Hidden amongst the buzz and clutter of SXSW Interactive are some potentially interesting UX-related sessions. We took a few hours to distill the full session list down to this shorter one that includes sessions we think UX-minded people might care about. Not every session in this list is directly related to UX, but may be tangentially related in interesting ways. With a few exceptions, we generally did not include the hundreds of sessions about social media, social networking, social shopping, social gaming, social philanthropy, social global issues, gaining/measuring/valuing influence, distributed/network/social branding, croudsourcing, startups, the digital future of banks/farmers/nonprofits/publishers/etc., or author book signings. If you’re interested in any of those sessions you’ll have no trouble finding them on your own.
It was encouraging to see so many UX-related sessions on the calendar this year. It’s a definite improvement over last year. There is also an impressive number of sessions on accessibility, a topic that usually gets too little attention.
The most interesting parts of SXSW are often the conversations and encounters that happen in the hallways and streets between sessions and parties. If this is your first year attending, definitely check out some of these sessions but don’t forget to network ahead of time to get the most out of your time in Austin.
UX Magazine contributing editors will be in attendance at SXSWi, so if you’d like to meet up with us, send an email to [email protected]. If we missed a session that you think should be on this list, please leave a comment.
Friday, March 11
2:00 PM
- Web 3.0 and Human Computation: Ancient Mayan Legacy – Javier Gramajo-Lopez
3:30 PM
- The Accidental Writer: Great Web Copy for Everyone – Melanie Seibert
- App, Shmapp, Tell Me What Works Across Platforms! – Aaron Forth
- Do Agencies Need to Think Like Software Companies? – Panel discussion
- The Potential of Augmented Reality for Education – Panel discussion
5:00 PM
- Games User Research: Oh no! You’re Doing It Wrong! – Panel discussion
- Not My Job: The Ultimate Content Strategy Smackdown – Panel discussion, including UX Magazine contributor Kristina Halvorson
Saturday, March 12
9:30 AM
- Data-Driven Government: Improving the Citizen Experience – Panel discussion
- Designing Stuff Kids Will Use and Love – Panel discussion
- How Print Design is the Future of Interaction – Mike Kruzeniski
- How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live – Evan Jones
- iPad Design Headaches (2 Tablets, Call in the Morning) – Josh Clark
- Stop Listening to Your Customers – Mark Trammell and UX Magazine contributor Nate Bolt
11:00 AM
- Believe Me or Your Own Eyes: Eye-Tracking Entertainment – Panel discussion
- Inclusive Mobility – Making Mobile Apps Accessible – Becky Gibson
- What Comic Books Can Teach Mobile Application Designers – Anjuan Simmons
- Your Mom Has an iPad: Designing for Boomers – John McRee
12:30 PM
- Communicating with Everyone: Improving Accessibility of Information Products – Brenda Huettner
- Guerrilla Research Methods – UX Magazine contributor Todd Zaki Warfel
- Inclusive Design: Creating Beautiful, Usable & Accessible Websites – Ian Pouncey and Sandi Wassmer
- Ordering Disorder: Grid Design for the New World – Khoi Vinh
- Technical vs. Creative? Ridiculous! Quality Requires Both – John Davis
- Time Traveling: Interfaces for Geotemporal Visualization – Panel discussion
12:45 PM
3:30
- The Behavior Change Checklist. Down With Gamefication – UX Magazine contributor Aza Raskin
- Behind the Curtain: Secrets of Mobile Application Wizardry – Paul Gelb
- Changing the Web Accessibility Game Plan – Jared Smith
- Design Across Disciplines – Matthew Robbins and UX Magazine contributor Elaine Wherry
- Semantically Yours: Dating Tips for the Semantic Web – Christine Connors
- Social Media Data Visualization: Mapping the World’s Conversations – Panel discussion
5:00 PM
- Augmented Reality for Marketers: Future of Consumer Interactions – John Havens and Lynne D. Johnson
- Metrics-Driven Design – Joshua Porter
Sunday, March 13
9:30 AM
- Can The Internet Make Us Happy? – Panel discussion
- Creative and Effective Leadership in Design Environments – Sarah B. Nelson
- Mobilizing Performance from Search – Rich Devine
- The Music of Interaction Design – Cennyd Bowles and James Box
11:00 AM
- App Savvy – Think First, Code Later – Panel discussion
- Designing iPad Interfaces – New Navigation Schemas – Lynn Teo
- Dork Intervention: Bringing Design to Agile– Karl Nieberding and Kris Corzine
- Finding Music With Pictures: Data Visualization for Discovery – Paul Lamere
- People as Peripherals: The Future of Gesture Interface – Lee Shupp
- Secret Revealed: How to be Successful (with Accessibility) – Desiree Sturdevant and Shawn Henry
- UX Research & Web Analytics: X-Ray Insights – Austin Govella, Fred Beecher, and Louis Rosenfeld
12:30 PM
- The Art of Enchantment – Guy Kawasaki
- Design-Driven Innovation: How Designers Facilitate the Dialog – Carola Thompson and Jim Nieters
- Fail Big, Fail Often: How Fear Limits Creativity – Panel discussion
- The Future of Touch User Interface Design – Amish Patel and Kay Hofmeester
- Health: Is There Really an App for That? – Panel discussion
- No Excuse: Web Designers Who Can’t Code – Panel discussion
- Non-Visual Augmented Reality and the Evaporation of the Interface – Aaron Parecki and Amber Case
- The Untapped iPad Market: Is Your Site POUR? – Glenda Watson Hyatt and Karen Tsang
3:30 PM
- Clients Are Not the Target Audience. Users Are – Anton Repponen and Jonathan Bowden
- Do Tablets Dream of Electric News? – Erin Sparling and Jennifer Brook
- People Like You and I: Driving People-powered Web Discovery – Seth Sternberg
4:30 PM
- Interactive Branding and the Built Environment – Jamie Monberg
5:00 PM
- Apps vs. Mobile Web: Which to Reach Consumers? – Patrick Mork
- Cure for the Common Font – Panel discussion
- Diving Deep: Best Practices For Interviewing Users – Steve Portigal
- Fun With The Lights Off: Interactivity Without Graphics – Panel discussion
- Jeffrey Zeldman’s Awesome Internet Design Panel – Panel discussion
- Recommendation Engines: Going Beyond the Social Graph – Panel discussion
- Where Web Typography Goes To Next – Richard Rutter
Monday, March 14
9:30 AM
- Can The Games Industry Learn From Web UX – Panel discussion
- Conserve Code: Storyboard Experiences with Customers First – Joseph O’Sullivan and Rachel Evans
- How to Personalize Without Being Creepy – Panel discussion
- Touching Stories: Designing Digital Magazines for the iPad – Matthew Carlson and Matthew Davis
11:00 AM
- 5 Steps to Bulletproof UX Strategy – Robert Hoekman, Jr.
- Cross-Platform Multi-Screen Development – Panel discussion including UX Magazine contributor Andre Charland
11:30 AM
- 3 Screens, 1 Cloud: Creating Optimal Connected Experiences – DeVaris Brown
11:45 AM
- Designing Video-Rich Websites For All Three Screens – Jesse Streb
12:00 PM
- How Small Screens are Making iTV Big – Colombene Jenner
12:30 PM
- Comedic Communication: Developing User-centered Humor Design – Panel discussion
- Designing a Seamless Web to Mobile Experience – Omar Green
- Game On: 7 Design Patterns For User Engagement – Nadya Direkova
- Interactive Narratives: Creating the Future of Storytelling – Panel discussion
- Personalized Interfaces and the Arrival of Smart TV – David Maher Roberts
- Thunder in the Clouds – Michael Cote and Parker Harris
3:30 PM
- Behavior Design: Stop Being Neutral, Start Influencing Decisions – Brad Nunnally, Chris Risdon, and Nicholas J. Disabato
- Critical Thinking for UX Designers (Or Anyone, Really) – Christina Wodtke and UX Magazine contributor Russ Unger
- Having Fun Yet? 10 Usability Heuristics For Games – Corey Chandler and John-Mark Josling
- Kiosks, Mobile and the Evolving Retail Experience – FK Funderburke and Hilding Anderson
- Moving the Web onto Mobile Devices – Panel discussion
- Voting: The 233-Year-Old Design Problem – Panel discussion including UX Magazine contributor Dana Chisnell
5:00 PM
- Anatomy of a Design Decision – Jared Spool
- Design Intersection – Cultural Sustainability and Civic Engagement – Beth Ferguson and Mouna Andraos
- DIY Diplomacy: Designing Collaborative Gov – Panel discussion
- Interactive Patterns in the Mobile Space – Barbara Ballard
- OAuth, OpenID, Facebook Connect: Authentication Design Best Practices – James Reffell
- Our Devices: How Smart is too Smart? – Genevieve Bell
- Understanding Humans: New Psychology and the Social Web – Gavin Bell and Jyri Engestrom
5:30 PM
- The Intersection Between Mobile and TV – Craig Negoescu
5:45 PM
- Designing for iPhone – whurley Hurley
Tuesday, March 15
9:30 AM
- Accessibility for the Visually Impaired: Groundbreaking New Technologies – Genevieve Wilkins and Michael Cooper
- Innovating & Developing with Libraries, Archives & Museums – Panel discussion
- Long After the Thrill: Sustaining Passionate Users – UX Magazine contributor Stephen Anderson
- Made It So (Interface Makers in Movies) – Panel discussion
11:00 AM
- Can Design and Technology Fix America’s Education Problem? – Dennis Littky, Steven Tomilson, and UX Magazine contributor Jon Kolko
- Designing Ideas, Not Objects – Rober Brunner
12:30 PM
- Gamestorming – Dave Gray, James Macanufo, and Sunni Brown
- Real Tech Rockstars: Engineers or Designers? – Aaron Patzer, Jason Putorti, and Jessi Hempel
3:30 PM
- Adaptive Path: 10 Years Of Making Things Awesome-r – Peter Merholz, Jesse James Garrett, and Lara Kirkwood-Datta
- Creation, Curation, and the Ethics of Content Strategy – Margot Bloomstein
- Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business – Jeff Gothelf
5:00 PM
- Curb Your Experience: Pushing the UX to Extreme – Jenine Lurie
- Steve Krug Explains It All for You – Steve Krug
