here.
Corey Pressman
Corey taught Anthropology for 12 years before deciding to enter the software universe. As a professional educator, Corey was always interested in, yet disappointed with, the educational technology that textbook publisher sales reps were peddling. Convinced that more could be done to create effective computer-based educational experiences, Corey started Exprima Media, a software company dedicated to creating robust and engaging educational experiences for the web and native mobile platforms. Exprima Media is currently working with textbook publishers and global companies to build the future of widely distributed educational media.
Suzanne Ginsburg is a user experience consultant based in San Francisco, California, and the author of Designing the iPhone User Experience. She works with many different kinds of organizations, from established technology companies to small iPhone start-ups. Suzanne also maintains a UX blog, Touchy Talk, where she provides advice on touchscreen app design. If you’d like to stay in touch with Suzanne, follow her on Twitter @suzanneginsburg.
Joshua Allen
Joshua Allen is an Open Web Evangelist for Microsoft, where he was a founding member of the team that runs the MIX Conference for designers and developers and the MIX Online community of articles and open source goodies for designers and developers. Since creating his first Web startup in 1994, he has worked on advancing the Open Web, including the last 12 years at Microsoft. He is an avid reader and tinkerer, and is especially fascinated by psychology, behavioral economics, and anthropology. When he's not reading a new book or research report, he may well be conducting a surreptitious experiment on bystanders to test some new thesis about human behavior. His experiments with rock climbing, ice skating, or parkour sometimes lead to painful injuries, but he heals quickly.
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.
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.
Scott McDonald is co-founder and managing director of Modus Associates, a digital innovation and design consultancy based in New York City. A frequent industry speaker and writer, he has advised global brands including Morgan Stanley & Co., Sony, Citibank and SIRIUS Satellite Radio, among others.
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.
Samantha Starmer
Over the last 12 years, Samantha Starmer has worked on a wide variety of experience and information architecture projects and strategy. She started her career in the early days of Amazon.com, enjoying a year long stint in Slough to launch Amazon.co.uk, and later developed experiences for Amazon’s checkout functionality and the third party selling platform. She also honed her start-up skills at SchemaLogic, and her business strategy skills while at Microsoft. She is currently a senior manager at REI, leading teams for experience and, interaction design, information architecture, and customer experience research and analytics. Samantha’s most recent focus has been evangelizing and creating holistic customer experiences across channels, time, and devices. She regularly teaches at the University of Washington’s Information School, where she received a Masters of Library and Information Science degree in 2005. Samantha is active in the UX community and enjoys mentoring new UX practitioners and learning from as many different disciplines as possible. She has served on the boards of the Information Architecture Institute and Content Management Professionals, and is currently on the Oversight Committee for the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Samantha is creating a new blog, but in the meantime, you can follow her on Twitter at .
Scott Jenson
Scott Jenson has been doing user interface design and strategic planning for over 20 years. He was the first member of the User Interface group at Apple in the late 80s, working on System 7 and the Apple Human Interface guidelines. He then joined the Newton group as a programmer/designer. After Apple, Scott was a freelance design consultant, doing work for Netscape, Mayo Clinic, American Express, and several web startups. For 3 years, he was director of product design for Symbian and has has managed the mobile UX group at Google.
Tammy Guy
Tammy Guy is the founder of a visual design and usability consulting firm focused on strategic brand planning, creative direction and diffusion of user experience problems by applying design theory and usability best practices in a rapidly changing Web environment. Her firm provides consulting services (e-commerce solutions, mobile apps and tablet experience) to clients from various industries such as fashion retail, commodity retail, pharmaceutical, insurance, financial services, social networking and others. Services include product evaluation, strategy and planning, creative development and direction and usability consulting. With more then 16 years of experience, Tammy previously worked as the Creative Director at LivePerson, Inc. and was a Design Group Manager at the Hertz Corporation where she art-directed all aspects of graphical application development for all customer facing websites. In addition, Tammy has been a frequent guest speaker with the Nielsen Norman Group for the past few years, teaching visual design and usability workshops. She also teaches similar design and usability courses with General Assembly in New York City.
Todd Zaki Warfel
Todd Zaki Warfel is President and founder of Messagefirst, a Philadelphia-based design research consulting firm, where he blends research and design to evolve products in innovate and beautiful ways. Todd is a dynamic speaker and storyteller by nature. He’s rarely short on details. He is an active member in a number of industry communities and organizations, including the Information Architecture Institute, IxDA, and UPA. Todd’s clients have included Albertsons, AT&T Wireless, Bankrate, Bank of America, CitiGroup, Comcast, Cornell University, IntraLinks, Hartford, Motorla, Palm, Sallie Mae, and SBC. Todd currently lives in Philadelphia, blogs at toddwarfel.com, and is author of the book on prototyping A Practitioner’s Guide to Prototyping.
Russ Unger
Russ Unger is a User Experience Director for Happy Cog, a web design firm in New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco. He is co-author of the book A Project Guide to UX Design for Peachpit Press (Voices That Matter) and is co-authoring a book on guerilla research methods with Todd Zaki Warfel due out in 2011. Russ has been working on websites since 1993—when there was only Notepad to code with and Mosaic was the only browser around. That was when he found his interest in User Experience Design and Information Architecture began to thrive. Since then, he has worked with a variety of companies--from start-ups to everyday household brands--helping them infuse User Experience strategies and tactics into their designs. In addition, he previously served on the board of directors of the Information Architecture Institute as president and as director of events and marketing of the global organization, as well as remaining active as a volunteer and mentor. Russ worked as the producer for the 2008 IDEA Conference, and was the chair of the 2009 and 2010 IDEA Conferences. He has been a program reviewer for a variety of conferences, including IA Summit, Interaction, and SXSW. Russ is also on the advisory board for the Big Design Conference in Texas. He has been both an author and editor for Boxes and Arrows, a well-known online User Experience Design magazine and occasionally authors a blog post or an article when inspiration and/or timing strike. Russ continues to support his book release by attending UX Book Clubs across the world--both in-person and via video / audio discussions. He has attended book clubs in Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Edmonton, Minneapolis, and Richmond. And just for fun, he likes to sing Hootie and the Blowfish songs when the opportunity to karaoke presents itself.
Kristina Halvorson
Kristina Halvorson is the CEO and Founder of Brain Traffic a content strategy consultancy headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her book, Content Strategy for the Web (New Riders, August 2009), has been called "the most important thing to happen to user experience design in years" (Peter Morville, co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web). In 2009, Kristina curated the first Content Strategy Consortium to facilitate a national dialogue about this emerging discipline. Since then, she has been a keynote or featured speaker at Webstock, Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW Interactive, An Event Apart, User Interface Conference, Future of Web Design, MarketingProfs, and the Online Marketing Summit. In 2010, she delivered the keynote address at the world’s first Content Strategy Summit in Paris, France. Recently, Kristina was recognized as a "2011 SXSW Thought Leader." Kristina is the Founder of Confab: The Content Strategy Conference, taking place May 2011 in Minneapolis, MN. She also hosts the podcast series Content Talks at 5by5.tv, where she interviews content experts from all over the world and from a variety of disciplines and industries. She regularly conducts online seminars about content strategy and teaches workshops for both clients and conferences. Kristina lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her two children, whom she quotes regularly on Twitter (@halvorson).
Megan Grocki
Megan bakes the best brownies on the planet. The end. Actually, that's just the beginning. Sassy, smiling and straightforward, Megan’s a senior member of Mad*Pow’s experience design team. With over 15 years of experience in research and experience design, Megan specializes in helping clients discover the attitudes, intents and behaviors of their users and understand what is truly important to them. By being the ultimate user advocate, she is able to improve the organization and presentation of content and refine the messaging in a way that rings true with the audience(s) and meets business goals. She has worked with clients including Bank of America, Aetna, Constant Contact and McKesson to sharpen their understanding of their audiences and design new digital experiences steeped in rigorous research and design thinking. She has been able to flex her marketing strategy muscles, creating new brand identities and developing clear and meaningful strategies for evolving brands. Until recently, Megan was also the mastermind behind Mad*Pow’s marketing strategy. From evaluating market conditions to directing digital marketing and social media strategies, Megan guided the marketing direction for all our events and promotional activities while collaborating with sales to support them in generating maximum buzz. Now that she has passed the Marketing torch, she is happy to wear just one hat as Experience Design Director. Prior to Mad*Pow, Megan served as marketing manager with Momenta as well as senior product manager and user interface manager at Bottomline Technologies. Megan holds a BA from the University of New Hampshire and is always seeking to continue her education by attending conferences, seminars and reading her weight in UX books. She is a founding member of the NHUPA. Her speaking gigs have included Refresh Boston, the 2010 IA Summit in Phoenix, the 2010 Usability Professionals' Association International conference in Munich, 2010 UPA Boston and Interaction11 in Boulder. In addition she served as IxDA’s Interaction12 conference program director. A die-hard tennis fan, Megan enjoys traveling the world, splashing in the waves at her favorite local beach and coffee shop-hopping around town with her husband and two young children. Megan is on Twitter at @megangrocki.
Elisa del Galdo
Elisa has over 20 years of experience in the field of user experience, beginning with a strong educational background where she was taught and mentored by some of the most influential people in the industry. Elisa is currently the Director of User Experience at Flow Interactive and is responsible for the quality and delivery of all user experience activities and training. She ensures best practice methodologies are employed by all of Flow’s user experience team and directly oversees all of Flow’s larger user experience projects. Most recently and previous to her position at Flow, Elisa was the Head of User Experience at Webcredible, the Chief of Technical Staff (EMEA) at Human Factors International and ran her own international business, del Galdo Consulting, where she sold, designed, and managed projects in over 12 different countries. She has expertise in usability testing, conceptual and detail design, internationalisation, speech recognition interfaces, management of user experience groups, and the development and delivery of training. Elisa is a published author and researcher in the field of user experience, including books, peer reviewed conferences and journals, and more mainstream media, presented workshops at international user experience conferences and has been an invited speaker for a number of UPA UK events. Elisa was an invited speaker at InternetWorld 2007 and 2008 where she spoke on the Return on Investment of Usability and the Influence of Persuasion, Emotion and Trust on User Experience. Most recently she has presented a tutorial at UPA International 2010 on Research in Practice, was an invited speaker at the Czech Republic User Experience Conference in Prague in 2010 and was the Conference co-Chair of IWIPS2010 Growing Global Design Communities held in London. Although over the second half of her career she has taken on management and team building roles, Elisa has remained a practitioner as well. She has a hands-on management style, mentoring staff, taking on project work when required, and ensuring quality of deliverables. Elisa is a constant learner and thrives on new challenges, whether it be designing for a technology new to her, building a user experience group, or defining new methods for more effective data collection or evaluation.
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.
Jon Kolko
Jon Kolko is Vice President of Consumer Design at Blackboard; he joined Blackboard with the acquisition of MyEdu, a startup focused on helping students succeed in college and get jobs. Jon is also the Founder and Director of Austin Center for Design. His work focuses on bringing the power of design to social enterprises, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship. He has worked extensively with both startups and Fortune 500 companies, and he's most interested in humanizing educational technology. Jon has previously held positions of Executive Director of Design Strategy at Thinktiv, a venture accelerator in Austin, Texas, and both Principal Designer and Associate Creative Director at frog design, a global innovation firm. He has been a Professor of Interaction and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was instrumental in building both the Interaction and Industrial Design undergraduate and graduate programs. Jon has also held the role of Director for the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), and Editor-in-Chief of interactions magazine, published by the ACM. He is regularly asked to participate in high-profile conferences and judged design events, including the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for Design Studies of Monterrey, in Mexico, and Malmö University, in Sweden. Jon is the author of three books: Thoughts on Interaction Design, published by Morgan Kaufmann, Exposing the Magic of Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis, published by Oxford University Press, and Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving, published by Austin Center for Design. His fourth book, Well Designed: How to use Empathy to Create Products People Love will be published by Harvard Business Review Press in November, 2014.
I'm a father, husband and a sometimes night-owl with a deep affection for salads, water and cherry Nibs. An IxDA mentor and former UX’er at nForm, Critical Mass and Habanero Consulting Group, I can now be found at Central 1 Credit Union where I'm a Senior Product Manager, Direct Banking and overseeing a wide range of online, web and phone banking products used by 300+ Canadian credit unions and a number of banks.
Greg Nudelman
Greg Nudelman is a UX Designer, Strategist, Speaker, and Author. For over 20 years, he has been helping his Fortune 100 clients like Cisco, IBM, and Intuit to create loyal customers and generate $100s of millions in additional valuation. A veteran of 35 AI projects, Greg is currently a Distinguished Designer at Sumo Logic, creating innovative AI/ML solutions for Security, Network, and Cloud Monitoring. Greg presented 120+ keynotes and workshops in 18 countries and authored 5 UX books and 24 patents. His latest book, “UX for AI,” is shipping May 13, 2025. More info at: https://UXforAI.com.
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
PARC
A premier center for commercial innovation, PARC, a Xerox company, is in the business of breakthroughs. We work closely with global enterprises, entrepreneurs, government agencies and partners, and other clients to invent, co-develop, and bring to market game-changing innovations by combining imagination, investigation, and return on investment for our clients. For 40 years, we have lived at the leading edge of innovation, merging inquiry and strategy to pioneer technological change. PARC was incorporated in 2002 as a wholly owned independent subsidiary of Xerox Corporation—enabling us to continue pioneering technological change but across a broader set of industries and clients today.
Kim Goodwin
Kim Goodwin is the author of the bestselling book, Designing for the Digital Age. Kim is currently consulting for clients in varied industries including aviation, consumer electronics, and retail. She spent most of the last decade as Vice-President, Design and General Manager at Cooper, leading an integrated practice of interaction, visual, and industrial designers and the development of the acclaimed Cooper U design curriculum. Kim has led projects involving a tremendous range of design problems, including web sites, complex analytical and enterprise applications, phones, medical devices, services, and even organizations. Her clients and employers have included everything from one-man startups to the world’s largest companies, as well as universities and government agencies. This range of experience and a passion for teaching have led to Kim’s popularity as an author and as a speaker at conferences and companies around the world.
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.
Dana has helped hundreds of people make better design decisions by giving them the skills to gain knowledge about users. She's the co-author, with Jeff Rubin, of Handbook of Usability Testing Second Edition. (Wiley, 2008) Visit Dana's website at usabilityworks.net or follow her on Twitter @danachis.
Tim Paul
As Director of Customer Experience, Tim Paul oversees the development of E*TRADE’s retail website, including online tools, products, services, and mobile applications, with a continuous focus on enhancing overall customer experience. Prior to his current role, Tim supported and oversaw the development of E*TRADE’s research and trading platforms. He also spent time helping develop the on-boarding experience and fraud prevention, and he supported the redesign of E*TRADE’s general website. Before joining E*TRADE in 2004, Tim served as Vice President of product development at TD Waterhouse, where he led the development of investor products as well as the retail Web site, and where he also spent time overseeing customer service and call centers for the online brokerage. In 2008, Tim oversaw the launch of E*TRADE Mobile Pro for Blackberry, the first-of-its-kind integrated mobile trading and banking application providing customers quick and easy, real-time access to their E*TRADE accounts and the information that moves the markets. Since then, E*TRADE has launched Mobile Pro for iPhone and iPod Touch and most recently Mobile Pro for iPad and is consistently listed among the top free financial applications in the Apple App Store.
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.
Stephanie Arnold
Stephanie Arnold is the Executive Director of User Experience Design at AT&T Interactive, the cross-platform local advertising branch of AT&T. She leads a team of information architects, usability researchers, and visual designers that support AT&T Interactive's consumer and advertiser products. Stephanie has worked in the UX industry for 8 years, having previously worked at Kelley Blue Book, Perot Systems and Travelocity. She has a strong background in Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI), with a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Human Factors, and is a strong believer in the saying "Keep It Simple." Besides being a UX fanatic, she is also an Apple gadget geek, a die-hard UCLA fan, and someone who gets the breaking news from her Facebook news feed.
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.
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.
Guild Copeland
With oversight over Production, Guild takes joy in Sisu’s amazing variety of projects – from enterprise-level website development and mobile design to viral marketing and brand development. He brings his experience and inspiration to bear throughout the project process, leading brainstorms, driving information architecture and making sure that projects are delivered on time and on spec. He has forged long-standing relationships with a host of enviable clients, including Sony, Paramount, the Hallmark Channel, Nonesuch Records, MySpace, Hearst Digital Media, and more. Previous to Sisu, Guild served as Director of Production and Director of Advertising at KPE, a respected website development firm focused on media and entertainment. Whether delivering a campaign for the newest movie or the build of an e-commerce site, his work resulted in great returns and happy customers at Mandalay Bay, Warner Brothers, Variety, Hasbro, M&M Mars, Sprint and more. Guild began his career as a policy wonk, working first at the D.C. Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein, then at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He holds a B.A. from Yale. Visit Sisu: https://.sisumedia.com On LinkedIn: https://.linkedin.com/pub/guild-copeland/0/8b/b25
Alex Schleifer
Alex is CEO of Sideshow , an award winning creative agency. You can read his blog here.
Alex Schleifer
Alex is CEO of Sideshow , an award winning creative agency. You can read his blog here.
Alex Schleifer
Alex is CEO of Sideshow , an award winning creative agency. You can read his blog here.