Portland Design Thinkers is thrilled to host our next speaker Nandini Nayak: Herding the Cats with Service Blueprinting.

In any human experience-centered program, bringing vision to optimized execution requires continuous cross-functional alignment and collaboration, which often falls apart! Nan will discuss how she has used Service Blueprinting as a key framework to drive alignment in complex organizations. You will learn how UX and Service Design are complementary, the difference between journey mapping and service blueprinting, and why it is important to take a systems view to be a successful design professional.

About our speaker: Nan is an experienced Digital Strategy and Transformation leader with a Human-Centered mindset. She has spent a career at Hewlett Packard and Accenture driving strategic design programs and practices serving audiences across industry segments. Nan holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology

Come out to rant, rave, engage and connect with fellow Interaction Design practitioners and people interested in Interaction Design. We meet up bi-monthly to network with each other and become inspired together.

CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER

Come along and join us to talk about A Web For Everyone by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery, which is a very useful book on accessibility and universal design. Additionally, we're going to be joined by Whitney on Skype to discuss creating digital content for everyone, including people with disabilities. Accessibility is a huge subject, and one that is frequently overlooked by designers and developers, even though there are laws covering the rights of people (for example, employees and members of the public) to be able to access information.

Come along with any of your team to discuss the important topic of accessibility and how it's not something you tack on at the end of a project, but something that can improve the usability of a product for everyone.

For information on where to buy the book, and a limited-time 30% discount code, see the post in our Google Group.

If you haven't finished reading the book, please still come along and join in the conversation.

Come have a beer and (if you want to) compete in the Ping-Pong Tournament:

June 5th Tech+Pong tournament with two brackets:

1) The Best of the Best (for pongers who can smash, hit, and rock their way through a pong game).

2) The Best of the Worst (for rookie pongers who just want to have fun and the thought of "spinning a slice shot" seems like something having to do with a pizza parlor). More details can be found here:

http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/111321222/

Do you work for a tech company in any way, shape, or form (developer, marketing, design, admin, tech student, etc.)? Do you want to be more involved in the Portland tech community? Come by and play some Ping-Pong! Or, just come by for some good conversation and a beer. Headbands, wristbands, and other such attire are encouraged.

This event is free but please RSVP so we get a head count: http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/111321222/

One thing that became abundantly clear in 2018 is that our relationships with our phones, and digital technologies in general, began to seem less like a partnership and more like an indentured servitude.

The zeitgeist last year was saturated with terms like “digital attention crisis,” “distraction addiction,” “mindful tech,” ethical technology,” and “time well spent.” When, in August, Facebook and Instagram introduced a new dashboard to tell us how long we’ve spent inside their apps, they were responding to a groundswell of concern that these apps are hijacking our attention in ways that are not aligned with users’ best interests but, rather, mainly with the interests of advertisers. “Engagement,” the chief currency of Silicon Valley since the first personalized ad appeared, has become inextricably linked with the hidden design practices that prioritize user time on platform above all other considerations. As a result, we’ve all begun to feel the pinch of “the cost of free.”

In 2018 some of us started pushing back. People like former Google Design Ethicist Tristan Harris and groups like the Center for Humane Technology sought to make our digital tools more human-centered, more accountable and maybe a little less less powerful -- and their views flipped from fringe to the mainstream in what has been called a “techlash.”

On January 29, we’ll gather for a hands-on look at how design is at the heart of this issue: the bottomless newsfeeds, the limited menu choices, the proliferating Autoplay function, notifications set to “ON” by default, and all the intermittent variable rewards that turn our phones into slot machines with dopamine payouts.

We’ll examine our own relationships to our devices and the apps we can’t stop looking at. And we’ll explore what a truly human-centered digital ecosystem could look like.

PCDT organizer Patrick Sharbaugh will be joined by Dr. Dan Rubin, a Portland clinical psychologist who specializes in mindfulness-based psychotherapy and is an adjunct professor of psychology of Maitripa College, where he teaches courses on the intersection of psychology and Buddhism. Dan and Patrick are both active members of the Community for Humane Technology, the outreach arm of the Center for Humane Technology whose aim is to align technology to humanity's best interests.

Bring your mobile device. You’ll need it!

When it comes to selling yourself and your work, it can be a daunting task. Learn from the experts at Cvent how you can apply storytelling skills to your UX portfolio--even if you are just starting out.

We'll discuss what makes a portfolio stand out, the keys to building one from scratch, and common pitfalls to avoid.

Then we'll break out into small groups for individual portfolio reviews with experienced UX leaders in Product Design, Content Strategy, and User Research.

Come prepared with your own portfolio in any of those disciplines, or listen in as we work through how to make a portfolio shine.

This event is part of Design Week Portland.

Since the Era of Flash, web animation has had a bad reputation: distracting, baroque, decorative, flash without substance. But with web and mobile sites adopting increasingly app-like interfaces, animation has become mission-critical to optimizing the user’s experience.

Learn the science behind “tweening” and offloading mental models to the visual cortex. Discover the secrets animation studios use to coordinate massive efforts when designing in the 4th dimension. See all seven animation techniques working together on actual web sites people use today. Rachel Nabors has traveled the world spreading the philosophy and techniques behind web animation, and she’s bringing it home to Portland.

Our Presenter, Rachel Nabors

Rachel Nabors is an interaction developer, award-winning cartoonist, and host of the Infinite Canvas Screencast. She deftly blends the art of traditional storytelling with digital media to “tell better stories through code” at her interaction studio, Tin Magpie. You can catch up with her at rachelnabors.com.

As a developer, it is important to know how to collaborate with the UX designers, and vice versa!

Daniel Sauble, Lead Product Designer at DataStax, will be joining us to discuss the best practices for collaborating with UX designers.

Topics that are going to be covered:

What does a UX designer do? How do they interact with the software development lifecycle? What does effective collaboration between developers and designers look like?

RSVP on Meetup: bit.ly/techtalk22 RSVP on Eventbrite: bit.ly/techtalk22e

Join us Friday, October 22nd at 1pm Pacific Time, 2pm Mountain Time (3p CT, 4p ET)

Don't miss out on another great opportunity to learn and network!

Can't make it live? We will be posting the recording to our Tech Talks playlist on our YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/TTA-techtalks

Ever been handed a project or had someone come to you with an idea that immediately made you think, “This is probably a waste of time.” What if, instead of taking on the project, you first went to find out if it’s a good idea?

This talk is a mix of stories about people whose dreams were dashed (and they were thankful for it) as well as practical advice for helping you find out if that idea is any good.

The talk title comes from the fact that, over the course of his career, Matthew killed several projects by providing evidence that the project shouldn’t even begin (or should be stopped in its tracks). Twice, he’s had to deliver the bad news to someone who then went on to shutter their entire business. And they thanked him for it. Spending $20,000 to make that early decision meant avoiding spending millions to build something no one would want enough to justify the money, time, and effort.

Our Presenter, Matthew Oliphant

Matthew has been getting people from WTF to FTW since 1999 when he started down the UX road as a Technical Writer. He’s worked as a freelancer, in corporate cube-farms, agencies, and startups. He is currently Director of User Experience at Vadio, an innovative video startup.

Matthew has designed and led the development of several multi-million-dollar products, redesigned large-scale corporate design and development processes, led research efforts to understand the needs of organ transplant recipients, and ghost-edits articles on web design and development on the side.

He continues his mission to Inform and Educate by running Refresh Portland (this site!), a non-profit organization devoted to highlighting new voices and interesting perspectives on all things web-related.

IxDA Portland is delighted to welcome Jared Spool to the Pacific Northwest, to present his UX Tipping Point talk. Doors open at 6pm for drinks, snacks, catching-up with friends, and checking-out Wacom's swanky new "Experience Center" in the Pearl District. Jared's talk will then span ~45min, with time after for Q&A. We'll also be raffling-off books, and offering a discount code for UIE's upcoming Portland workshop series!

———

The UX Tipping Point

For the longest time, making a great experience for the user was a business-strategy luxury item. A great product only had to work and ship. A great experience was a nice-to-have, not a requirement. Times have changed. The cost of delivering a product is no longer a barrier to entry. Quality is no longer a differentiator. What’s left? The user’s experience.

Every part of the organization must be infused with an understanding of great design. Your organization has to cross the UX Tipping Point. You must increase everyone’s exposure to users, communicate a solid experience vision, and install a culture of continual learning. With that, design will become your organization’s competitive advantage.

Jared will show you and your team:

• Which path organizations take to become design-infused • How a centralized UX team is a stepping stone to a more UX capable organization • Why the market needs to demand a better experience before it will matter • What your organization will need to do to cross the UX Tipping Point

————

Jared M. Spool is a co-founder of Center Centre and the founder of UIE. In 2016, with Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, he opened Center Centre, a new design school in Chattanooga, TN to create the next generation of industry-ready UX Designers. They created a revolutionary approach to vocational training, infusing Jared’s decades of UX experience with Leslie’s mastery of experience-based learning methodologies.

You’ll also find him as the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual UI Conference and UX Immersion Conference, and he manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time. He is author of the book, Web Usability: A Designer’s Guide and co-author of Web Anatomy: Interaction Design Frameworks that Work.

You’ll find his writing at uie.com. You can also follow his adventures on the Twitters at @jmspool, where he tweets daily about UX design, design strategy, design education, and the wondrous customer service habits of the airline industry.

What is Camp Optimization? Camp Optimization's mission is simple: provide a casual, fun and informative forum for digital marketers and technologists to share optimization best-practices, challenges and wins.

This month Ryan Campell joins Camp Optimization from Add3 (Add3 is a digital marketing agency that delivers integrated digital marketing campaigns across search, social & display advertising, helping our clients reach their marketing goals) to talk on behalf of pay per click marketing. PPC is one of the most measurable digital marketing channels available.

Come learn actionable strategies and tactics you can implement to take your optimization campaigns to the next level. Ryan has been leading and managing digital marketing campaigns for almost 10 years. He's optimized campaigns as an in house manager and now, at an agency. Ryan has a deep passion for performance based digital marketing and is an expert in paid search, SEO, and paid social media.

We will be meeting at Baerlic Brewing Company for some beer and casual networking. First round of beer is on us!

This event sponsored and hosted by roboboogie.

Who is roboboogie? Roboboogie is a Portland-based customer experience optimization agency partnering closely with brands to improve conversion rates, nurture brand advocacy and increase customer value.

Allowing those with disabilities to experience your product or website effectively can be crucial to its success. As creators of experiences for others, we need to take responsibility and make sure the content we are generating is consumable by as many users as possible. Silas will share tools and tips that will help you evaluate the current state of your project and its accessibility, along with ways to change the way you think about design, allowing you to target a broader range of users. Come network with Portland's top digital marketing, design and optimization professionals at Buckman Public House located at Washington High School on the first floor. Don't forget to RSVP and spread the word. First round of drinks is on us with an RSVP!

What is Camp Optimization? Camp Optimization's mission is simple: provide a casual, fun and informative forum for digital marketers and technologists to share optimization best practices, challenges and wins.

Who is roboboogie? roboboogie is a Portland-based digital experience optimization agency partnering closely with brands to improve conversion rates, nurture brand advocacy and increase customer value.

Up to 57 million smart meters are expected to be deployed in the United States in the next two decades, which presents an unprecedented opportunity for greater visibility into home energy use. Smart meters themselves are not, however, customer-friendly portals, nor do they give utilities the option of communicating with their customers directly. This is where in-home displays (IHD), or the more comprehensive home energy monitoring and management systems (HEMS) come into play. Monitoring devices for the home, such as the Kill-a-Watt, have been around for more than a decade, but the first technologies on the market can be considered analog, at best. In the past several years, more mature HEMS have evolved which can give customers detailed information about every energy-using device in their home.

The most sophisticated HEMS, such as Tendril’s Connect platform, allow homeowners to control their lighting, appliances, and even electric vehicles remotely, truly transforming a home into a smart home. But, these systems are only just emerging on the market, and there is no road map for how utilities use them to communicate with customers. In this talk, Emily will discuss the evolution of these devices and what the latest technologies on the market are capable of, as well as how HEMS play a pivotal role in the evolution of the smart home.

About the Speaker

Emily Kemper is an Associate Member of the American Institute of Architects, and is the only public member of the Oregon Governor’s Board for Residential and Manufactured Structures. In her capacity at PECI, she is working to leverage emerging technology into existing and new residential energy efficiency program models, while advancing industry and public knowledge of energy efficiency in homes and buildings. Emily hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, and has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Building Science. Her current research includes home energy monitoring systems, saving energy through behavior change, and smart homes. Her hobbies include photography, blogging, and following Nissan LEAFs around Portland on her bike.

5pm - CHIFOOd - Join us for dinner before the talk across the street from the Art Institute at Deschutes Brewery

6:30pm - Networking starts at the Art Institute

7:00pm - Presentation Starts

Scott Berkun, "Confessions of a Public Speaker" If you ever wonder why your wonderful ideas rarely get accepted or are compromised beyond recognition in meeting after meeting, it might not be your creative design talents that are the problem. It could be your ability to frame, shape, and pitch your ideas effectively to others. This fun, brutally honest talk, loosely based on the O’Reilly book Confessions of a Public Speaker, will give you everything you need to know to present, pitch, and sell your ideas so your world domination plans can begin.

In addition to the CHIFOO event, Scott Berkun will be making the following public appearances:

January 6, 9am - The AM Northwest television show on KATU Channel 2 He will also be in the Primetime show, which airs at 7pm on Channel 2.2 (without cable), Channel 302 if you have Comcast cable, or 464 on Verizon FIOS.

(First Thursday!) January 7, 7pm. Burnside Powell’s City of Books - Book Signing for “Confessions of a Public Speaker.” This is a free event.

About Scott Berkun: Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of Making Things Happen and The Myths of Innovation. His work as a writer and public speaker has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Forbes Magazine, and other media. He has taught creative thinking at the University of Washington and has been a regular commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. His many popular essays and entertaining lectures can be found for free on his blog at www.scottberkun.com.

5pm - CHIFOOd - Join us for dinner before the talk across the street from the Art Institute at Deschutes Brewery

6:30pm - Networking starts at the Art Institute

7:00pm - Presentation Starts

Scott Berkun, "Confessions of a Public Speaker" If you ever wonder why your wonderful ideas rarely get accepted or are compromised beyond recognition in meeting after meeting, it might not be your creative design talents that are the problem. It could be your ability to frame, shape, and pitch your ideas effectively to others. This fun, brutally honest talk, loosely based on the O’Reilly book Confessions of a Public Speaker, will give you everything you need to know to present, pitch, and sell your ideas so your world domination plans can begin.

In addition to the CHIFOO event, Scott Berkun will be making the following public appearances:

January 6, 9am - The AM Northwest television show on KATU Channel 2 He will also be in the Primetime show, which airs at 7pm on Channel 2.2 (without cable), Channel 302 if you have Comcast cable, or 464 on Verizon FIOS.

(First Thursday!) January 7, 7pm. Burnside Powell’s City of Books - Book Signing for “Confessions of a Public Speaker.” This is a free event.

About Scott Berkun: Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of Making Things Happen and The Myths of Innovation. His work as a writer and public speaker has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Forbes Magazine, and other media. He has taught creative thinking at the University of Washington and has been a regular commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. His many popular essays and entertaining lectures can be found for free on his blog at www.scottberkun.com.

5pm - CHIFOOd - Join us for dinner before the talk across the street from the Art Institute at Deschutes Brewery

6:30pm - Networking starts at the Art Institute

7:00pm - Presentation Starts

Scott Berkun, "Confessions of a Public Speaker" If you ever wonder why your wonderful ideas rarely get accepted or are compromised beyond recognition in meeting after meeting, it might not be your creative design talents that are the problem. It could be your ability to frame, shape, and pitch your ideas effectively to others. This fun, brutally honest talk, loosely based on the O’Reilly book Confessions of a Public Speaker, will give you everything you need to know to present, pitch, and sell your ideas so your world domination plans can begin.

In addition to the CHIFOO event, Scott Berkun will be making the following public appearances:

January 6, 9am - The AM Northwest television show on KATU Channel 2 He will also be in the Primetime show, which airs at 7pm on Channel 2.2 (without cable), Channel 302 if you have Comcast cable, or 464 on Verizon FIOS.

(First Thursday!) January 7, 7pm. Burnside Powell’s City of Books - Book Signing for “Confessions of a Public Speaker.” This is a free event.

About Scott Berkun: Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of Making Things Happen and The Myths of Innovation. His work as a writer and public speaker has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Forbes Magazine, and other media. He has taught creative thinking at the University of Washington and has been a regular commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. His many popular essays and entertaining lectures can be found for free on his blog at www.scottberkun.com.

Free for CHIFOO members, $5 for non-members.

The prevailing view of innovation is wrong. The traditional view of product development is that there is a fundamental dilemma between innovation and time to market. You can have one or the other, but not both. But this is not true. This session will provide graphical tools that you can start using immediately to help your product teams accelerate both innovation and time-to-market. These tools can be applied to organizations of all sizes – from start up to large global organizations – and will be applied to relevant case studies.


This will be a highly interactive session where you will learn how to apply the following graphical tools:

Making Better Decisions Faster: Management’s role in accelerating innovation and time-to-market Applying “Just Right” processes: Optimizing process within your organization The Innovation Framework: Poising teams for success Creating Effective Teams: Time is gained or lost at the team level Eliminating Political Roadblocks: They slow teams and hinder innovation Participants will also receive free downloads of the tools that they can customize to their organization to begin accelerating product innovation.

About the Speaker Jeanne Bradford (@jeannebradford)is the co-author of Innovate Products Faster: Graphical Tools for Accelerating Product Development, and a principal of TCGen, a Silicon Valley based management consulting firm, practicing in the area of product development best practices.

Jeanne has been a business and technology leader across a broad range of high tech companies over her twenty-five year career. She has led global organizations to deliver compelling products and technologies for some of the industry’s leading companies, including Apple, Cisco and AOL. While at Apple she led the re-architecture of the Apple new product development process, resulting in faster time to market of the Macintosh product lines. Additionally, she was a key contributor in the teams responsible for delivering simultaneous global launches, global manufacturing readiness, and customer feedback programs.

As a results-driven leader, Jeanne has a proven track record in building lean, global teams that deliver high value. Her strengths & expertise include product roadmap execution, remote development, product development best practices, and program management. Jeanne is a frequently invited industry speaker on the topic of product development best practices and the application of social technologies to the product innovation process.

She earned a MBA from Santa Clara University and a BA in mathematics from the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO.

Come join us for the tenth annual CHI-Bowl and enjoy some indoor sports. Dig out your bowling shirt and come bowl a few games, or just hang out and socialize with your friends and colleagues. Families are welcome, too! And very special prizes will be awarded. You need not bowl to win!

CHIFOO members get in free. Non-members or guests get the full bowling package for just $10, and bring the kids—your entire family can bowl for $20! It’s a heck of a deal.

Don't be a turkey get some turkeys. Don’t forget your socks and lucky bowling ball!

Come join CHIFOO on September 14th for our eighth speaker event next month for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

CHIFOO presents "A Media for a Chorus of Voices" with Ward Cunningham!

Ward talk about the reinventing Wiki and how distributed internet’s idealistic founding with technological innovation has brewed since its inception. While venture money chases unicorns were happy to build trilobites because we’d be happy to inform the future even if we don’t own it.

About the Speaker

Ward Cunningham has worked for and consulted to daring startups and huge corporations. He has served as CTO, Director, Fellow, Principal Engineer and Inventor. He is best known for creating wiki.

Come join CHIFOO for our third speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Be Here When: Faith Based Communities Contemplate Technologies for Themselves" with John D. Smith, Co-Author of Digital Habitats!

Churches and faith-based communities live with many contradictions that are completely irrational depending on where you stand or what hat you wear. Their irrationality challenges our normal thinking about design, technology, and human interaction. To understand what’s going on as a community’s technology steward you need to stand inside and outside, be local and nonlocal, be in the organization and outside, be a newbie and an old-timer, have a short-timer’s view and play the long game, be both geek and technophobe, and observe it all as an actor and as a barefoot ethnographer. Every day.

About the Speaker

John co-authored “Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities” with Etienne Wenger and Nancy White. He is a buddhist meditation teacher with a master’s degree in planning and architecture from the University of New Mexico.

Come join CHIFOO for our fifth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Bottom Up Security: Doing Your Part to Secure The Future" with Chris Berg, Firemaple Industries!

Everyday we hear more about another big hack. First Target, then the DNC, then the NSA. Secure software and infrastructure seems impossible, so what can we do? Come to this session to learn how to make security more accessible by making it part of the software and product development process.

About the Speaker

Christopher Berg (@thechrisberg) is a consultant who has spent over 16 years supporting enterprise and startup software development teams as an engineer, architect, instructor, and advisor. He provides guidance to cross-functional teams to bridge the gap from financial success to mature product with security, architecture, and process improvement instruction and implementation.

Come join CHIFOO for our fourth speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2iJtOi8

CHIFOO presents "Bounded Irrationality in Everyday Moments" with Michelle Kittrell, Cambia Health Solutions!

If we look closely at interactions that frustrate us we can clearly see bounded irrationality at play, disrupting our ‘expected’ path of outcomes. This talk will cover how the dynamic of neuroscience, culture, and personal preferences create “unique” rational experiences.

About the Speaker

Michelle Kittrell is a research analyst at Cambia Health Solutions.

Come join CHIFOO for our tenth and final speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

CHIFOO presents "What Happens When You Break The Veil Of Research?" with Nancy Frishberg, Senior UX Researcher & Coach!

In design education, there is no ethical code that all agree on. What about computer science or any of the other disciplines we may have been trained in? The discussions of ethics and the real-life experiences that followed have informed my understanding of universal access and ethical responsibilities of design. I'll challenge myself to make the connections between these two endeavors (interpreting and design research or human-computer interaction) clear for all.

About the Speaker Nancy Frishberg (@nancyf) has had several careers. The one most familiar to CHIFOO audiences is her work in qualitative research with humans, usually about improving products and services that people use and pay for and the processes that get them to those interactions and purchases. She has worked in tech companies, financial services institutions, and as a consultant to both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary! Come join CHIFOO for our fifth speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2zHNcUJ

CHIFOO presents "Caring Technologies Designing For Trust And Care" with Amelia Abreu, UX Night School!

Technology has the potential to shape the way that we give and receive care and the conditions in which the work of care is done. Yet, can we automate the crucial tasks of caring, and is it in our own interest to do so? How can we design services, along with products and systems, to support care?

About the Speaker

Amelia Abreu (@ameliaabreu) is a Portland-based design researcher, writer, and the founder of UX Night School. She's worked with teams at organizations like Nike, Intel, Mozilla and Microsoft, along with agencies, startups, and cultural institutions. She is a frequent conference speaker, the daughter of two schoolteachers, and generally geeky about how people learn (among other things). Her writing on culture and technology has been featured in the New Inquiry, Motherboard, The Hairpin and the BBC.

Come join CHIFOO for our fifth speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2hx0cXG

CHIFOO presents our Annual Bowling Party!

Come join us for the annual CHI-Bowl and enjoy some indoor sports. Dig out your bowling shirt and come bowl a few games, or just hang out and socialize with your friends and colleagues. Families are welcome, too! And very special prizes will be awarded. You need not bowl to win!

Don't be a turkey get some turkeys. Don’t forget your socks and lucky bowling ball!

Cost CHIFOO members get in free. Non-members or guests get the full bowling package for just $10, and bring the kids—your entire family can bowl for $20! It’s a heck of a deal.

Come join CHIFOO on September 6th for our eighth speaker event next month for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2htyTKA

CHIFOO presents "Coding is for Coders: Why Designers Should Learn Business and What You Can Do About It" with Patrick Neeman, icertis!

Most designers may have heard something like, "learn to code like your life depends on it.” While empathy for the engineering process is important, and that mythical designer / coder may exist, in general, this advice is misguided. Bad for you, bad for your team, bad for your organization, and most importantly, bad for your career.

In this talk, Patrick will explain why you should not learn to code and instead focus on learning the in’s an out’s of business. He’ll cover:

• Why learning about business is a good idea for any user experience professional

• Why most businesses secretly want designers to learn business

• What aspects of business are important to user experience

• How you can take action to learn it in your organization

• Where you can apply what you have learned to your current job, and your future jobs

About the Speaker

Patrick Neeman (@usabilitycounts) (mostly) in Seattle, Washington. He is currently Sr. Director of User Experience at icertis. He was Director of Product Design at Apptio, and Director of User Experience at Jobvite. After a complete redesign of the application, Jobvite received a Webby award for employment, and the Deloitte What Works award.

Come join CHIFOO for our tenth speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2hRy9jc

CHIFOO presents "Designer Myopia" with Rian Van Der Merwe, Wildbit!

The all-too-common phenomenon whereby, despite our best intentions, we sometimes design with a nearsightedness that results in websites and applications that please ourselves and impress our peers but don’t meet user and business goals.

About the Speaker

Rian Van Der Merwe (@RianVDM) designs and builds high quality software that people love to use, and I wrote a book about it called “Making It Right“.

He spent seven years in Silicon Valley and then moved to Portland, OR in April 2014. He has been working as a Product Manager for Wildbit and an independent author, speaker, and product consultant with Elezea.

Come join CHIFOO for our ninth speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

CHIFOO presents "Designing for Happiness" with Pamela Pavliscak, Change Sciences?!

What does it mean to design for happiness? Based on a combination of design research and data science, this session will explore what makes people happiest when they use technology and what we can learn from that to design for positive outcomes.

About the Speaker

Pamela Pavliscak founded Change Sciences. She has a book about designing for happiness coming out in the next year and is a frequent speaker at conferences like SXSW, Collision, Future of Web Design, and Webvisions.

Come join CHIFOO for our seventh speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Embrace The Chaos: Client Workshops and Getting the Insights You Seek" with Alicia Nagel, Alicia Nagel Creative, LLC!

Engage the client in disruptive and engaging workshops early in website development process to elicit input from key stakeholders who might not otherwise be able to verbalize it. Learn about workshop tools to engage clients to define user personas, develop a wish-list of website features, and define voice for content.

About the Speaker

Alicia (@AliciaNagelCrtv) brings over a decade of experience in marketing strategy and branding. She creates content and makes sure the marketing for her clients is strategically crafted to meet their business goals.

She currently enjoys living in NoPo and takes any chance she can get to visit the many gardens we have within the city.

Come join CHIFOO for our second speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2j998jU

CHIFOO presents "Empowering Community Moderators to Make Values-Based Decisions" with Jasen Balmat, OkCupid!

Working in tandem with scripted filtration tools, Moderators act as gate-keepers. Often under-paid and poorly supported, Community Moderators work invisibly at the heart of the social community. Each day, these individuals make thousands of judgement calls on behalf of the community they serve. At their best, Community Moderators provide personal care and an attention to detail which enriches each community member’s experience on an individual level. Their careful decisions contribute to a sense of safety and well-being that is the hallmark of a healthy community.

About the Speaker

Jasen Balmat is a visual artist turned tech-geek who leads the Community Moderation team at OkCupid. He holds BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design.

Come join CHIFOO for our sixth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Ethical Dilemmas & The Democratized Proliferation Of The State Of The Art AI" with Tapabrata Ghosh!

This talk will discuss the ethical dilemmas that arise from the economic consequences of extended deployment of artificial intelligence systems. In particular, the prospect of technological unemployment, the issues caused by it and potential solutions will be discussed. The talk will also briefly cover how open source software and decentralized education can be utilized to increase proliferation of state of the art artificial intelligence technology in a democratized manner to developers and others.

About the Speaker Tapabrata Ghosh's(@semiDL) biography will be published shortly.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary! Come join CHIFOO for our seventh speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2Cjfack

CHIFOO presents "Ethics In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence" with Cennydd Bowles, Cennydd Ltd!

We mistakenly believe that technology is neutral; that inert objects cannot have moral characteristics. And so we make embarrassing blunders – racist chatbots, manipulative research, privacy violations – that undermine trust and harm those we should help.

This is a dangerous trajectory. We urgently need a deeper ethical dialogue about emerging technology, and interaction design's role within it. This session, informed by many months of ongoing research, will discuss:

-Why companies make poor ethical decisions, -The development of ethical thinking in other morally-charged disciplines, -Methods of engaging users in the ethics of emerging technology, -Ways for designers to engage positively and affect ethical outcomes, so that design decisions benefit not only ourselves but our wider communities and the world at large.

About The Speaker Cennydd Bowles' (@Cennydd) is a London-based designer and writer with fifteen years of experience advising clients including Twitter, Ford, Cisco, and the BBC. His focus today is the ethics of emerging technology. He has lectured on the topic at Carnegie Mellon University, Google, and New York’s School of Visual Arts, and is a sought-after speaker at technology and design events worldwide. His second book, Future Ethics, has just been published.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our ninth speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2CgJeYP

CHIFOO presents "Faulty by Design: A Psychological Examination of User Decision Making" with William Gribbons, PhD, Bentley University!

Our ability to navigate within a product is impacted by the underlying psychology of decision making. Bill presents a variety of design practices that UX designers can use to address complex decisions, facilitating more effective outcomes.

About the Speaker

Bill Gribbons is Director of the graduate Human Factors program at Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts.

Come join CHIFOO for our second speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

http://bit.ly/1QoihjY

CHIFOO presents "How to Fight Fascism" with Mike Monteiro, Mule Design!

All design is political, because all politics are designed. The world is a mess because a certain set of people designed it to be a mess. Now we need a different set of people to design our way out of it. This is not a choice. Regardless of whether this is what we wanted or not fascism is knocking on our front door. This is how we knock back.

About the Speaker Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design. He prefers elegant, simple sites with clear language that serve a real need. He prefers that designers have strong spines. Mike writes and speaks frequently about the craft and business of design.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our fourth speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2zePKJP

CHIFOO presents "How To Get Buy In And Be On The Same Page" with Mary Shaw, UX Consultant!

Getting buy-in from project stakeholders is often the most critical piece of the design puzzle. Learn how to successfully collaborate with your stakeholders so everyone is on the same page from the start.

About the Speaker

Mary Shaw (@maryshaw) is a seasoned UX consultant with 20 years of client-facing experience working with Fortune 500 companies, mid-sized businesses and startups. Mary helps clients get more customers and qualified leads by designing digital products that intentionally communicate who the product is for, what they get, and what's next. Mary has worked on a variety of UX design projects for clients including Coca-Cola, Weight Watchers, Unilever, Starbucks, and Conair Corporation.

Come join CHIFOO for our sixth speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2hRlsoN

CHIFOO presents "Humanizing Technology For The Betterment All" with Elizabeth Bacon, Devise Consulting!

Liz will use the breadth of her professional background and core design practices to expound on the fundamental responsibility we have in HCI fields to humanize technology for the betterment of all. Her deep experience in user research, interaction design, product management as well as entrepreneurship all reflect her passion for solving wicked problems and ensuring that we’re making the world a better place through our work. She will talk about personas, a tool for humanizing “users” and working towards their good at every step of the product/service design and development process. Come and be inspired, while taking away actionable tools that improve everybody’s outcomes.

About The Speaker Elizabeth Bacon (@ebacon)- "I've been practicing at the forefront of the interaction design and product management fields for almost twenty years. My professional endeavors have included in-house roles at St. Jude Medical, Providence Health & Services, Cigna, and most recently as Head of Product at Qantas Assure in Australia."

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our third speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2BVRGfD

CHIFOO presents "Inclusion Before Diversity: Creating a Culture of Learning and Encouraging Getting it Wrong" with Ivana McConnell, Senior UI/UX Designer at Customer.io!

Why tech companies should focus on achieving inclusion first, attending to employees’ specific self-care needs in order to create a platform for diversity to flourish, and better software made. People are chaotic, and product design has to account for them— this is challenging, and often solved by doing research and testing.

About the Speaker Ivana (@IvanaMcConnell) was born in Sarajevo to a civil engineer-turned-translator and a UN Logistics Officer-turned-software engineer. She arrived in Vancouver via Croatia, Scotland, and Toronto, and has previously made a living as a rock climbing instructor and video game tester. These days she’s a senior UX designer at Customer.io, and is most interested in the intersections of technology, identity, and data.

Come join CHIFOO for our third speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2iuWe0a

Please note that this first meeting will be meeting on the fifth floor!

CHIFOO presents "Innovating from Within: Activating Creative Resiliency and Change Agency in Teams" with Patricia Colley, Creative Catalysts Consulting | Matt Smith, Actor!

How do you drive innovation from within the ranks, when innovation processes aren’t well established, or don’t have a clear executive champion? Join us will we bring you a set of collaborative approaches and techniques you can start using right away to inspire your teams to engage more creatively.

About the Speakers Patricia Colley From an early age, Patricia had a natural sense of wonder about the world, a passion for the craft of creativity, and an affinity for deep collaborative play. This playful mindset and teamwork has lead her to be Lead UX Designer at CDK Global, an improv actor and a consultant with Creative Catalysts.

Matt Smith Matt Smith is a true improv legend. As a founding member of Seattle Improv, Matt has decades of performance, writing and teaching experience. He delivers practical, usable improv-theory based trainings for Agile, team building team building, change management, stress management, conflict resolution, and group creativity.

Come join CHIFOO for our first speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

Please Note: This first meeting will be held on the fifth floor of the US Bancorp Building aka "Big Pink".

http://bit.ly/2iyvWsS

CHIFOO presents "Is Design Metrically Opposed?" with Jared Spool, Center Centre & UIE!

The world of metrics and analytics have often been at odds with how designers work. Design is a process where we finely tune our intuition to create great user experiences. Yet, sometimes, what we think is best rivals the metrics. So which do we believe-our gut or the data?

In the world of measures, metrics, and Key Performance Indicators some practices, like the growth hacking approach to increasing Monthly Average Users (MAUs), have hurt the online experience of Instagram and LinkedIn. While alternatives to satisfaction and net promoter score give insight into the design process and help designers have better instincts.

If you’re ready to talk to your teams about what you really need, help management interpret the data, and create analytical experiments that provide design insights, don’t miss this talk.

About the Speaker Jared Spool (@jmspool) is a co-founder of Center Centre and the founder of UIE.

While he led UIE, the industry research firm he started in 1988, the field of UX design emerged and Jared helped define what makes UX designers successful all over the world. In 2016, with Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, he opened Center Centre, a new school in Chattanooga, TN to create the next generation of industry-ready UX Designers. They created a revolutionary approach to vocational training, infusing Jared's decades of UX experience with Leslie's mastery of experience-based learning methodologies.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary! Come join CHIFOO for our first speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start".

http://bit.ly/2BMf4tw

CHIFOO presents "Launching An Innovation Team" with Erik Goodfriend, Humanity Innovation Labs!

The journey from product ideation to launch is full of challenges. Those challenges need a team able to combine the right resources, tools and insight with product strategy, design thinking, and business model design.

About the Speakers

Erik Goodfriend (@egoodfriend) combines product strategy, design thinking, and business model innovation to help organization’s realize their strategic goals. He leads business and commercialization strategy at Humanity Innovation Labs, developing scalable wearable systems that shift the healthcare paradigm from provider driven to consumer directed. Erik also works as a product development manager at Providence Health Plan, developing insurance products that incentivize positive health decisions by consumers and cost effective care delivery by providers.

Come join CHIFOO for our ninth speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2iv1ros

CHIFOO presents "Let's Pretend: Using Personas to Play with Personas to Play with Problems" with Carolyn Chandler and Anna van Slee!

To uncover the most common problems, designers must empathize with their users and come to know the spaces and times in which they move. In this interactive presentation, UX guru Carolyn and game designer Anna take personas and other empathy exercises to the next level.

About the Speakers

Carolyn Chandler, Mira Fitness

Carolyn has been working in the field of User Experience Design for over 16 years, and was named one of “Chicago’s Tech 50” by Crain’s Magazine. Now she leads the Experience Design efforts at Mira Fitness, which offers a wellness-focused wearable designed for women.

Anna van Slee, Sideshow Collectibles

Anna is Director of New Brands at Sideshow Collectibles, a production manager who is hands-on with production, particularly in writing/editing, visual design, UX/CX design, brand strategy and content creation.

Together, Anna and Carolyn, coauthored "Adventures in Experience Design" which teaches experience design to beginners with games and activities.

Come join CHIFOO for our eighth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities".

CHIFOO presents "Marketing Isn't Storytelling. It's world building." with Ian Lurie, Portent

For years, we’ve referred to ‘marketing as storytelling.’ This creates a problem: Storytelling involves a single narrative arc, and our customers don’t want to be dragged into a single arc. They want a space in which they can move about and create their own stories.

Come to this session to hear how playing Dungeons and Dragons teaches great marketing, the basic principles of marketing worldbuilding, and why this may have broader application.

About the Speaker

Ian Lurie is CEO and Founder of Portent, a full-service digital agency he started in 1995.

Come join CHIFOO for our fourth speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Now That’s Risky Business – Selling UX To The Security Techies" with Andrew Sweany, Tripwire!

Software for tech savvy system admins and security analysts doesn’t need to be easy to use, right? Wrong. Providing good software to the folks keeping our data safe is much more important than one click shoe shopping.

About the Speaker

Andrew (@andrewsweany) began as a Human Factors Engineer at Intel in 2000 and since that time has completed countless user research activities on a huge range of products (software, hardware, web/desk, tablet, & mobile) across the entire life cycle (from emerging concepts to well established enterprise and consumer products).

Come join CHIFOO for our eleventh and final speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2imCE8Q

CHIFOO presents "Presumptive Design: UX in the Problem Space" with Charles Lambdin, Intel!

In this talk you will learn how Presumptive Design differs from traditional user-centered design, as well as how it welcomes and leverages our irrationality by utilizing failure as the main catalyst for insight.

About the Speaker

Charles Lambdin is a User Experience Researcher at Intel Corporation.

Come join CHIFOO for our first speaker event of 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities."

CHIFOO presents "Presumptive Design Workshop: Bounded Irrational Design Research Process" with Leo Frishberg, Phase II!

Based on his (and Charles Lambdin's) recently published book, Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation, Frishberg leads a half day workshop that turns the usual Discover | Define | Design process on its head. Presumptive Design (PrD) begins with the design of an artifact to provoke meaningful interactions and conversations with end-users. PrD is a low-cost method for reducing the risk of inventing the future.

Attendees will learn the theoretical frameworks on which it is based as well as have ample opportunity to practice the method. Topics include: the Owen/Kumar/Sato Design Thinking framework, the five principles of PrD, when it works and when it doesn't and much much more. As an added bonus, all workshop attendees will receive a signed copy of the book.

REGISTRATION

Early bird - by December 15th Late registration - starts January 15th

About the Speaker

For over 40 years, Leo has a B.A. in Environmental Planning from UCSC and an M.Arch from SCI-ARC. In 1984, Leo began his career as a User Experience Architect. In 2004, Leo began to formalize his approach to design research, a process he calls Presumptive Design.

Come join CHIFOO for our January 29th workshop and our second speaker event for 2016's theme "Bounded Irrationality: Supporting Users and Building Communities" on February 10th!

CHIFOO presents "Quantifying Qualitative Decisions" with Lynn Boyden, USC IT Services!

Lynn has developed an approach that engages the participants in a decision-making process. It helps them prioritize and evaluate the various possibilities, resulting in a quantified outcome. It's quick to set up and execute, and the participatory nature of the process generates buy-in and acceptance of the outcome. Lynn will walk you through the method and show you a few examples. We'll discuss some variations based on your setting and the type of decision you’re making, and then Lynn will field questions from the audience.

About the Speaker Lynn Boyden (@lrb23) trained as a librarian at UCLA and has worked for various agencies, Symantec and Yahoo!. She ran the Los Angeles office of FatDUX, where she numbered UCLA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the University of Illinois, and KBHome among her clients. She is an information architect in ITS at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and has taught user experience design in the Master’s degree program in Information Studies at UCLA since 2001.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our sixth speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2zJcJgc

CHIFOO presents "Storytelling Versus Specifications: The Politics Of Introducing New Design In A Large Organization" with Colin Bay, Thug Design | Dwayne King, Pinpoint. | Chris Tobias, Technology Association of Oregon!

Innovation is all the rage today. But how do you actually get your crazy, life changing ideas turned into real products when you work for a large, complex organization? Check out our panel of seasoned troublemakers to learn how you too can become a force for change within a large team and still keep your job.

About the Speakers

Colin Bay, Thug DesignColin Bay, Thug Design

Colin Bay is Chief Research Officer for Thug Design, a user research and design agency in NW Portland. He has been working in user experience since before it was ever called that, from WordPerfect to Intel to Thug, and some companies in between. HThug works chiefly with companies in the Fortune 100, along with a variety of smaller, up-and-coming clients.

Dwayne King, Pinpoint.Dwayne King, Pinpoint.

Dwayne (@dwayne_king) has led strategic teams for over 15 years, always asking them for less; Less complexity, less ego, less whiz-bang, and less copycat thinking. Leaving more room for elegant, useful design and emergent strategies that bring something new into the world.

Chris Tobias, TAO & GE HealthcareChris Tobias, Technology Association of Oregon

Chris currently serves as Lead Systems Integrator for GE Healthcare leading software projects for the Sochi and Rio Olympics, electronic prescribing, patient records and next generation cloud healthcare software. He is also Chairman of the Technology Association of Oregon’s Digital Health Community which hosts Oregon’s largest health technology innovation events and forums.

Come join CHIFOO for our seventh speaker event for 2017's theme "Thriving in Chaos: Strategies for Good Design".

http://bit.ly/2hwYlly

CHIFOO presents "Wasted Time Isn’t Time Wasted: Ensuring An Ethical Process" with Corey Pressman, Fiction!

We are at an important juncture in our technologic and social evolution requires focus and acumen and something else: poetry, imagination, and daydreaming.

This talk presents a way for us - the makers and thinkers of the science fiction present - to organize our activities so as to include healthy portions of the arts & humanities, experimentation, and daydreaming. Creating and maintaining a healthy dream/work balance will ensure that our emerging machine environments are centered on us, and not us on them.

About the Speaker Corey Pressman (@cspressman) is a strategist, anthropologist and futurist with over 20 years’ experience providing clarity and direction to clients and partners of all kinds. As VP of Adaptive Strategies at Fiction, he generates, manages and works on projects with large corporations, universities and startups to help them envision and enact human-centered communication and innovation.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our second speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2CUSLBv

CHIFOO presents ""F#@K You" Money, Courage, & Ethics In The Workplace" with Elena Moon, Osage Orange!

Often defined as the wealth required to burn any bridge, it turns out F.U. money isn't a lifestyle replete with yachts and gold plated toilets. It's having enough money in the bank to be able to speak your mind and, if necessary, walk...to the next job. Learn how personal finances play a huge role in silencing us and how financial freedom through living simply can lead to finding courage, agency and voice at work.

About The Speaker Elena Moon (@Elena_Moon) is the founder of Osage Orange, a human-centered design studio. She has been doing a mix of research and design for the last 15 years and particularly enjoys socially and environmentally conscious projects. CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our tenth speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2DyY89D

DIY Storytelling With Video with Julie Yamamoto, CMD Agency

To kick off this year’s series on storytelling, we’ll try on a few constructs for size. In this discussion, we will review a variety of ways to structure narratives, from the common to the complex, paired with examples from our current digital environment. Attendees will have the opportunity to survey different forms of storytelling and determine if some may work for their organizations’ needs. Hands-on talk about how to use video capture equipment and editing for storytelling and capturing user experiences for design, usability, research, social sharing and other needs.

Designing Experience with Sound

The Haunted Garden is a sonic environment that participants control by their mere presence. It is a room that listens to the notes in your voice and uses them to compose music and change the color of the room. As the project progressed, further opportunities for control were implemented. An interactive kiosk gives users the ability to choose instruments and control sensitivity and reactivity parameters. The next step was to insert audio from other times and places by playing field recordings (e.g., baby yaks in Tibet, the 8-line in San Francisco), allowing the Haunted Garden to actively respond to the augmented sonic environments.

Simran will discuss the challenges of designing with sound, and how he developed “listening agents” who react and comment on sound in the environment. He will relate experiences—both as software developer and sound artist—and explore sound as a medium. Topics will include what is sound sculpture, what challenges were uncovered in creating it, whether the experience worked according to plan, the challenges in developing applications for these sorts of interactions, the unforeseen consequences resulting from initial forays into these kinds of devices, and how an interface based on sound might change how we relate to sound and sonic devices.

About the Speaker Simran Gleason is an artist and professional nerd. He started drawing the day after getting a master’s degree in computer science (symbolic and heuristic computation) from Stanford and drifted through many media before arriving at his current focus: making algorithms that make music. Among his more successful installations is Haunted Garden, a room that listens to you, finds the notes in your conversation, and uses them to compose an ambient sound and lightscape. He also did the generative music and light algorithms for SWARM, a gaggle of open source someday-autonomous spherical robots. His work has been shown in galleries in San Francisco and Palo Alto, as well as installations at Maker Fair, Yuri’s Night, Coachella, and the special olympics of art: Burning Man. Kepler’s Orrery is his first iPhone app.

Persona Stories: Weaving Together Qual and Quant for a Richer Picture with Whitney Quesenbery, WQusability.com

Stories have power to add empathy and connection to our work. They can help us learn about people, culture, and context—why, when, and how our products might be used—and share this with a design team. Stories permeate UX techniques from user stories to storyboards. They come to full power when used with personas: the persona provides a fully envisioned lead character for the story, a perspective through which interactions can be explored, and a voice for the emotional reactions to design ideas.

Creating stories for personas is a craft. They are not fiction, but are grounded in the data and user research that informs the persona. They are not fact, but are imagined events, shaped to explore possibilities. They are realistic, but not perhaps real, because they represent not just one individual or event, but something that might happen, and that provides insights into a user experience.

We’ll look at some structures that are helpful in crafting persona stories. And at questions like whether to write in first, second, or third person—and when each is valuable. We’ll create a quick story and share it, showing how impromptu stories can help in design sessions.

Art of Articulation with Lee Fain, Electrolux

Products, services and technology have a political gauntlet to conquer before they make their first appearance in the marketplace. Often the first line of defense in a corporate environment is the internal audience and invested key stakeholders.

Developing the solution is not enough. How you communicate the idea is just as important as the solution itself. Communicating your approach at the right time with the right mediums, and using the right level of fidelity to motivate the audience into action is an art. One needs to be an effective persuader. One needs to be a provocateur.

About the Speaker Lee Fain (@houseoffain) leverages the process of design provocation to develop compelling stories of technology while building deeper relationships within 3M’s culture of innovation. He currently leads design-centric initiatives for 3M’s Electronics & Energy Business Group based in Saint Paul, MN. His expertise is in contextualizing material science solutions through the tools of design and articulating big stories of innovation with high fidelity video productions.

Before this role, Lee was a strategic designer within 3M’s Consumer Business Group where he developed product design strategies for brands including Post-it and Scotch. His experience over the past 10 years ranged from website development for the US Air Force in Aviano, Italy to appliance design for General Electric to expanding intellectual property claims on emerging technologies. Most recently his design thinking was highlighted in a book titled: Solving Problems with Design Thinking: Ten Stories of What Works (Columbia University Press).

Lee Fain received a Master of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Campbell University in North Carolina. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota enjoying its tropical climate with his wife and two children.

Big Story, Little Story with Jason Sack, Wieden+Kennedy

Working the last couple years in a building full of storytellers, Jason Sack has learned how powerful narrative can be in creating great products and experiences. Selling an idea, creating a sense of drama, and maintaining engagement in an experience all stand to benefit from a better understanding of storytelling. Because UX people are uniquely positioned to work across disciplines, we can act as stewards of our stories as well as those of our users. Using examples and anecdotes, Jason will walk through a variety of ways we can bring the larger story to life while reinforcing it down to the smallest interactions.

About the Speaker Jason Sack (@jasonsack) is currently Lead User Experience Designer at the global agency Wieden + Kennedy. He moved to Portland two years ago from the Bay area, where he led design teams at notable Silicon Valley companies such as Adobe and Apple. He has worked with Nike, American Express, 3M, Imation, General Mills, and many more.

Sack began his design career in Minneapolis, where he built the User Experience practice at digital agency space150. He studied at the University of Minnesota and California State University, and has taught interactive design at the Art Institutes International.

Jason is a passionate advocate of human-centered design, and has spoken throughout the country about emotional design, user experience, and innovation. When he’s not working Jason composes music, hacks wireless children’s toys, and writes an occasional post in his blog at jasonsack.com.

Ducks, Dolls & Robots: a Genealogy of Socio-Technical Anxieties with Dr. Genevieve Bell, Intel

The introductions of new technologies are rarely seamless and silent affairs. There are the inevitable boosters and utopian dreamers who will tell us and sell us on the notion that this new technology will change our lives, in both big and small ways: we will be cleaner, safer, happier, more efficient, more productive, and of course, more modern with all that implies. The message here is everything will be different, better. There are also the equally inevitable naysayers and dystopian dreamers who worry along equally familiar but slightly different lines: we will be less social, less secure, more isolated, and more homogenous. The message here is everything will be different, but perhaps not so much better. Of course, running in between these larger conversations are the practicalities of living with new technologies—how much does it cost? where does it live? who should look after it? what will we will do with it? and, in the end, what will we do without it?

Perhaps it is no surprise then that we worry, that new technologies are frequently accompanied by anxiety, and sometimes even fear. In this talk, Genevieve traces the roots of these hopes, fears and anxieties back through our history with machines—Vaucason’s Duck, Edison’s Talking Doll, the tea-cup robots of the Edo-period in Japan, Frankenstein’s monster and Ned Ludd’s polemics are all part of this story. She takes an expansive view, crossing cultures and historical periods, to create a genealogy of our socio-technical anxieties. Ultimately, she suggests a framework for making sense of these anxieties, and in so doing, a new way of thinking about the next generation of technologies we are designing.

Epic FAIL: Takeways from the War Stories Project with Steve Portigal, Portigal Consulting

After nearly two years in gathering War Stories about the unusual, comic, tragic and otherwise astonishing things that happen in fieldwork, Portigal Consulting has amassed a compelling archive about the user research experience. While it’s common for the members of any group to share stories of their adventures, the user research community hasn’t supported this well. For a practice that feels misunderstood by others, there’s pressure to only share successes. Yet the confidence to share the honest and human messiness of this work can help develop the skill and even prestige of the community.

In this presentation, Steve will review some of the stories collected, highlight some of the patterns revealed by the stories, and suggest some of the lessons that we can take away. We’ll also feature live storytelling from a couple of local user researchers, sharing their own War Stories. Meanwhile, we invite you to contribute your own fieldwork War Story (about contextual research only, please) here.

“Gamers Succeed Where Scientists Don’t- Combining Humans and Computers to Solve Scientific Problems” with Seth Cooper, Center for Game Science, Northeastern University

Rather than solving problems with a purely computational approach, combining humans and computers can provide a means for solving problems neither could solve alone. Seth will describe the challenges of mapping real-world problems onto games and ways to address these challenges. Further, Seth will discuss other current problem solving game projects and future possibilities.

Give Dimensions, a Face, and a Beating Heart to Projects Through Storytelling with Leah Noble Davidson, LeahNobleDavidson.com

Since qualitative research, or market research, can largely be spit out by a computer, we’ll take a look at how one can move beyond big data and do what a computer cannot do—go inside the head of a person and learn about their motivations and goals. Humanity’s experience is constantly shifting and so is the motivation behind our fears and goals, and that shift changes how we experience and use things. Story allows one to put a finger on that pulse. Story gets right to the bottom of things, it uncovers how the user will actually use the product in this time/place, how they will experience it in their lives, in their own home/office etc. Story is research above market “fill in the blank” research. It exposes rituals, and when one works to streamline those rituals, innovation enters. Discovering this level of story has another great benefit: it can be used to created scene stealing pitches in front of clients. One can stand in front a user or a client and paint out the story of how this will be a great new part of their lives.

"If It Isn’t Fun, No One Will Care" with Grant Roberts, E-Line Media

Grant will share a variety of game and human-computer interaction design insights from his long career in the video game industry — which has featured Marvel Comics games for kids, free-to-play games for phones, big-budget sequels for the hardcore, and casino games for the bargain bin.

Lost But Not Forgetten: The Thanhouser Studio Ned Thanhouser, Thanhouser Films

Film history has forgotten the pioneering productions created by the Thanhouser studio that operated in New Rochelle, New York during the birth of cinema in America. From 1910 to 1917 the Thanhouser studio produced and released more than 1,000 films, of which some 220 have survived. Reconstructing the history of his grandfather’s studio and the stories behind key executives, actors, technicians, directors, and the films they made has been Ned Thanhouser’s focus for more than 25 years. He will share these stories, as well as the challenges posed by decades of changing video technology and the surprising results of making the films available for free online.

About the Speaker Ned Thanhouser (@nthanhou) is the grandson of silent film pioneers Gertrude and Edwin Thanhouser and is president of Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Since 1986, he has been actively involved in the research, acquisition, preservation and publication of the history, surviving films, and related ephemera from the Thanhouser studio that operated in New Rochelle, NY from 1909 to 1918. He is a member of Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and the Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) and has presented and published research papers at the SCMS conferences (2005, 2013), the AMIA Journal The Moving Image (2011), the Women and the Silent Screen conference (2006), and the Domitor conference (2012). He is also co-founder and vice-president of the International Youth Silent Film Festival which organizes competitions for filmmakers age 20 and under to create modern versions of silent films.

"Mental Health & Social Impact Are No Game - Or Are They?" with Skyler Corbett, University of Portland Online Learning Development and Yori Kvitchko, SleepNinja Games

CHIFOO 2-for-1! Skyler will cover educational developments in the indie gaming, “You Have Gained A Level - Adding Empathy and Understanding to Online Education”. Yori will be filling in and covering the same topic as Will Lewis. He'll share the pros and cons of applying gameful design to HCI in “Games for Social Good”.

“Online Story-Driven Games” with Rym DeCoster, FIX Flyer, Geek Nights, & Datenighto

Through his geek-focused radio talk show, events and lecturing, Rym has had exposure to and a direct hand in a variety of projects that leverage game-inspired techniques in a computer interface, and will delight us with his stories about how he's observed the unique interaction of gaming and how HCI is maturing.

Play Matters with David Galiel, Elbowfish

David will share how emerging developments in HCI are creating virtual civic spaces. Learn how David and Elbowfish succeed in applying game-inspired approaches to improving work, converting customers to fans, and harnessing the power of community.

Show, Don’t Tell: Storytelling Experience Design in Modern Comics with Mike Lonergan, Intel

Comics are a collaborative storytelling effort—many talented individuals contribute to the success or failure of each comic book, much as a good design team leverages complementary talents in delivering a stunning product. When their talents are combined, the writer (information architect) and artists (visual designers) attract attention and deliver the mood and flow (interaction design) to pull the reader along a highly stylized, deliberate path. Mike will take you on an illuminating journey of discovery, highlighting his favorite design techniques in comics that facilitate not just the mechanics of reading but the pure enjoyment of these colorful stories.

Along the way, you’ll be granted a tour of comic book storytelling techniques that can enrich your design communications such as story boarding, visual cues and iconography and unique ways to show your users the happy path without having to tell them.

Speaking the Language of Meta-Principles: Consistency, Hierarchy, and Personality with Deborah Levinson, Nimble Partners

When designing or redesigning an application, Nimble Partners focuses on three core principles: consistency, hierarchy, and personality. We can think of these principles as if they’re part of a language. Consistency and hierarchy are the grammar people learn while using an application: the basic elements that define how a language is spoken. The “words” we speak—that is, the visual design characteristics we choose to convey a message—create an application’s personality. These principles are so fundamental to creating successful interfaces that we call them “meta-principles.” While technology that affects interfaces changes, the underlying meta-principles hold true.

Nimble Partners arrived at these three meta-principles after years of heuristic reviews, usability studies, and informal observation of digital applications. In this talk, Deborah will introduce these principles and show how they apply in examples, including a case study redesign of a web and mobile application to help users track diet and exercise.

"’Outside-In’ Engagement: Identity, Transformation, and Agency in Digital Story Based Games” with Josh Tanenbaum, Transformative Play Lab, University of California

Joshua will help us draw on theories of method acting training to investigate how to support the experience of transforming into a character in a digital narrative. Then we'll discuss the relationships between embodied game interfaces, tangible storytelling, game-based-learning, virtual worlds, and nonverbal communication.

More details to come - watch CHIFOO.org and your email inbox for details. There will be food and drinks served and an opportunity to network and hang out with other CHIFOO members and guests. We will also talk about important CHIFOO business like elections and the 2013 speaker series.

CHIFOO presents "Panel Discussion: Ethics in Augmented And Virtual Reality" Ben Strackany, DevelopmentNow Corey Pressman, Fiction Seth Chaffee, Giant Astronaut Josh Hansen, PixelPool

An educational panel covering ethics in development, design, application, business use, and usability of mixed reality (Augmented and Virtual Reality) technology. Walk away with valuable insight from leaders in the emerging tech space, and learn how to apply this new technology in productive and functional ways for your business.

CHIFOO is celebrating its 25th anniversary all year long! Come join CHIFOO for our eighth speaker event for 2018's theme "Do the Right Thing- HCI Ethics: Where Do We Start?".

http://bit.ly/2BXSLAg

Admission is free for CHIFOO members. Admission for non-members is $5. You can also join us prior to the event at the Lucky Lab for CHIFOOd.

Have you ever wanted to send a hug from far away, automatically track your daily activity, or have your clothing correct your posture? What if your insulin delivery went from being a plastic shot in your pocket to a beautiful ring on your finger? How ubiquitous can pervasive technology really be? We will look at the rapidly changing future of wearable technology where health and wellness companies are early adopters.

Wearable technology syncs with daily life so that we don’t simply think about our health when something hurts, but rather utilize the ever present technology to get and stay healthy. Notoriously unattractive medical devices are being slowly re-engineered into desirable artifacts to carry with pride. Janna will bring a working prototype and samples to interact with and discuss. With 20 years of experience in apparel and health related design, as well as 10 years working in technology, Janna brings a unique perspective of how these two seemingly disparate materials can continue to merge to create the ultimate user experience

Presenter is Janna Kimel, Senior UX Researcher from Regence Group.

Thanks to mobile device and social networks, enterprise computing stands at the start of the biggest revolution in computing since the transition to client-server. Tablets and smartphones are not laptops with small screens and no keyboards, yet that is how enterprise IT executives persist in treating them. In fact, to fully grasp the potential of these devices, enterprises will need to re-image every business process and user experience in the enterprise. This will be expensive, but when done correctly, the ROI will indeed kick-ass. This talk will address some of the challenges facing companies in thinking about the social, mobile web and how to approach user experience and business process design to achieve kick-ass ROI.

About the Speaker Since 2002, Paul Brody (@pbrody) has served as a Partner with IBM Global Business Services and Global Lead, Electronics Industry Strategy Practice, and has led engagements with leading electronics companies in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Brody has worked extensively with business strategy, supply chain management and product life cycle management, including planning and scheduling, logistics, and procurement solutions.


Prior to IBM, he held senior supply chain executive positions at ClearCross and i2 Technologies. He has also been a consultant with McKinsey & Co., primarily in the high-tech electronics sector in the United States and across the Asia Pacific region. Brody began his career at Mobile Telecommunications Services Ltd., where he developed marketing programs for one of Africa’s first mobile cellular systems, turning the company into a national brand name. He holds a B.A. in Economics, and a Certificate in African Studies, from Princeton University.

Julie is on an early morning training run. She has done some running over the last year, but this will be her first marathon. She doesn’t have a training partner, but a voice in her ear expertly nudges her on, while her mobile device records her pace, her route, and saves it to a training log in the cloud. A friend comments later on Facebook about her commitment, noting that he has trouble running so early in the morning.

Tryouts for the high school soccer team are in three months, but Steve is starting his training now. A device in the midsole of his shoe and in the soccer ball he uses measures direction and acceleration, and compares his data to his peers and to the pros. An app on his mobile device records his statistics, shows him where he is strong and where he is weak, and gives him a training program to elevate his game.

Analytics, the marriage of computer science and statistics, allows us to derive meaning from large sets of data. Historically it has been the domain of business strategy and marketing, used to zero in on patterns which enable strategists to forecast future market behavior and improve outcomes. New mobile technology allows users to collect their own data, connects them to the best science, and does so in a way that is personal, social, and highly targeted. The Nike+ Sensor records running performance, the Adidas miCoach Speed Cell measures multi-directional motion for sports training, the Withings scale and blood pressure monitor helps people monitor their health, and UP by Jawbone measures activity level, sleep cycles, and eating patterns.

How has user-centered design shaped the direction of these new technologies? In this presentation, Jeanne will explore the ways that people have integrated these devices into their lives and discuss whether the technology has followed through on the promise to improve health, performance, and lifestyle.

About the Speaker

Jeanne Turner is a passionate and versatile interaction designer who is dedicated to creating delightful experiences through greater understanding of user needs, goals, and motivations. After earning a BA in Computer Science with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction, she’s spent the past 7 years using her skills to build both mobile applications and web environments for clients including Ecotrust, Vanderbilt Owen School of Management, Tektronix, Harvard Business School, Starbucks, and Amazon. Jeanne is also an invaluable part of the Portland interaction design community, serving as the leader and co-leader of the local chapter of IxDA since May of 2008.

SecViz.org is a great resource for security visualizations, but most suffer from a lack of interactivity. Completing kinectasploit for DEFCON19 made me realize the utility of game engines for interacting with security tools and security information. Jeff will start with a recap/encore performance of kinectasploit (http://p0wnlabs.com/defcon19), which uses gestures to drive a first-person shooter 3D game environment to break into computers on victim virtual machines. Then using the same technology, Jeff will walk through a couple scenes using standard corporate security data in a 3D, kinect-driven environment made possible by the blender game engine.

Kinect and gestures are two of the most prevalent game-changing technologies to affect user interfaces since the keyboard and mouse. Applying these tools to real-world data is challenging, fraught with pitfalls, and a heck of a lot of fun! Let’s discover the boundaries of current technology by pushing it until it fails!

This panel will present the creation of Behavior Change Systems for healthy living by exploring the following three essential areas: (1) Theory—The Cognitive Psychology of Behavior Change, (2) Strategy—Systems Thinking Modeling (how you model ecosytems and values), and (3) Tactical—Examples of Behavior Change Systems (do’s/don’ts).

About the Panelists John Weiss is Executive Creative Director of WebMD Health Services, and his work is guided by purpose, passion, simplicity, beauty, innovation, and surprise. He is responsible for crafting online experiences that change behavior and ultimately improve lives. John oversees all aspects of design across digital and traditional mediums within the organization. With over 13 years of experience in interactive and experience design, John has built and led high performing design teams as the Director of Experience Design at Waggener Edstrom, and Experience Director at Ascentium. Through smart design that empowered their audience and strengthened their brand, he has designed compelling work for clients such as BMW, Microsoft, U.S. Air Force, T-Mobile, Subaru, Amazon, Motorola, GE, Disney, Honda, and Intel. John founded FiveEdge Media in 2003, a Portland/Seattle-based Experience Design agency that conceived, prototyped, and designed innovative visually compelling application and experience designs with great attention to detail for over 28 clients which led to a successful acquisition in 2008. John is deeply passionate about creating authentic experiences that are truly meaningful—experiences that are rooted in elegant design, built with innovative technology, and create lasting relationships and shape the future.

Katey Deeney is Director of Experience Design at WebMD Health Services, and she has almost 15 years of experience designing effective, delightful solutions to complex user challenges. She has researched, evaluated, and designed mobile, software, and web interactions for brands including Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, and T-mobile. Her professional knowledge is complemented by advanced academic work; she earned her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and her MS from the University of Washington. As an educator, Katey has taught both design studios and lecture courses to graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, she has guest lectured for courses at the University of Washington in several academic departments, including the Information School, Human Centered Design & Engineering, and Communication in Digital Media.

Aaron Wasler is the Creative Director at WebMD and a multi-faceted designer whose work encompasses strategy, design, and technology. His projects have included the design of brand identity, catalogs, packaging, environments, exhibitions, interactive installations, websites, and user interfaces. Prior to joining WebMD, Aaron enjoyed various positions such as Design Director, SVP of Branding & Creative, Senior Art Director, and Senior Information Architect. Aaron has successfully built and led multi-disciplinary teams of varying sizes while creating award-winning work in a variety of design disciplines. During the last 15 years of his design practice and while working as a design educator, Aaron has developed new and innovative design research and methodologies. Most of all, Aaron is a passionate storyteller who truly believes in design thinking and the power of design to both inspire and inform. Aaron holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in Design from Brigham Young University.

CHIFOO Member Admission: FREE. Non members: $5 at the door. All events include door prizes and raffles.

Why do gamers who usually demand the most cutting edge technology still accept the primitive buzzing technologies that do not recreate the real feel of the game? They must have not yet experienced what ViviTouch can add to their gaming experience. ViviTouch enables a gamer to experience thousands of sensations in a versatile language of feedback in the palm of the hand. This allows game developers to change the way that their games interact with the gamer.

Tom will present the exciting consumer reactions from the recent introduction of this technology to gamers and game developers. A case study of the Mophie Pulse gaming case that turns the iPod Touch into a gaming platform with a rumble experience that surpasses console controllers will also be presented. Tom will introduce how game developers can enable gamers to truly experience ViviTouch for iOS, Android, and other platforms by using available design guides and SDKs.

User experience designers can use this innovative technology to communicate useful information through the sense of touch, such as who is calling or messaging, or enabling a user to feel different parts of their screen, to even potentially enable sightless typing on a touch screen. ViviTouch can become a new tool for user experience designers to integrate to create truly innovative user interfaces.

Tom joined AMI in September 2007 as Vice President of Engineering. Prior to AMI, Tom was the Engineering Program Manager for Skypilot Networks, a developer of low cost / high volume wireless infrastructure products. Prior to Skypilot, he held senior management positions in engineering and project management for several companies, including Intel, Raychem, Ericsson Fiber, WaveSplitter, and Siros Technologies. Tom has led the development of numerous successful products and projects in the wireless, LCD display, data storage, and fiber optic industries.

Non-members $5, or can join CHIFOO at the door for $25

Life is precious. Why waste it? Every moment counts! Experiential venues from theme parks to museums, schools, shopping centers and even hospitals are re-designing their experiences by transforming everyday activities into making memories for a lifetime. How much of our lives are robbed by killing time for the next teller, the doctor, tires being changed, waiting for a table or that 4 minute thrill ride?

Christopher Stapleton discusses how his applied research firm, Simiosys, conducts Experiential Make-overs to assess, design and test novel entertainment alternatives that give venues that extra kick. His collaboration with academic, commercial and civic institutions has challenged him to quantify and qualify the elusive “Wow factor,” in appealing to mainstream audiences. He will share his approach and tools that can apply to human factor design.

About the Speaker Christopher Stapleton (@MixingRealities) is a Creative Venture Catalyst for Simiosys.com, Real World Laboratory. He has been consulting, designing, prototyping and delivering innovative experiences for organizations such as Disney, Universal, Nickelodeon, Sanrio & Paramount Parks leveraging experiential research collaborations with Canon Inc., Technical University of Munich and University of Central Florida funded by agencies such as NASA, NSF and the Departments of Education and Defense. He is the Founding Director of the Media Convergence Lab at the Institute for Simulation and Training, Founding President of the Rural Heritage Center and a founding faculty member of the University of Central Florida Digital Media Program. He has served as chair on the conference committees for ACM/Siggraph, IEEE/ISMAR and IEEE/VR. Mr. Stapleton received his start working on Broadway and designing for film, TV and computer graphics in New York City where he earned his Master of Fine Arts in design for theater and film at the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

There are hundreds of thousands of apps available in the app store and the numbers are ever increasing. A reasonable percentage of these apps focus on education. But there are few apps that quantify their effectiveness or value for the students who use them or the teachers and parents who purchase them.

How can behavioral science, instructional design, gaming and UX/UI design assist in this effort, not only to build products that are effective and fun, but to define these metrics and educate consumers about how to identify them? What makes an app AWESOME and how can we quantify that? Not only in terms of fun, but in terms of teaching kids meaningful stuff! This talk will explore these questions, using example apps to illustrate the relevant features.

This event is sponsored by Clarity Innovations, which is paying for non-members to attend for free. Seating is limited, so you should register in advance to be sure you have a seat!

The Ford Immersive Vehicle Environment (FiVE) applies a variety of real-time, advanced visualization technologies to allow efficient, quick and effective evaluations of vehicle design proposals. Ford is using virtual and augmented reality in a unique and amazing way to simulate a multitude of customer perspectives very early in the development process. Their approach is different…it combines the best of what the virtual and physical worlds have to offer.

How did Ford get there? Elizabeth will explain how the need for FiVE was fulfilled, the importance of quantifying the vehicle-owner subjective relationship, and the consideration of human-machine interaction. She will explain the totally awesome VR systems used at Ford and the successes and challenges of virtual reviews. She will relay the practical (and impractical) principles Ford employs regarding conducting virtual assessments, as well as the types of assessments that are used in vehicle development and engineering. Elizabeth will detail how Ford quantifies the emotional connection between you and your car. And she will also provide insight on where gaps exist in the current suite of VR tools, and thoughts on the future of human/computer interaction for vehicle engineering and design.

About the Speaker Elizabeth Baron is a Technical Specialist in Virtual Reality and Advanced Visualization at Ford Motor Company. She manages the Ford immersive Vehicle Evaluation (FiVE) Lab in Product Development, and provides immersive virtual reality evaluation systems used for industrial design and product development. She develops and deploys highly realistic immersive systems that address the unique challenges of automotive design, engineering and ergonomics. She has led the development of immersive VR systems that satisfy evaluation criteria for engineering, ergonomics and aesthetic design to allow different disciplines in product development to communicate in a common environment.

Elizabeth began her career at Ford in 1988 working as a software developer for Ford’s product design software, later specializing in visualization and solid modeling software. She received her BS in Industrial Technology and Computer Science from Eastern Michigan University. She is also a qualified Six Sigma Academy Black Belt. She is a member of the Human Motion Simulation Consortium at the University of Michigan, the Society of Automotive Engineers, IEEE and ACM.

$5

The paradigm of physical computing is well and truly here—sensors and microcontrollers are getting cheaper and more robust, and they are easily programmable. Long associated with gaming, these sensors are making their way into our everyday ‘utility’ devices. For example, think about the average smart phone: it likely contains a proximity sensor, an accelerometer/orientation sensor, an ambient light sensor, a gyroscopic sensor, and a moisture sensor. Cameras can recognize head motion and facial gestures; they can track body movements and compare them to motion models.

As these sensors become part of everyday interactive devices, we are ushering in new forms of gestural interaction, which is changing how we interact with digital experiences and data, and changing the nature of our computer-mediated communications. In this talk, Elizabeth will offer some observations and speculations on how the world of physical computing, broadly construed, is changing the way in which we interact with our devices, each other, and interactive digital experiences.

About the Speaker

Dr. Elizabeth Churchill is a Principal Research Scientist and manager of the Internet Experiences group at Yahoo! Research. Originally a psychologist by training, Elizabeth has focused throughout her career on understanding the ways in which people interact—whether their interactions are primarily face-to-face or are technologically mediated. She has published within the areas of theoretical and applied psychology, cognitive science, human-computer interaction, and computer-supported cooperative work. Elizabeth has a BSc in Experimental Psychology and a MSc in Knowledge Based Systems, both from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of Cambridge. She regularly teaches at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information. In 2010, she was recognized as a Distinguished Scientist by the Association for Computing Machinery. She is the current Vice President of the Association of Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction (SigCHI).

Building a Kick-Ass company is more than just difficult—it’s a high-wire act that challenges even the most skilled product development acrobats, and there’s no net. Just look at Tim Cook’s apology for Apple’s Maps application—The company that danced on the wire for so long had to swallow its pride when it kicked its own ass. What can we learn from that catastrophe? More importantly, how do you know when your product is ready to kick ass, and when your ass is hanging out?

About the Speaker Charles Austen Angell (@AustenAngell) is Founder and President of Modern Edge, Inc. based in Portland Oregon. With more than 25 years of professional experience in Industrial Design, he has worked with industry leaders in Health & Wellness, Mobility, Home Products and Experiential Environments. 

A native Australian, Mr. Angell has traveled extensively through Europe, the Americas, Africa, China, Southeast Asia, and Australia examining the role of culture, politics and geography in shaping our evolving global design industry. Mr. Angell is passionate about creating new markets and designing product relationships that transcend cultural borders to enhance our shared human experience.

Mr. Angell is the Chairman-Elect on the Board of the Industrial Design Society of America and was the Chairman of the 2012 IDSA International Conference in Boston, “THE FUTURE IS…” He was one of the original five trustees for the Design Foundation, a public charity supporting design education through educational and social responsibility. Through his numerous speaking engagements, publications and teaching, Mr. Angell is committed to increasing the value of human creativity to benefit human society and commerce. Mr. Angell is a graduate of Purdue University.

The program will begin with a review of Honda’s user research and design research process while developing new applications for the company’s 3-D heads-up display prototype. It will be a fairly candid talk showing lessons learned and how the team changed focus mid-way on design direction after learning about new things while designing. This included focusing more on the driver’s primary task instead of secondary tasks to help create a more engaging (“kick-ass”) experience for the driver.

About the Speaker Victor Ng Thow Hing is a Principal Scientist working at the Honda Research Institute in Mountain View, Calif. He has worked on projects related to digital human modeling, intelligent systems, human-robot interaction, and now human-machine interaction in the car.

This month, CHIFOO presents not one, but THREE speakers who will quantify their own takes on Kick-Ass for us.

Part One: “Authentically Kick-Ass” with Robert Lacosse. The concept of kick-ass is, more often than not, resting precariously upon the notion of authenticity: that which is either original or conforms to an accepted norm set forth by an original. However, is it really that simple? In actuality, the term is more loaded in nature than it would appear. Authenticity is tied, as are all sought-after commodities, to economic dynamics. We’ll discuss why some products and concepts are viewed as authentic and other, tandem, items as old-hat and what that means to us as UX professionals.

Part Two: “What Should You Measure and How Do You Present It for Impact?” with Nechama Katan. Nechama will provide a process for continuous data discovery and analysis focused on metrics and measures that matter. We will explore some tools that provide self-service analytics and show how they can be used to maintain a relevant set of measures. Finally, good data is not enough, how it is presented matters.

Part Three: “Hopeful Monsters: Punctuated Equilibrium and the Post-Book Age” with Corey Pressman. The advent of hypertext and the new art of interaction design signal the dawn of a post-book epoch. We will focus on the User Experience Design opportunities this moment affords. Innovative products and features such as content-rich apps and shared marginalia will be presented, evaluated, and discussed.

Demonstrating the value of design in business is key to positioning design, UX and HCI more strategically in an organization. Yet demonstrating this has been a vexing challenge for designers. Using metrics that matter to leaders as the kernel in a story is key to meeting business leaders halfway in their quest to understand what design, UX and HCI can do for them. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, there is not a clear-cut set of metrics, a “clip of silver bullets”, that works for all situations. What to measure then, is highly situational. Design Thinking is perfect for developing solutions to highly situational challenges.

This presentation will cover the presenter’s examples and experiences in successfully applying Design Thinking to demonstrate the value of design, UX and HCI to business in: •Determining what to measure for a situation •Measuring what matters to key stakeholders •Designing a viable, sustained measurement system •Communicating the results with impact to key stakeholders

About the Speaker Steve Sato is the founder of Sato+Partners, a management consulting and organization development firm by and for design leaders. Steve works with executives, directors and their teams to build experience, design and innovation capability through using existing work to bootstrap. Previously, Steve was at Hewlett-Packard and led its customer-centered strategy and planning consultancy, then later in Corporate Design, led building experience design capability across the company. Steve was formerly at Doblin Group as a design planner and also at Accenture, pioneering customer-centered design for the company in their advanced R&D group.

He has a Masters in Design from the Institute of Design at IIT, Masters of Engineering Management from Northwestern University and a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois. His clients include Microsoft, Yahoo!, Coca-Cola, Industrial Design Society of America, The Hershey Company and HP. See www.satopartners.com for further details.

CHIFOO presents Game Night at the Bagdad's Backstage Bar.

It's time for the annual CHIFOO August social and we're mixing it up a bit with Game Night this year. Join us at the Backstage Bar to enjoy food, brews, and gaming fun. We are providing a selection of easy and fun tabletop games and there are pool tables for those who enjoy cue sports. There are even a few group activities planned. As usual, very special prizes will be awarded. You need not play anything to win! So come join us and have some fun.

CHIFOO members get in free. Non-members or guests get the full package for just $10! It’s a heck of a deal.

http://bit.ly/2lsWChN

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

• Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm
• Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm
• Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm
• Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Fieldwork for Human Computer Interaction: A 4-Part Workshop on Ethnographically-Informed Fieldwork

Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan

A growing number of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners use the results of fieldwork to guide the design and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems and technologies. Why? Because data about real people in real situations spurs creativity and innovation around practical challenges, resulting in more useful and usable artifacts.

Fieldwork for HCI typically consists of firsthand observations made in the naturally occurring environment of use (as opposed to studies performed in a controlled environment). Many techniques are adapted from anthropology – particularly ethnography.

As the mobile app and manufacturing industries grow in Oregon, UX designers are increasingly recruited from out-of-state. The Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon - CHIFOO - recognizes a local need for more basic training in this area.

Workshop Format This practicum is a new offering by CHIFOO, separate from the popular monthly guest lecture series. Developed with industry experts Sara Bly and Françoise Brun-Cottan, this unique pilot program serves as a first test model for future educational programs by CHIFOO.

To conduct fieldwork well, the researcher needs the knowledge, ability and access to observe the activities and complexities of people within the context of their day-to-day pursuits. This makes it difficult to practice in a classroom-only or online environment. The methodology is best learned by apprenticeship and experience.

Each session builds on the prior one. Participants are expected to attend three private classroom sessions, to complete group assignments in between, and to ‘report out’ on the experience in teams at the last session, an open CHIFOO event. Sessions will be held:

Sunday, October 5, 12-4 pm Wednesday, October 15 6-9 pm Wednesday, October 29, 6-9 pm Wednesday, November 12, 6-9 pm

Who Should Participate? The practicum is tailored especially towards locals who seek a better command and understanding of the skills utilized by User Experience Analysts, Design Engineers, and Interaction Designers.

To make the learning experience as rich, collaborative and personalized as possible, the # of participants is capped at 16. Group exercises are designed to be completed in teams of 2-4.

About the Instructors

Dr. Sara Bly – Head Instructor – Sara Bly has been an active researcher and practitioner in qualitative user studies for more than 25 years. Ethnographically-informed fieldwork is a major component of her user experience studies, which focus on understanding the context of an activity as well as the specific user task. During Sara’s tenure at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, she served on multi-disciplinary teams with anthropologists, designers, and computer scientists. Sara has worked in a variety of companies and development teams, and has experience teaching user study techniques for both industry and academia. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Davis. Currently Sara Bly lives in Oregon and consults nationally.

Francoise Brun-Cottan, Phd – Instructor - Anthropologist Francoise Brun-Cottan spent over a decade as a Work Place Ethnographer and Interaction Analyst with Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Specialties include:

Integration of ethnographic insights with engineering research, product/services development and design to inform innovation. Ethnography - Observation and interviewing, analysis and representations of work practices and user experience. Video ethnography Conversation and Interaction Analysis Work Practice and Participatory Design Studies. Currently Francoise Brun-Cottan consults for libraries, government agencies, large corporations and research agencies.

Clodine Mallinckrodt – Facilitator – From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine Mallinckrodt’s varied background spans the early days of interactive multimedia and distance learning to data security and strategy consulting. Currently, Clodine is Manager of Ambulatory Reporting & Analytics for Providence Health & Services, where she enjoys enabling analyst teams to deliver data visualization and exploration tools to healthcare executives throughout the west. She helped develop new Providence Consumer Segments, is a GE-certified Change Facilitator, and trained in Lean. Based in Portland, OR, Clodine Mallinckrodt is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.

Register Online Be an Early Bird! Get the best price by registering before August 20.

Location as an invisible interface

Amber will be presenting an information-packed speech on her experiences with geolocation, GPS, location triggers, and non-visual augmented reality. Amber will cover the current players in the geolocation market, the location market itself, and why location is such a big deal. Topics such as real-time location sharing, geolocation triggers, geonotes, proximal notification and automatic checkins, and privacy and security will be discussed.

About the Speaker Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist and user experience designer who focuses on mobile software, augmented reality and data visualization, and reducing the amount of time and space it takes for people to connect. Amber has been featured in Forbes, WIRED, and Time, and also founded Geoloqi.com, a private location sharing application, out of a frustration with existing social protocols around text messaging and wayfinding. Amber has spoken at conferences all around the world, including TED, and was featured in Fast Company 2010 as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology.

Reading is an inherently social experience: what we read and how we read it is shaped by who we know and the broader communities we belong to. With that in mind, Cathy Marshall from Microsoft Research will take a fresh look at the future of eBooks and how we get there from here. In particular, she will share some findings from a body of studies of reading-related activities (such as annotation and clipping) and will draw on her experiences with several generations of eBook products, including Microsoft Reader, ePeriodicals (a reader for magazines like The New Yorker and Esquire), and the Times News Reader (an RSS-based reader for The New York Times).

Registration begins 6:30 pm. Program followed by questions from 7 - 9 pm. CHIFOO members get in free. Non-members pay $5 to attend the meeting.

Crystal Beasley (@skinny) will present "15 Signs Your UX is Busted"

**Note: Code-n-Splode (CnS) is a women-focused group. All self-identified women and genderqueer persons are invited to attend and participate, and men are welcome as the guest of a female participant.

For more information, visit our website, or send an email to our list.

Come along and talk to Sam Ladner, the author of the super-useful and well-received new book, Practical Ethnography: A Guide to Doing Ethnography in the Private Sector.

Sam's book is aimed at two groups of people:

1. Social scientists who want to adapt their academic skills to the private sector, either to find a full-time job or to practice as an independent researcher; and
2. Designers and researchers already working in the private sector who may not have formal training in ethnography.

Sam is based in Seattle but is coming to Portland to talk to us. Don't miss this opportunity to talk about the research skills that are so critical in creating successful products.

Note: if you haven't finished the book, please still come along and join the conversation

This workshop provides an introduction to digital accessibility standards and practices and gives participants hands-on experience with assessing, testing, and implementing accessibility practices in the physical and digital realm.

We’ll start this workshop by talking about what accessibility entails: why it matters, and who is excluded when we don't adapt our online and physical spaces to account for varying ability levels. Then, we'll explore the business case for developing accessible technology. Isn't your business (your art project, your retail store) going to be more successful if everyone, regardless of their ability, can access and enjoy it?

Next, we’ll dive into the technical details with a straightforward overview of the latest accessibility standards (the new 2018 Revised 508 Standards, the first major update since 2001, and the W3 WCAG standards). Then, we’ll work in small groups to practice hands-on accessibility testing. Finally, we’ll reconvene, share our progress and findings, and develop plans for implementing accessible development in our day-to-day work.

Instructor: Amelia Abreu is a design researcher and the founder of UX Night School. She's worked with clients like Nike, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Intel. Before entering the industry, she did graduate research in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Washington.

WHO: Corrina Black Corrina Black grew up sketching pictures and cartoons, but didn’t turn to design until she discovered the Web and taught herself to design and code simple websites. She focused instinctively on user flow, interaction, and attractive solutions. Corrina is currently a UX Designer on the Microsoft Developer Division team. To broaden her impact, Corrina pursued a software engineering degree to combine with her passion for user experience design. For Corrina, user experience is what matters. A product that doesn’t solve a problem, is difficult to use, and doesn’t draw the user in, regardless of how amazing the technology, will fail.

TOPIC: Creating Great UX with Expression Blend Corrina will do an intro to Blend and walkthrough the process of creating a great user experience; this will involve SketchFlow because detailing and iterating on user flow, layout, and animations and transitions prior to full-scale implementation is key to great UX design and this is done in tools like SketchFlow. She will also likely walkthrough the process of building a simple application in Blend to show the core functionality of Blend (maybe create a phone application).

Warmup - The Reactive Framework (Rx) in Silverlight At the beginning of the meeting (6pm) our own Eric Sterling of Vertigo will be giving a short introduction to Rx. Have you had trouble writing asynchronous code (including unit testing code)? If so, Rx offers a compelling and syntactically attractive way of handling events.

CrowdSource Summit, presented by the Higher Education Web Professionals Association, is a new conference for college and university students who want to explore the many possibilities that "working on the Web" encompasses.

We'll focus on the multidisciplinary nature of Web work, moving beyond the tools and the technology to look at the human side of creating online experiences. We'll look at the WHY.

Strong speakers

Session topics include accessibility, usability, user experience, mobile interfaces, content strategy and how the web is being used to conquer the digital divide.

Registration

Registration is only $50 and includes a t-shirt, a keynote, several really amazing sessions, and great networking opportunities. There are hotel rooms available to make attending the Saturday sessions easier!

Discounts available

Group discounts are available; email [email protected] for details.

Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things that you didn't mean to. Designers and developers often abdicate our responsibility to remove deceptive patterns from design. In this talk, we'll explore some dark patterns, talk about how it parallels with older industry practices, and what we should do about before it's too late to fix.

We'll also use this as an opportunity to meet others working across interaction design disciplines.

If you're a long-time member of the interaction design community in Portland, find yourself new without a network, or simply want to talk about what's going on, here's your chance to get connected!

Delight is a two-day conference in Portland, Oregon for brands and professionals who care about making experiences people love. The event features a unique lineup of inspiring case studies, workshops and keynote presentations, as well as peer networking with fellow experience design, digital, marketing, and business leaders.

The conference gathers leaders and practitioners from a wide range of organizations including startups, healthcare, agencies, B2B and Fortune 1,000 enterprises – All with the goal of creating business value and delighting customers by differentiating on experience.

This year's event features speakers from Disney, MailChimp, Zipcar, Intuit, Mayo Clinic, and more. Full conference tickets include full or half-day workshops on digital experience strategy, healthcare, content strategy or design-thinking for startups, followed by the main stage event on day 2. Attendees of the main event will enjoy breakfast and lunch as well as several delightful surprises throughout the day, and a wine reception at the end of the day.

See the full lineup and agenda on the Delight 2013 website.

Delight 2013 is joining forces with Design Week Portland this year, connecting attendees and speakers with dozens of additional events, studio tours, and parties happening all week in Portland. Happening October 7-12, the week celebrates Portland as a city of design and for design in exploring process, craft and practice across disciplines. The culmination of events and creative professionals in Portland make it an extra special time to attend Delight and visit the lovely Rose City.

Register for Delight 2013 before August 7 to take advantage of Early Bird pricing for up to 25% off full conference tickets!

Delight brings together more than 400 business, design and technology professionals who are passionate about bringing exceptional experiences to life. The event fosters an intimate forum that introduces big ideas, encourages interactive discussions, and builds lasting connections. As we celebrate our fifth anniversary in 2016, we have some fun surprises and one-of-a-kind experiences in store—we can’t wait to share them with you!

Delight Conference looks at experience design from a diversity of perspectives—from analysts to information architects, UX designers to product managers, content strategists to marketers, Delight has something for anyone dedicated to building meaningful experiences.

Everyone is talking about "Lean UX" -- the last time Julie 'JB' Booth was with us, we did some really fast prototyping.  This time we are going to back up a bit and work on writing simple, clear, testable statements about our users, needs, features and usages.  

Julie 'JB' Booth is a UX geek who is so into providing value to users that it borders on obsession.  Currently at Intel, JB is bringing user centered design into Agile product development teams.

Everyone is talking about "Lean UX" -- the last time Julie 'JB' Booth was with us, we did some really fast prototyping. This time we are going to back up a bit and work on writing simple, clear, testable statements about our users, needs, features and usages.

Julie 'JB' Booth is a UX geek who is so into providing value to users that it borders on obsession. Currently at Intel, JB is bringing user centered design into Agile product development teams.

Following in the tradition of Command Line, GUI, and NUI interface paradigms, first person interfaces continue to reduce the layers of abstraction between the digital and the real. With first person interfaces we can allow people to interact digitally with the real world as they are currently experiencing it. This allows people to navigate the space around them, augment their immediate surroundings, and interact with nearby objects, locations, or people.

First person interfaces enable people to interact with the real world through a set of “always on” sensors. Simply place a computing device in a specific location, near a specific object or person, and automatically get relevant output based on who you are, where you are, and who or what is near you.

The technology to make this happen is here today but these interfaces are in their infancy –they need design help. They need designers to care and focus on this class of software.

About the Speaker Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized digital product design leader who has designed or contributed to software used by more than 700 million people worldwide.

Luke is currently Chief Design Officer and co-founder of a stealth start-up. He is also an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Benchmark Capital. Prior to this, Luke was the Chief Design Architect (VP) at Yahoo! Inc. where he worked on product alignment and forward-looking integrated customer experiences on the web, mobile, TV, and beyond.

Luke is the author of two popular web design books, Web Form Design and Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability. He has also authored many articles about digital product design and strategy. He is also a consistently top-rated speaker at conferences and companies around the world, and a co-founder and former Board member of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

Only 20 tickets open to the public! XPLANE invites you to a special Visual Thinking School for World Information Architecture Day. XPLANE consultants and designers will share some methods for assessing your audience needs and organizing information through visualization, and co-creation, as well as people-centered design. Join XPLANE for this highly-interactive session where we will architect the information within the Jar of Whimsy. Time: 6-8 with time after for mingling and Q +A Facilitators: collaborative team approach, Cynthia Owens Sr Consultant, Roel Uleners Creative Director, Jacob O'Brien Senior Designer, Matt Morasky Consultant/ACD

Join PDX-UX and a diverse panel of user experience designers as we discuss the realities of UX design work and how to prepare for, cope with, and celebrate our growing field.

Our panel includes:

Derek Keevil, Principal UX Design Consultant at The Hat Sharpener

Verne Lindner, Senior Designer at Puppet Labs

Søren Muus, Director of Experience Design at Urban Airship

Paul Souders, Director of Design at OpenSourcery

Networking and refreshments start at 6p and the panel starts at 6:30p.  Co-organizer Tom Quick will lead the discussion with plenty of time for questions at the end. 

Just starting out or want to learn more about a career in UX?  Check out the User Experience Careers report by PDX-UX member Susan Farrell and UX pioneer, Jakob Nielsen.

We're re-booting UX Book Club in the new year with something a little different!

Fan favorite Amber Case will be hosting us (address will be sent to attendees) and giving a presentation on her new book Designing with Sound (and likely her other recent book Calm Technology).

Questions and discussion included.

Doors at 6:30. Presentation at 7:00

Pre-order a hard copy of the book at Amazon (release date is Dec. 13): https://www.amazon.com/_/dp/1491961104

Or read on O'Reilly's online learning platform, Safari: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920051923.do

About the book:

Sound can profoundly impact how people interact with your product. Well-designed sounds can be exceptionally effective in conveying subtle distinctions, emotion, urgency, and information without adding visual clutter. In this practical guide, Amber Case and Aaron Day explain why sound design is critical to the success of products, environments, and experiences.

Just as visual designers have a set of benchmarks and a design language to guide their work, this book provides a toolkit for the auditory experience, improving collaboration for a wide variety of stakeholders, from product developers to composers, user experience designers to architects. You’ll learn a complete process for designing, prototyping, and testing sound.

In two parts, this guide includes:

・Past, present, and upcoming advances in sound design ・Principles for designing quieter products ・Guidelines for intelligently adding and removing sound in interactions ・When to use voice interfaces, how to consider personalities, and how to ・build a knowledge map of queries ・Working with brands to create unique and effective audio logos that will ・speak to your customers ・Adding information using sonification and generative audio

About the authors:

Amber Case studies the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way cultures think, act, and understand their worlds. Case has spoken, performed and written about the future of sound design at conferences and events around the world. Case is also the author of Calm Technology (O'Reilly, 2015). She lives in Portland, Oregon and online @caseorganic.

Aaron Day (who will not be in attendance) has been designing sound experiences and interfaces since 1998. He has worked for clients including Bruel & Kjaer, Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, Wire, Mozilla, Qoros, Telefònica, Bosch, Vodafone, Sprint, Siemens Audi and Samsung. Aaron lives with his family in Berlin, Germany.

All participants must read and abide by the Event Code of Conduct.

Event Code of Conduct (Short Version):

Be respectful of other people, respectfully ask people to stop if you are bothered, and if you can’t resolve an issue contact organizers. If you are being a problem, it will be apparent and you’ll be asked to leave.

For a full Code of Conduct please see: http://cyborgcamp.com/code-of-conduct/

Additionally, we respectfully ask that you do not tag the venue on social media.

Join us in Portland, OR, for our 4th year of inspirational sessions and educational workshops, cross-pollinating our diverse community of creatives, developers and front-end engineers.

This is a combo technology and design event!!

Relaunching the Urban Airship brand was a task that took as much skill as sending off an actual zeppelin into the skies. Introduced with just as great fanfare, the Urban Airship experience reached impressive heights.

It fell to Portland's own Owen Jones and Partners to re-launch both the brand and the website. They developed a new logo, extensive illustrations, a robust icon system, and other secondary brand assets. At the same time, they re-architected their product platform and rewrote almost all of the site content. They then melded the creative with a responsive front-end and an Expression Engine back-end to bring the brand to life.

How did they do it? Come find out as the Owen team discusses the challenges of simultaneously handling a company rebrand and website launch.

Roles: Lucas Swick - Technical Director Josh Balleza - Art Director

Digital Dialogues is an event series developed by AIGA Portland in partnership with IxDA and sponsored by FILTER and ISITE Design. Each event provides a sneak peek into a different collaborative case study. Relaunching the Urban Airship brand was a task that took as much skill as sending off an actual zeppelin into the skies. Introduced with just as great fanfare, the Urban Airship experience reached impressive heights.

How it works:

Come have a beer and (if you want to) play some ping-pong:

Do you work for a tech company in any way, shape, or form (developer, marketing, design, admin, tech student, etc.)? Do you want to be more involved in the Portland tech community? Come by and play some Ping-Pong! Or, just come by for some good conversation and a beer. Headbands, wristbands, and other such attire are encouraged.

Please RSVP so we can get a head count. How it works:

Come have a beer and (if you want to) play some pong:

Do you work for a tech company in any way, shape, or form (developer, marketing, design, admin, tech student, etc.)? Do you want to be more involved in the Portland tech community? Come by and play some Ping-Pong! Or, just come by for some good conversation and a beer. Headbands, wristbands, and other such attire are encouraged.

Please RSVP so we can get a head count.

Programmers Can UX Too

Programmers have a bad reputation when it comes to UX, but it’s time to set the record straight: It isn’t because we don’t care! It’s because we fall in the trap of thinking we can design a user interface and write it at the same time when, the truth is, these processes require different kinds of thinking. But learning how to unlock that part of your brain is worth it– and you’ll be surprised at what you already know. From one developer to another, this talk will discuss why you should think critically about the interfaces you write and give you some strategies you can start applying right away.

This talk is aimed at developers, both front-end and server-side, who implement user interfaces but may not have training in UX. And the truth is, ALL programmers implement user interfaces; sometimes the user is another developer (in the case of an API) or a more advanced user (for a command-line tool), but all software has its users.

Doors will open at 5:30, and the presentation will begin right at 6p. The food and drinks are provided by Bellagios and New Relic.

Please RSVP via Eventbrite HERE

Eryn O'Neil is a PHP web developer (LAMP, naturally) and technical lead at Clockwork Active Media in Minneapolis, MN. There, she has worked on everything from e-commerce to online promotions to building a CMS. Her philosophy? Simple: Write software that’s easy to maintain and even easier to use. Based in Saint Paul, MN, Eryn spends most of her free time swing and blues dancing, rock climbing, and wishing it weren’t snowing.

› FutureTalk is brought to you by New Relic in collaboration with TAO

Spring Buildathon!

Guidelines for Guest Contributors

What is it?

Believe it or not, Hack Oregon actually doesn’t really do a lot of Hackathons. We form specialized teams to build software and open data stories for important themes in Oregon, and work and iterate incrementally over months to create a product.

The "Buildathon" is the one day where we open up our project teams for guest and current contributors that want to be part of the magic and build something amazing, but might not have the time to participate in our months-long project season.

What’s the goal?

The Buildathon is a production sprint. We’ve laid the groundwork to do research, visualizations, and data storytelling quickly, and we need your help to bring our projects to the next level. We’ll get to work shoring up and finalizing our projects with some cross-team and outsider help. We’re going to use our lifelines and help each other close those blocked github issues and fine-tune designs.

Be prepared to make friends and be an instant part of our Hack Oregon family!

How can I get involved?

By joining our sprint, you’ll be placed with a team that needs extra hands on deck in your particular skill set. We’re working toward our public demo day at OMSI on May 1st, where you can proudly present alongside your team.

Perks:

• Team T-Shirt

• All Day Food

• Ticket to sold out Demo Day

• Profound Glory

Submit your information here and we’ll reach out to match you with a team and link to reserve your ticket.

Below you’ll find a list of skills and roles we’re looking for at the Buildathon, along with this year’s five project themes.

Technical skills we’re looking for the Buildathon:

• Front End Developers (we use React.js)

• Data Visualization Developers (we use React.js/D3.js)

• API Developers (we use Django)

• Database Programmers (we use PostgreSQL)

• UX/UI Designers

• DevOps Engineers (we use AWS, Docker, Travis.CI)

• Content Writers / Copywriters

• Data Scientists (we use Python)

• Multimedia Developers (Photography, Motion Graphics, Animation, Videography)

• Visual Designers (Graphic Design, Illustration)

Project Teams

Budget

MVP: We’re highlighting the City of Portland’s budget data in a neutral manner so that users can quickly and efficiently understand its components, view basic spending trends and dive deeper into bureau-level budgets.

Stretch Goals: We’ll organize more sophisticated granular views, and applied analysis of deltas and outcomes of programs.

Transportation

MVP: We’re creating a new system organize and model the efficiency of road construction and capital infrastructure planning.

Stretch goals: Expand into usage and impact of Portland’s biking and transit ecosystem through the lense of multi-modal transportation patterns.

Emergency Response

MVP: We are collaborating with Portland Fire and Rescue to take data relating to their emergency calls and build interesting dashboards, visualizations, and simulations.

Stretch goals: Understand more about how emergency response patterns vary by unique aspects of neighborhood demographics.

Housing

MVP: We’re exploring how the city and its neighborhoods have changed over time, from the perspective of 12 representative households.

Stretch Goals: We’ll work with raw data from the voter registration to explore change of address as a vector, which may indicate displacement trends.

Homelessness

MVP: We’re expanding the perception around the definitions of homelessness in Portland and the moment in time where people experience homelessness.

Stretch goals: Capture a fuller picture of children in Multnomah County who hang in the balance food security and housing security.

Join web and mobile experts on Sun., May 19th at the Portland Hackathon for Social Good. Hackathons are events when programmers and designers meet to work collaboratively to build programs and applications.

The day will begin with short presentations by educators and non-profit organizations, followed by informational sessions on building sites and web applications to help benefit non-profit organizations: The Dalai Lama Center, Dress for Success, Habitat for Humanity (Re)Store and Compassion & Choices.

Register online at http://wvpdx13-hackathon.eventbrite.com

We're finishing out 2019 having collectively presented roughly 85 human-centered events. Let's celebrate with a Human-centered Community Gathering!

Join Portland’s human-centered groups who are passionate about HCD principles and how they can change the way we work and live.

You’ll have an opportunity to: Meet and share insights with folks across the many fields that intersect in HCD in Portland

Shape this community by giving feedback on a few ideas we have been working on for 2020 on how to bring the human-centered communities closer together.

Some of the groups that will be there include:

• OpenIDEO - Portland Chapter
• PDX Design Research Group
• Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup
• Portland Community Design Thinkers
• Service Design PDX
• UX Book Club

Other Good Stuff

We'll be setting up until 5:30 or so. Doors open around 5:45.

The entrance on 7th Ave is ADA-compliant. If you have any accommodation requests, please email [email protected] in advance of the event to discuss.

We support introverts, extroverts, and everyone in-between at this event. Don’t be shy, or do - either way, join the fun and help shape our community!

This event is sponsored by Studio VO, Concrete, and WeWork Labs Portland. Thanks, y'all!

Want to know more about the human-centered disciplines in Portland? You're in the right place.

For Novembers 'I want to work for_______' meetup we are excited to have with us Brynn Dirksen - Associate Art Director at Razorfish. She specializes in UX design and we look forward to hearing her thoughts and her journey in the digital marketing space.

An excerpt of her journey in her own words - "While I started my career in the design industry working on print projects, after joining Razorfish as an Art Director, I dove deep into the world of digital design. As a digital agency Razorfish has a large UX department, and from the get-go I was interested in this "experience-based” take on design. Razorfish encourages employees to experiment with other disciplines, and when I started exploring, UX opportunities immediately opened up for me. I had always enjoyed visual design but once experience design was thrown into the mix, the design problems I had once found interesting became truly fascinating. Jumping on the chance to expand my skill set lead me from a job I enjoyed, to one that I’m truly passionate about."

The MFA in Collaborative Design welcomes David Aycan as part of the 2012-2013 Graduate Visiting Artist Lecture Series. David Aycan is the Business Design Director at IDEO and has experience integrating a strategic business perspective with a human centered approach to design. During his seven years at IDEO, his experience has ranged across several industries from commercial real estate to technology and food and beverage to insurance. Prior to joining IDEO, David co-founded and ran skateboard company Wongneto and clothing company Dull Clothes.

http://www.ideo.com/people/david-aycan

Event is free.

Hi everyone! This is the very first event in a new series of meetups for independent/alternative designers in Portland. Come on by and meet some folks! Let's talk about what we can do with a group like this.

// ABOUT THIS GROUP //

Work alone? Freelance? Self-taught? Only designer on your team? Only developer who cares about UX? You might be an indie designer.

The goal of this group is to build community by sharing space, stories, process, techniques, and skills. We aim to help people feel more fulfilled, supported, and connected in their work. ALL people working or interested in design are welcome but most especially women, nonbinary folks, LGBTQA+, POC, and any others who are not well supported or represented in the tech industry.

This is a community-driven event and so the format, process, and schedule of this series is still in flux. Things to think about: What do you need? How can we (this group) help?

See Facebook event page for more details.

This topic of this meetup is: Money Any topic is game. Negotiation, salaries, rates, strategies, and also freelance/small business taxes (happy April!). Talking about money can always be difficult, so please be compassionate in your conversation.

Venue: side room at Shut Up and Eat in SE Portland

We get together every two weeks to hang out, drink beer, meet new friends, and do a variety of design-related activities including discussions, workshops, skillshares, and hack days. Come join us and talk design!

This is a community-driven event, so if you have ideas for future meetup topics, let us know. During the meetup please buy something to eat or drink to support our awesome venue.

// ABOUT THIS GROUP //

Do you freelance? Are you still learning? Are you the only designer on your team? Only developer who cares about front-end? You might be an indie designer.

The goal of this group is to build community. We aim to help people feel more fulfilled, supported, and connected in their work. ALL people working or interested in design are welcome but most especially women, nonbinary folks, LGBTQA+, POC, and any others who are not well supported or represented in the tech industry.

The topic for this meetup is: Design Workflow & Tools What's your design or front-end coding workflow like? What are some of your favorite tools? Share and learn.

Venue: we'll be in the back room at Beer on Stark St.

We get together every two weeks to hang out, drink beer, meet new friends, and do a variety of design-related activities including discussions, workshops, skillshares, and hack days. Come join us and talk design!

This is a community-driven event, so if you have ideas for future meetup topics, let us know. During the meetup please buy something to eat or drink to support our awesome venue.

// ABOUT THIS GROUP //

Do you freelance? Are you still learning? Are you the only designer on your team? Only developer who cares about front-end? You might be an indie designer.

The goal of this group is to build community. We aim to help people feel more fulfilled, supported, and connected in their work. ALL people working or interested in design are welcome but most especially women, nonbinary folks, LGBTQA+, POC, and any others who are not well supported or represented in the tech industry.

InfoCamp is an unconference for the information community. It's for anyone interested in user experience, information architecture, interaction design, user-centered design, information design, library & information science, online search, information management, informatics, and related fields.

It features an egalitarian, community-driven format in which the agenda is created during the event -- so anyone can sign up to lead a session.

Visit the website to learn more and to register.

Find us on Facebook and on Twitter: @infocampPDX and #InfoCampPDX.

InfoCamp PDX is a one day unconference for the information community. It's for anyone interested in user experience, information architecture, interaction design, user-centered design, information design, library & information science, online search, information management, informatics, and related fields.

InfoCamp features an egalitarian, community-driven format in which the agenda is created during the event -- so anyone who attends can lead a session.

This year we're very excited to announce Amber Case as the InfoCamp PDX 2013 Keynote speaker.

Amber Case is a researcher exploring the field of cyborg anthropology and the interaction between humans and technology. She is the founder of Geoloqi (geo-low-key), Inc., a company bringing the future of location to the world. She’s spoken at TED and around the world, and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, WIRED and more. Geoloqi was acquired by global mapping company Esri in Oct 2012.

Visit the website to learn more and to register. Find us on Facebook and on Twitter: @infocampPDX and #InfoCampPDX

Students $30 Standard $45

Did you miss last month’s Interaction’14 conference in Amsterdam? Yes? Well read on…

We’ve watched all 35 hours of video from Interaction’14 and picked out the best of the best to share with you at this year’s IxDA PDX conference redux. Yes, that’s right, this year, we’re having a movie night!

Doors open at 6:00 for drinks, food and conversation.
Movie time starts at 6:45 sharp.

As in previous years, we are being generously hosted by Ziba Design, which means you’ll have a great view of the proceedings.

A huge thank you to Ziba, WebVisions, Vitamin T, and Georgetown Brewing. Without them, we'd all be going home after the event hungry and thirsty.

Register online:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ixda-pdx-interaction-conference-redux-tickets-10829731017

Did you miss the IxDA Interaction15 conference in February? IxDA Portland is hosting a conference redux to recap the conference, share insights, and celebrate!

Get a free ticket here:
https://ixdapdx15redux.eventbrite.com

Agenda
Doors open at 6:30pm.
6:30-7pm: Snacks and drinks, sponsored by Filter Talent.
7-8:30pm: Event talks

Speakers

• This was not Liz Bacon’s first IxDA rodeo – not by a long shot. Liz does a “highly idiosyncratic” reading of the conference as a whole.
• Mike Monteiro said designers destroyed the world. Elena Moon weighs in on the size of the destruction.
• Is Big Tech missing the point with tech workers who are (or want to be) parents? Melissa Casburn reports on research by Rachel Abrams.
• UX has come a long way. Rikki Teeters discusses Leah Buley’s take on the modern UX organization.
• Leo Frishberg taught a half-day workshop on Presumptive Design. He’ll fill us in on the basics – in a bit less time.
• What happens in San Francisco? It doesn’t stay in San Francisco. Jos Vaught took notes.

Snacks and drinks are provided, thanks to our generous sponsors at Filter Talent.

We're back after our summer break and are kicking things off with a presentation by Dedrick Sprick, a Content Strategist for OHSU who has been working with web content for six years. Here's a an overview of his talk:

"Progressive Content Strategy (A Content Commitment Model) helps think about how different clients may approach the web based on their experience with it, from fearful novice to seasoned expert. The model covers typical views of clients at different stages, what might help them learn and where to focus efforts to help them grow."

Is It Usable Yet?

Forty years on, it's easy to forget that user-centered design and information architecture were once disruptive new ideas. Today, they're both presumed to be kind-of "thrown in" when UX work is being done.

"Of course we're user centered: that's the U in UX!"

"Of course we did the IA - we've got navbars and a site map, don't we?"

But as Peter Morville notes, when something is a part of everybody's job, that thing ends up being nobody's job and it does not get done right.

What's the situation around, and value of, UCD and IA in contemporary UX practice? Find out in a lively Q&A and short presentation on January 28 at Mozilla's office in Portland with Dan Klyn from The Understanding Group. There will be food and drink at the event.

Spoiler: what these things mean today is amazing, essential, transformative and not what you probably expect.

About Dan

Dan Klyn is co-founder of The Understanding Group (TUG), teaches information architecture at the University of Michigan School of Information and serves on the board of the IA Institute. He does IA work for clients including Herman Miller and JSTOR and his research focus is also his hero: Richard Saul Wurman.

Many large companies struggle to bring innovation and lean thinking to their entrenched processes. If your teams have their motivation in the right place but their processes aren't meeting their needs, join us this September in Portland for Lean Day: West.

Come learn what it takes for lean teams to, not just thrive, but reinvent the way large companies build software. Speakers include tech, design and research leaders from GE, PayPal, Intuit and many other companies.

Camp Optimization's mission is simple: provide a casual, fun and informative forum for digital marketers and technologists to share optimization best-practices, challenges and wins.

This month’s discussion topic: The Power of Unified Customer Data & Segment Marketing. Camp Optimization welcomes Craig Schinn, Senior Director of Solutions Consulting at Lytics. With a strong analytics background, and over 15 years e-commerce and digital marketing experience, Craig knows how to turn customer data into dollars. Join us this month as we discuss the power of customer journey mapping, and hear first hand what it takes to create more effective personalized experiences across email, web, and mobile.

Lytics is a Portland-based, easy-to-use customer data platform that creates insightful user profiles for powering personalized marketing. Check them out here www.getlytics.com.

We'll be meeting at Ecliptic Brewing for some beer and casual networking. First round is on us! Make sure to spread the word and don't forget to RSVP. We hope to see you there!

Portland Design Thinkers is excited to invite you to our first 2023 in-person event of the year. Join us in person on May 18th, 5:30-7:00p and meet your fellow PDTers! Light nibbles and drinks will be provided.

Space is limited, so please register early!

EVENT FAQ

Q: What is the in-person event capacity? A: 50

Q: Is the space ADA accessible? A: Yes

Q: Will there be food and drink at this event? A: Yes.

Q: What is the parking situation? A: The building has a large, free parking lot.

Q: Is there any special information that might help me find the entrance? A: The main entrance is clearly visible from the outside near the building address, the doors are secured but will remain open until 6p for event arrival. Event time 5:30-7p, 2nd floor.

Q: Is there secured bike parking? A: There is a bike rack by the picnic table.

Q: Should I consider using public transportation? A: The building is on the 56 bus route.

Q: Can I bring my dog? A: Sadly, no.

IxDA Portland is proud to host Mike Monteiro, in town to fundraise & rouse the weary with his latest call to arms: How To Fight Fascism. Doors open at 6pm for drinks, snacks, catching-up with friends, and checking-out Wacom's swanky new "Experience Center" in the Pearl District. Mike's talk will begin at 7pm and span ~45min, with time after for inspired rabble-rousing.

——— All design is political, because all politics are designed. The world is a mess because a certain set of people designed it to be a mess. Now we need a different set of people to design our way out of it. This is not a choice. Regardless of whether this is what we wanted or not fascism is knocking on our front door. This is how we knock back. This event is doubling as a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, Planned Parenthood, and ACLU of Oregon, with IxDA getting the refreshments, so... LET'S DO THIS PORTLAND!!!

Mike Monteiro is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design in San Francisco. He prefers elegant, simple sites with clear language that serve a real need. He prefers that designers have strong spines. Mike writes and speaks frequently about the craft and business of design. He loves client services so much he wrote two books on the topic, Design is a Job and You’re My Favorite Client, both from A Book Apart. Mike received the 2014 Net Award for Conference Talk of the Year for his inspirational polemic on responsibility, How Designers Destroyed the World.

Moderated by Voices of VR Podcast's Kent Bye, this panel will bring together 360 degree videographers, VR technologists and experience designers to examine the state of user experience in virtual reality, the skills needed to design 360 degree experiences, the challenges of this new medium, and the joys of working inside new realities.

Start your Friday right with hand pies from Pacific Pie Co. and Portland Brewing beer, and then join the conversation with some of the area's brightest minds working in experience design and virtual reality.

The Panel

Matt Rowell—Co-Founder 360 Labs @360labs

Gavin Farrell—Co-Founder Panogs @panogs

Gabe Paez—Founder Wild @builtbywild

Teressa Chizeck—Interaction Designer, Intel

The Schedule

5-5:30 eating, networking, demos 5:45-7 panel discussion 7-7:30 questions, networking

Open Source Bridge is in just a few weeks — June 20-23. Come find out about volunteering positions, including Session Monitor, Hacker Lounge volunteer, Logistics assistant, Party volunteer, and more! Working just 8 hours (spread over 4 days of conference and load-in day) gets you a free ticket.

Open source Bridge is the best regional open source tech conference around! A language-agnostic conference created by developers, designers, hardware hackers, and community leaders for the greater tech industry, OSBridge focuses on the intersection of activism, tech, and culture. Students and those looking for internships and work are always welcome — we have a job board on-site to connect you with companies looking to fill positions.

The Optimal Workshop Roadshow is coming to Portland! We’re bringing New Zealand hospitality to town with an evening of informative talks by user researchers, for user researchers (and anyone interested in UX). This is your ticket to 3 hours packed with fresh UX tips, sweet software offers, fun games and prizes, plus tasty food and drinks. All in the company of like-minded locals!

Want to find out what your users are really thinking? Laure Parsons uncovers how behavioural economics, psychology and cognitive bias studies can help you understand what users really want.

Want a deeper understanding of UX through a unique case study? Our very own Kat Hardisty shares her insights from designing user experience for a physical space.

Check out the Eventbrite page for full talk details and schedule.

Spots are limited so get your ticket now. Got a friend to bring or a colleague to convince? Take advantage of our group discount for 3 or more tickets!

Looking to engage or recruit donors, volunteers, ambassadors, or community partners in person? Want tips on how to make things run more smoothly? Get potential advocates excited to come to your community event.

Join us as Melissa Chavez (core organizer of many nonprofit events over the years, including tech conferences Open Source Bridge, PNSQC, PyDX, and Portland VegFest) shares tools, and how to plan community events.

“USER EXPERIENCE – WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?”

PDMA Learning and Networking Event

Thursday, May 15, 2014

6:00 - 8:00 PM

Join PDMA for an interactive discussion with seasoned local Designers and Product Managers on how their experiences at the junction between design and product have driven business results. What do Product Managers need to know about UX and how do Product Managers and UX Designers effectively work together? How can Product Managers incorporate best UX practices into their daily lives? We hope you can join us to explore this exciting topic!

Panelists:

Clodine Mallinckrodt—Manager of Planning Analytics,

Providence Health and Services

Clodine is passionate about the communication and architecture of information - especially in the design and delivery of tech-based products and services. From Wall Street to MarCom Way, Clodine's varied background spans agency-based, vendor-side and strategy consulting work. Her career has touched: •Data and Business Intelligence •Interactive Media and eLearning •Web App & Software Development •Localization •Program & Change Management •Management Consulting

Currently, Clodine is Manager of Planning Analytics at Providence Health & Services, one of the top 20 integrated healthcare delivery systems in the U.S. Her specialized team delivers both quantitative and qualitative Market Intelligence in support of Oregon Region Strategic & Business Planning. This work supports the organization's response to healthcare transformation. She is also helping to develop Providence Consumer Segments, and is a GE-certified Change Facilitator. As of 2014, Clodine is Program Co-Chair for CHIFOO.org, the Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon.

Margi Waite – Senior Product Manager, ADP Dealer Services

In her current role as Product Owner at ADP Dealer Services, Margi is responsible for delivering Common Services for new products being introduced in 2014. In this role Margi partners with UX every step of the way from research to design to UX testing and application development. Margi has over fifteen years’ background managing B2B products including CRM, ERP, and Financial Services software, and has always been a strong advocate of UX as she considers it essential to the success of her Products.

Mike Lonergan -- Interaction Designer and Systems Engineer

Intel Security Group

Mike is an Interaction Designer, Product Owner and Systems Engineer for a suite of business apps in the Intel Security Group at Intel. He handles the requirements, mockups, prioritization and acceptance testing for all aspects of the site design, and factors every user's needs in the interactions, information and visuals that help them achieve their goals. Mike designs apps and processes down to the least cripplingly necessary overhead, and dreams of the day when his smartphone will recognize him half as well as his dog.

Schedule:

6:00 – 6:30pm: Gathering / Networking / Refreshments**

6:30 – 6:45pm: Announcements (upcoming events, who’s hiring, etc.)

6:45 – 7:30pm: Panel Discussion

7:30 – 7:45pm: Q&A / Open discussion

7:45 – 8:00pm: Networking

Cost:

$10 on-line registration prior to the event **

$15 at the door

A discount is available for PDMA members.

To register online, click the website above

** Note: This is a no-host event. The complete Lucky Lab food and drink menu is available. Grab a cold ale & bite to eat - and bring a friend or colleague to add to the discussion!

The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) is the premier global advocate for product development and management professionals. The Oregon chapter's mission is to help local professionals and organizations to identify, develop, and launch more innovative and profitable products and services through cross-industry collaboration, thought leadership, and the sharing of best practices and practical knowledge. For more information about the Oregon Chapter of the PDMA, please contact: David Nash, Chapter President, at [email protected].

We encourage everyone in Oregon who is interested in the Product Development Manager's Association to become a member of the National PDMA. For a great explanation on the benefits of membership in the PDMA, click [] (http://www.pdma.org/p/cm/ld/fid=171).

Join us at the next PDX Design Research Group meeting on Wednesday, November 18th, 2015!

Research Into Results: Making Research Stick in Your Organization

UX and design researchers rarely work alone, and must collaborate with people in other roles to accomplish business and organizational goals. Anyone who is responsible for making research “stick” in their organization will benefit from hearing the perspectives and needs of non-researchers, including those in design, development, leadership, marketing, and others.

Panelists: Mike Lonergan, Product Manager at New Relic
Jolynn Mitchell, Materials Development Director at Nike
Jeremy Whitaker, UX Developer/Designer at SpendWell Health
Olivia Williamson, UX Architect at Autodesk

Networking 6:30 – 7:00 pm, presentation 7:00 – 8:00 pm
Filter Digital has graciously agreed to provide food and drinks, so come early to grab a bite and network!

Check out PDX Design Research Group's new Meetup page:
http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Design-Research-Group/

About This Organization...

The PDX Design Research Group is a multidisciplinary networking group focused on the role of research in the design of products, services and systems in business, government and non-profits. We welcome perspectives from all disciplines, including human-computer interaction, design, market research, and the social sciences, and others. Meetings are held every other month in downtown Portland, and will include speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and other events, with opportunities to network and discuss relevant topics with fellow research professionals.

Thank you for your interest in the PDX Design Research Group and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Don't Change My Chainsaw: Challenges­ in designing a tool for a skeptical audience

In this presentation, Michael Oilar (MDC Research) will talk about a project involving research for a new battery-powered chainsaw design. They tested several iterations, from paper prototypes to high fidelity models. Their research revealed conflicting needs of different user audiences, as well as some resistance to change. Michael will talk about how they worked to resolve those conflicts in the final design.

Please join us for what promises to be an enlightening and entertaining evening!

About the Speaker

Michael Oilar is the President of MDC Research, a market research agency located in Portland, OR.

Event Details

Time: Informal networking is from 6:30 – 7:00, with Michael's talk to begin promptly at 7:00. Light dinner to be provided from World Foods deli. Please RSVP on our Meetup site and let us know if you'll be attending. http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Design-Research-Group/

Special thanks to Connective DX for hosting this event!

About This Organization...

The PDX Design Research Group is a multidisciplinary networking group focused on the role of research in the design of products, services and systems in business, government and non-profits. We welcome perspectives from all disciplines, including human-computer interaction, design, market research, and the social sciences, and others. Meetings are held every other month in downtown Portland, and include speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and other events, with opportunities to network and discuss relevant topics with fellow research professionals.

The PDX Design Research Group is a multidisciplinary networking group focused on the role of research in the design of products, services and systems in business, government and non-profits. We welcome perspectives from all disciplines, including human-computer interaction, design, market research, and the social sciences, and others. Meetings will be held every other month in downtown Portland, and will include speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and other events, with opportunities to network and discuss relevant topics with fellow research professionals.

Help us kick off the new PDX Design Research Group with our first event on November 19th, featuring a presentation and discussion by Janna Kimel, Customer Experience Manager at Regence BlueCross BlueShield. If you have the challenge of integrating design research into the business, or if you consult with companies learning to integrate the voice of the customer, this talk will be especially relevant. Over the past 18 months, Janna has built up her role from doing web-based user research to partnering across business silos in order to support customer-centered projects and products. Come hear how Janna and her team helped move the organization from thinking “inside out” to thinking “outside in.”

Informal networking will be from 6:30 – 7:00, with Janna’s talk to begin promptly at 7:00. Please note: If you arrive after 7:00 pm, you won’t be able to get into the building, so please plan to arrive at least a few minutes before then.

Shake off the winter blues with Amy Dubin, who will present on the myriad considerations all designers face in their roles as visual information disseminators.

Being a designer means taking into account an enormous array of factors, which includes the business and marketing plans that drive demand for your product. Coming up with a product that fits the whole picture will make you not only competitive, but in demand. The tough part is-how to gain this knowledge when 'business' just isn't your thing? This talk offers practical resources to help you understand how big the 'whole picture' really is, where you fit, where you may lack particular skills and how to get them in the most painless way possible. Knowing who to ask for help, and when, is a key strategy and we'll uncover tactics to help you design your career, as well as your products, successfully.

Apologies for shifting the date on this one... the second Thursday was Valentines day.

Thanks to Vitamin-T for providing food; Thanks to Webtrends for the space; Thanks to Amy for presenting an interesting topic!

-Eric Redmond, Organizer of meetup.com/pdxweb

Join us at Thetus for a mix-n-mingle event, made even better with free beer and pizza! Drop by to meet fellow UX enthusiasts, learn about job opportunities, and ideate with us about PDX-UX events for 2014!

We are going to switch it up this month with PDX-UX's first group workshop. We'll present you with a small UX challenged interface in need of some pretty, some information design and even some data visualization skills. You and your peers will form groups and nosh on some solutions. Bring your brains and a laptop if you have one, and we'll provide the pens, giant pads of paper, food and drinks. We'll also be giving away some free books on data visualization courtesy of O'Reilly Media.

This meeting is sponsored by Thetus Corporation and O'Reilly Media

Agenda:

• Snacks, Beer and Networking 5:30 - 6:00
• Presentation and discussion: 6:00-7:30 or so 

Join our google group here - http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-ux?hl=en  Don't forget to follow us on twitter - @PDXUX -  https://twitter.com/#!/PDXUX

Henrik Joreteg – “Avoiding the Spaghetti” Clientside code doesn't have to be an ugly cluttered mess. Building clean, sane, maintainable client-side applications is indeed possible. We'll talk a bit about CommonJS on the client, properly abstracting a model layer, the DOM as a dumb view layer, sharing code between client/ server and other techniques for avoiding insanity like automated static code analysis. 

Henrik is a partner and lead JS developer at &yet (http://andyet.net), a boutique web software company in Richland, WA. He's a member of a growing group of javascript developers who are blazing the trail of realtime and single-page web application development and server-side javascript. Let’s put it this way: the dude cannot shut up about node.js, backbone, and socket.io. 

He is the primary developer for &bang (http://andbang.com) and has written a slew of single-page real-time web apps using a number of technologies. He recently spoke at NodeConf and KRTConf and was a technical reviewer for O'Reilly's JavaScript Web Applications. He is the author of the popular open source javascript templating solution, iCanHaz.js and as an early adopter of Backbone.js wrote several definitive blogposts on the subject. 

Julie (JB) Booth is a veteran UX designer and researcher. Recently back at Intel after a 7 year hiatus, JB is coaching integrating User Centered Design into Agile Software development teams. You can find her on Twitter @uxsuccess.

Join us for networking and refreshments from 6-6:30p; talk begins at 6:30p.

PDXAUX learns from Angel Chesimet and other blind end users while they demonstrate how they use every day technology, including websites, phones, apps, etc. They will discuss what works for them and what doesn't.

Demonstrations of use of screen readers, braille display, texting, gps, apps, OCR readers and applications, and everyday uses.

We will begin the evening with social time and then the presentation at 7pm so there is plenty of time for Q&A, discussion and a bit of networking/wrap-up at the end.

Interactive is not a goal - it is a way of thinking and approaching problems. Though we have orders of magnitude more power at our fingertips, real interactivity is still illusive - but it need not be.

Interactive applications have been a multi-decade goal. Flex is yet another in a long history of frameworks for delivering interactive applications, but technology alone does not an interactive application make. You need to understand the problems, existing solutions and techniques for solving the problem, and the user of the application. Fast is never enough, because the complexity will grow until the app is not fast enough and pain limits what the user can do, underscoring the perception of your app - what the pain prevents me from doing vs. what the lack of pain enables me to do. Scaling is the name of the game - let's talk about bigger problems than you can imagine.

Speakers

Roy Hall has been writing interactive graphic applications for more than 30 years. Trained in civil engineering and architecture, he started writing 3D interactive apps for stadium roof design on E&S PSII's in the late 70's. He later wrote the rendering pipeline for Robert Abel and Associates (Tron - sucking Flynn into the computer and throwing him back out); was the system architect for Wavefront Technologies (Science and Technology Academy Award for that) - and which through many morphs is now the Maya animation software; was an Assistant Professor at Cornell's Program of Computer Graphics; wrote the 'Joey 3D toolkit' extensions for Microsoft MFC in the 90's; worked on the interaction model for Sketchup; and is now the CTO for Thetus Corporation.

We're very pleased to have Chris Rivard, product designer and design manager specializing in data product design and visualization, presenting. Working at the intersection of business and design, Chris has spent 15 years bringing fresh insight, visual communication and design thinking to both large enterprises and growing startups.

A product designer's goal is to get products into the hands of users - to ship it, and get feedback. But as the steps to achieve that goal grow more complex, we're often faced with situations far outside the purview of what we consider “design”. In this talk, Chris will cover what it takes to bring a product from sketch to market while navigating the complexities inherent in software product design. He'll leave attendees with practical tips for dealing with those "non-design" situations. Hint: It's all design.

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Millions of individuals interface daily with colleges and universities throughout the Northwest region, as students, employees, and members of the public. Thousands of these individuals have disabilities that impact the tools and methods they use for accessing websites and information technologies.

How are colleges and universities in Portland and throughout the Northwest region handling this challenge? What strategies are they employing internally and through procurement to ensure their websites and information technologies are accessible? What can the rest of us learn from higher education's examples?

At the October meetup, we will explore these questions including strategies for getting buy-in. Terrill Thompson from University of Washington, Kaela Parks from Portland Community College, Emiluz Lopez from CollegeNET and Gabriel Merrell from University of Oregon will share their strategies, stories and experiences in an informal conversation about IT accessibility in higher ed.

CrowdCompass is our event host. They are graciously providing refreshments for this event! Review their accessibility information and let us know if you have questions.

Lineup/Agenda:

• 6:00 gather/networking

• 6:30 panelists share their experience

• 8:00 time for Q&A and conversation

• 8-8:30 closing/networking

Our panelists:

Terrill Thompson - University of Washington

Kaela Parks - Portland Community College

Emiluz Lopez - CollegeNET

Gabriel Merrell - Oregon State University

See our Meetup page for bios on all of our presenters.

This is really just an excuse to have drinks with other designers. There won't be a pop quiz or anything.

RSVP and grab your (free) ticket

Rob Wilcox, Emerging Technology Design & Product Consultant, will give a talk entitled "Journey to the Heart of the Grid: User Experience Research on Wind and Solar Integration into the Electric Power System."

The North American electric grid is one of the most complex systems that has ever been designed. It is highly reliable, but it takes about the same time for a section of the grid to crash as does an airplane. The cause is almost always the same - human error and deficient situational awareness.

Rob and his team had the opportunity to engage in user experience research for a new grid system for a wholesale utility company in the U.S. The areas they identified for critical focus were the customer experience and the user experience of the grid control staff who would use the system.

Contextual inquiry uncovered some long- and immediate-term concerns, some of which they were able to address from a design standpoint, and others that will require significant future work for the electric utility sector to solve.

Rob will give a brief introduction to the problem space and research findings. He will also discuss research personas, mental models, and learnings from the research process including organizational culture and barriers, regulatory and technical challenges, and working with stakeholders.

About Portland Design Research Group

The Portland Design Research Group is a multidisciplinary networking group focused on the role of research in the design of products, services and systems in business, government and non-profits. We welcome perspectives from all disciplines, including human-computer interaction, design, market research, the social sciences, and others. Meetings will be held every other month at The Art Institute of Portland, and will include speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and other events, with opportunities to network and discuss relevant topics with fellow research professionals.

Portland Design Thinkers are thrilled to announce another Rooftop Happy Hour! Join us for lively conversation, networking, and real, live, face-to-face time with your fellow Design Thinkers!

Food and beverage provided. Please RSVP and also let us know if your plans change, so we can plan accordingly.

Accessibility: Elevator that includes roof access and the bathrooms are ADA accessible

Parking: Free two-hour parking is located around the building on Stark St, 9th Ave, Sandy Blvd, etc.

Please be advised that photographs will be taken at the event for use on the website, our social media, and PDT-related publications. By entering this event, you consent to the PDT photographing and using your image and likeness.

PDT is a volunteer-run organization, and as you can imagine, organizing events can be expensive. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs.

If you're able to contribute, we will be collecting cash donations at the event. We suggest a $10 cash donation, but we're grateful for any amount that you're willing to donate.

If you have any questions or would like to join the PDT Slack you can do so at this link: https://bit.ly/2JuQ2V6

This is the first meeting of the Portland Silverlight User Group - our keynote speaker will be Vertigo (www.vertigo.com) CEO Scott Stanfield. At its core, Vertigo is a group of developers and designers working closely together to create amazing user experiences.

Scott will discuss how Vertigo uses Silverlight, Blend, SketchFlow and a handful of development techniques (“Blendability”, MVVM and View State Manager) to enable our design and development teams to move quickly and build great apps like the Winter Olympics (http://www.vertigo.com/Olympics.aspx), Sunday Night Football (http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/26393211/), and Hard Rock International (http://www.vertigo.com/hardrock.aspx).

If you’re an interaction designer, you’ll see what’s possible with Silverlight. If you’re a developer, you’ll learn better techniques to enable the designers to dial-in the fidelity they want. Or if you're just plain curious, please join us!

For September, UX Happy Hour is teaming up with the PDX Web & Design Meetup group (http://www.meetup.com/pdxweb/) for one big happy mix of people who make the internets a more awesome place!

This month, we'll be chatting about UX and drinking/eating at Gold Dust Meridian. Even better, their happy hour runs until 8pm, which coincides nicely with our schedule! Anyone with an interest in user experience is more than welcome.

To help us give the venue a heads up about approx head count, tweet @UXHappyHour or @elea to let us know if you're in. Thanks!

Welcome to the reboot of Portland's UX Happy Hour! Come join us to meet new friends and have chill design conversations over drinks.

Your new hosts for Portland's UX Happy Hour are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is the first in a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts. We're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a visible sign or placard on our table to help you locate us - details on our Facebook event.

Please join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us.

Join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over food and drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX designers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

Venue note: for summer we're meeting at the food cart pod at 11th and SE Madison. We'll be in the west area of the pod with the covered picnic tables, behind most of the food trucks. The pod has a beer cart and many food options - come enjoy dinner with us!

We'll be announcing the results of the World Usability Day scavenger hunt, and handing out prizes to the winners.

You don't have to be present to win. The contest is open to everybody on the planet, and it would be silly to expect everyone to fly to Portland just for this.

The WUD scavenger hunt page is here: http://www.chifoo.org/index.php/chifoo/events_detail/join_the_pdx_ux_scavenger_hunt_on_world_usability_day_nov._10th/

Join Us for an Exclusive Event RealWear Developer Academy Join us in historic Vancouver, Washington for RealWear Developer Academy! During this two-day event for software engineers, you will gain hands-on experience creating enterprise apps for the HMT platform. Register for RealWear Developer Academy and receive either an HMT-1 or HMT-1Z1 for free.

Why Attend RealWear Developer Academy?

-Opportunity to solve real-world problems with the HMT platform. Bring your questions, bring your laptops, and get ready to program for the world’s best rugged wearable computers. -Small class size and personalized attention from RealWear engineers. This exclusive event is limited to 25 attendees. -HMT-1 or HMT-1Z1 included with your registration. -Learn from the best. Network with your fellow HMT developers in the RealWear community!

Don’t look now, but your life depends on user experience design. Smartphones lead us around by the hand, we strap computers to body parts like it’s going out of style, and autonomous cars are already on the road. Thankfully, Mark Wyner is determined to humanize those experiences. As a user experience designer, Mark has architected software for the US Army, Nike, Intel, Chrysler, and more. He has eloquently addressed the need for interfaces we understand and trust, both in writing and as a speaker at events like Webvisions. Come hear about his efforts to work with the machines, before they take over for good.

Corey Pressman integrates game theory, psychology, philosophy, and art to demonstrate how serendipity may be developed as a skill.

More information and RSVP on Eventbrite here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ux-tv-show-taping-tickets-26974142386

Expose UX is the web TV show where startups compete for prizes while getting feedback from user experience (UX) experts. It's Shark Tank for UX design. Learn from the experts' advice and improve your own product! See past episodes on our website www.exposeux.com

Be part of the studio audience in Portland!

Expose UX is touring North America taping episodes in 25 cities. Join for their Portland stop at CENTRL Office! Watch as 5 local startups give a 30-second pitch, 2-minute demo, and receive feedback from a panel of user experience experts. After all the startups have presented, the experts will choose the winner for the Expose UX Prize Bundle!

• See some of the hottest startups in Portland pitch and demo
• Learn by watching the experts' advice
• Join the excitement as the experts choose who wins the Prize Bundle

BE A VIP ($12): Come at 5:30pm to get your picture with Expose UX Host Richard Brevig and meet the experts and startups. Socialize with new friends while enjoying pizza and soda.

GENERAL ADMISSION (Free): Please note that general admission is on a first come, first served basis starting at 6:30pm. A general admission ticket does not guarantee entry if capacity is reached. VIP tickets are guaranteed entry.

Event Schedule 5:30 pm - VIP ($12): Food and networking
6:30 pm - GENERAL ADMISSION (Free)
7:00 pm - Episode filming
8:00 pm - More networking

User Experience Experts

Leo Frishberg is Founding Principal of Phase II, a Portland, OR based UX and product strategy consultancy. His UX leadership extends back 30+ years. As Product Design Manager at Intel, he led multiple enterprise UX teams. As Principal UX Architect at Tektronix, he established UX as a strategic component of the business. Most recently, he authored Presumptive Design, a leading-edge design research method.

Rachel Nabors is a UI animation consultant and international speaker in Portland, Oregon. She curates WebAnimationWeekly.com, founded the Animation at Work community, and represents the interests of web animation folk as an invited expert at the W3C.

Samuel Hulick is the author of The Elements of User Onboarding. He’s combined UX savvy and a cat-like curiosity for measuring UX impact to become an expert in onboarding. His approach is shaped by over a decade of web experience, theories taken from behavioral psychology, video game design, and even filmmaking.

Join us for an insightful panel discussion at the next Portland Design Thinkers event, exploring Surprises and Speed bumps When Practicing Design Thinking.

As a design-thinker, you might often find yourself collaborating with individuals who may not fully understand the value of your approach. How do you effectively advocate for design thinking and demonstrate its impact on your projects and organization? Learn from seasoned experts on how to thrive (or survive) in a dynamic, multi-function workplace. Whether you're an experienced pro or just starting out, bring your questions and gain valuable strategies to adapt, innovate, and lead.

Meet the panel:

Shashi Jain: Shashi Jain is a Technologist, Entrepreneur, and Teacher who believes in the power of deep-tech literacy and youth entrepreneurship. He began his journey at Intel incubating frontier technology into new business models, with partners. Over the course of 24 years, he’s delivered concepts in AI, the Internet of Things, Mixed Reality, Space, Healthcare, Additive Manufacturing, and Blockchain. He’s been mentor to deep tech startups (orbital observation, silicon photonics) and has sponsored translational research in AI for Space applications with NASA Frontier Development Lab. He currently serves as Principal at the Portland Seed Fund, advising and evaluating deep tech startups. When he’s not dreaming about quantum computers and neuroscience (in space), you’ll find him teaching innovation and entrepreneurship to high school students through TiE Young Entrepreneurs and serving on the Board of Directors at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. Shashi is also the author of “Creating Unstoppable Innovation” (coming in 2024)

Jamie Sherman: Jamie Sherman, PhD is a cultural anthropologist and user experience researcher. She has been working in the technology and UX space since 2012 when she was fortunate to join Intel, working on a range of existing and emerging technologies from virtual reality to gaming, content creation, and AI. Today she is Principal UX Researcher at ESRI focusing the UX of data and analytics in Geographic Information Systems.

Mike Premi: Mike Premi is an accomplished professional with a track record of success in sales and business development leadership, healthcare product management, and product marketing. With extensive experience in managing clinical trials of new technology solutions and driving global service innovation, Mike has cultivated strategic partnerships with prominent organizations such as the VA, American Medical Association, and American Pharmacists Association. His contributions extend beyond corporate realms, with multiple patents issued in healthcare software. As a co-founder of a healthcare startup business at Intel, Mike led partnerships with the AMA and APhA, resulting in the acquisition by a market segment leader. Transitioning to his third career, following roles as a US Naval Officer and Intel Business Development Leader, Mike's passion lies in leveraging computer technology to improve lives. He is currently dedicated to enhancing the lives of US Military Veterans through his work with SoldierStrong.org.

Paul Sorenson: With over 40 years of Human Factors Engineering/UX Research experience and a background that includes roles at Facebook, IBM, Lockheed, Hewlett Packard, and Intel, Paul Sorenson is an expert in user experience research. Specializing in user-centered, mixed-methods research, Paul's recent focus has been hand-held, wearable, and augmented/mixed reality technology and products. His expertise in experimental design, sensory perception, cognition, and human factors engineering has significantly influenced multi-sensory experience research and design.

Tech folks getting together to pong it up.

Year-end tournament not to be missed!

Two Tournament Brackets:

1) The Best of the Best (for pongers who can smash, hit, and rock their way through a pong game).

2) The Best of the Worst (for rookie pongers who just want to have fun and the thought of "spinning a slice shot" seems like something having to do with a pizza parlor).

Come have a beer and (if you want to) play some pong:

Do you work for a tech company in any way, shape, or form (developer, marketing, design, admin, tech student, etc.)? Do you want to be more involved in the Portland tech community? Come by and play some Ping-Pong! Or, just come by for some good conversation and a beer. Headbands, wristbands, and other such attire are encouraged.

This event is free but please RSVP so we get a head count: http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/111321962/

. . . .

(Also coming soon....)

June 5th Tech+Pong tournament with two brackets:

Winners take all. More details can be found here:

http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/111321222/

Come have a beer and (if you want to) play some pong:

Do you work for a tech company in any way, shape, or form (developer, marketing, design, admin, tech student, etc.)? Do you want to be more involved in the Portland tech community? Come by and play some Ping-Pong! Or, just come by for some good conversation and a beer. Headbands, wristbands, and other such attire are encouraged.

This event is free but please RSVP so we get a head count: http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/111313612/

. . . .

(Also coming soon....)

June 5th Tech+Pong tournament with two brackets:

Winners take all. More details can be found here:

http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech-Pong/events/111321222/

Discoverability: UI Design, Usability best practices, user adoption, discoverability, GUI best practices

Discoverability is one of the most important user experience design goals, yet one of the most difficult to master. The biggest symptom of users glossing over, missing or ignoring valuable design features is poor discoverability. In this seminar you will build a Discoverability Plan and come away with practical strategies to tackle discoverability- everyone's biggest user adoption challenge.

Agenda

• What is Discoverability?
• Why Discoverability?
• Designing Discoverability: Web, Web App, Product
• The ROI hit from poor discoverability
• What good discoverability buys you
• Q & A

Frank Spillers is a distinguished speaker, author and internationally respected Senior UX practitioner and UX Master Trainer. He is a world expert in improving the design and user experience of enterprise sites, web applications, desktop, VR/AR and mobile apps. Frank has successfully applied 20 years of advanced knowledge of Usability Engineering skills and User Centered Design methodology in Fortune 500 and corporate environments globally.

Join AMA PDX on June 27 as we explore several characteristics of how our partner professionals who deliver User Experience (UX) think about how what they do differs in the agency and corporate settings. Moda Health’s UX Strategy and Design Director Ed Stojakovic brings his insights from working on both sides, and within several groups in these companies. This field has many new people looking at how to work with them or join them. If you currently work with UX teams or aspire to, this one's for you.

Portland Design Thinkers is thrilled to announce our next event with Damon Gaumont: Turning Empathy into Action – This Is How Digital Products Attain True Success

Turning empathy into action in digital product experiences is crucial for creating products that resonate with users, provide value, and foster positive relationships between users and businesses. It not only leads to better user satisfaction but also contributes to the success and reputation of the product and the company behind it. In this talk, Damon will cover why it is so important, various methods to achieve it, how to measure it, and how to ensure it is continually improved.

About our speaker: Damon currently guides brands accountably through the creation of digital experiences by tapping his extensive background and expertise in brand building, creative strategy, and experience design. His belief that all brand extensions start best with a clearly articulated vision is the first step in an accountable process that culminates with beautifully usable and inherently humanized branded digital experiences.

If you have any questions or would like to join the PDT Slack you can do so at this link: https://bit.ly/2JuQ2V6

PDT is a volunteer-run organization, and as you can imagine, organizing events can be expensive. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs. If you would like to help, we accept donations through Venmo @PortlandDesignThinkers.

***Special discount with Calagator: Get $75 off the registration price when you use the promotion code CALPORT

UIE is excited to announce our new UIE Roadshow: Secrets Behind Designing Great User Experiences, a full-day workshop, based on 10 years of UIE's extensive research, that will deliver new insights and inspire your team to create the best user experiences.

This winter, we're taking this workshop on the road to:

Portland, OR on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Minneapolis, MN on Thursday, February 19, 2009 Atlanta, GA on Monday, March 2, 2009

Recognized industry leader, Jared Spool, will share information that previously we've only made available to our biggest clients.

During the day, Jared will lead you through these sessions:

9:00 am: Designing for the Age of Experience? Jared will start with an overview of UIE's research into great experience design.

10:45 am: UX Level-Up: Taking Your Team to the Next Level?? You'll assess the critical dimensions that will pinpoint what your team needs to succeed.

1:00 pm: The Making of a UX Vision? You'll discover the secrets behind creating a unified user experience vision that you can share with your entire organization.

3:15 pm: Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusions to Simplify Design? In a perfect session to end the day, Jared will use professional magic effects to demonstrate the parallels between the world of magical illusions and the world of digital design.

View a full description of the program at: http://cli.gs/RqzyBR

Interested in learning skills and tactics for understanding and designing User Experiences? Join LaunchCode and UX Night School's Principal Instigator, Amelia Abreu for an evening of learning all about these crucial details that can make or break your work.

We'll have snacks, beverages, and a hands-on usability audit exercise to work through together. Bring your UX questions and quandaries, and we'll sketch, socialize, and catch up.

While you're here, learn more about UX Night School's course offerings and how to hire apprentices with LaunchCode.

Camp Optimization's mission is simple: provide a casual, fun and informative forum for digital marketers and technologists to share optimization best practices, challenges and wins. Camp Optimization is hosted by roboboogie.

Roboboogie is a Portland-based digital experience optimization agency partnering closely with brands to improve conversion rates, nurture brand advocacy and increase customer value.

Camp Optimization welcomes Thom Hines!

Thom makes things easier, like Bzzy--a simple and smart to-do list app for individuals and teams who need to get stuff done. He also teaches Interaction and Web Design at Portland State University.

This month's discussion topic: Optimization is not all sales and email sign-ups.

This month Camp Optimization explores the role of effective UI design in improving productivity and engagement. Thom will share his perspectives on how engaging experiences help users get things done, and keeps them coming back for more.

Meet us at the Assembly Lounge bar at Revolution Hall (Second Floor) for for some beer and casual networking. We'll end the night on the rooftop with a few games of Corn Hole. First round of drinks are on us! Make sure to spread the word and don't forget to RSVP. We hope to see you there!

Interested in user experience in all of its forms? Enjoy reading? Want to combine the two in a social setting with other smart, like-minded people, and maybe drink a beer?

Join us for Portland's first UX Book Club meeting on April 16. We'll meet at Pinpoint Logic's office -- feel free to bring snacks and/or drinks, for yourself or to share.

Get started now by reading "The Back of The Napkin" by Dan Roam: www.thebackofthenapkin.com

Feel free to bring snacks or drinks (alcohol is a-okay), for yourself or to share.

This time around, we're reading Agile Experience Design: A Digital Designer's Guide to Agile, Lean, and Continuous. Want to read, learn, talk about UX and agile, and maybe drink some beer? You should come along!

Come and join us to discuss our book for June 2012: Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World http://www.amazon.com/Situations-Matter-Understanding-Context-Transforms/dp/1594488185/

Hold onto your hats, because we're reading Mike Monteiro's Design Is A Job (http://www.abookapart.com/products/design-is-a-job), a short, easy to read, essential guide for any designer, especially those who are, or thinking about, contracting.

Come along to meet other user experience designers and discuss Don Norman's Living With Complexity. There'll be good conversation and very probably beer. What's not to love about that?

Come talk about personas! Then, afterwards, we can have beer.

This time around we're reading one of the most talked about UX books in a long time, Leah Buley's The User Experience Team Of One. What's going to make this discussion even better is that Leah will joining us in person.

For the first time we're going to be meeting in Mozilla's new offices, and there will be beer, cider, and snacks.

If you don't manage to finish the book on time, please still feel free to attend!

Come along and join us to discuss the excellent Just Enough Research by Mule Design's Erika Hall. Erika, will be joining us via video at 6:30PM to answer any questions you have.

Just Enough Research is a short, really useful book on getting research done in your job. It's just the thing to read if you're looking to get started with research, or you know you need to do research but don't have much support to get it done. Visit our Google Group for a book discount code.

We're being hosted by the fine folks at Puppet Labs at their offices in The Pearl.

If you don't manage to finish the book on time, please still feel free to attend!

Join us to discuss George Lakoff's classic Metaphors We Live By.

This is a book that changed people's understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects.

Sound interesting? Then come along and talk! Also: there will be beer :)

If you haven't managed to finish the book before the event, please feel free to come along and join the discussion.

Join us to discuss Kevin Lynch's classic The Image Of The City. Although the book is about the design of cities, it is widely cited in information architecture fields because of the parallels between urban planning and how we architect information online.

If you haven't managed to finish the book before the event, please feel free to come along and join the discussion

Come along and join us to talk about A Web For Everyone by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery, which is a very useful book on accessibility and universal design. Additionally, we're going to be joined by Whitney on Skype to discuss creating digital content for everyone, including people with disabilities. Accessibility is a huge subject, and one that is frequently overlooked by designers and developers, even though there are laws covering the rights of people (for example, employees and members of the public) to be able to access information.

Come along with any of your team to discuss the important topic of accessibility and how it's not something you tack on at the end of a project, but something that can improve the usability of a product for everyone.

If you haven't finished reading the book, please still come along and join in the conversation.

Come along and talk about Andrew Hinton's Understanding Context.

Technology is destabilizing the way we understand our surroundings. From social identity to ubiquitous mobility, digital information keeps changing what here means, how to get there, and even who we are. Why does software so easily confound our perception and scramble meaning? And how can we make all this complexity still make sense to our users?

Understanding Context offers a powerful toolset for grasping and solving the challenges of contextual ambiguity. By starting with the foundation of how people perceive the world around them, it shows how users touch, navigate, and comprehend environments made of language and pixels, and how we can make those places better.

We're going to be talking to Andrew via Skype, so it's going to be an interesting discussion.

Not finished the book? It doesn't matter—come along and join the conversation.

We're following on from July's excellent discussion on Sam Ladner's Practical Ethnography: A Guide to Doing Ethnography in the Private Sector with a classic from sociologist Erving Goffman.

"Interaction Ritual - Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior" is one of several classic books by Goffman, and one that is studied by UX researchers. The book is a collection of six essays: "On Face-work", "Embarrassment and Social Organization", "The Nature of Deference and Demeanor", "Alienation from Interaction", "Mental Symptoms and Public Order", and "Where the Action Is". If you want to brush up on your understanding of people, this is one of the books for you.

If you haven't finished the book, but still want to come along and talk, the please do—we'd love to see you.

We'll be discussing Cory Lebson's recent book, The UX Careers Handbook.

The author will join the discussion for Q+A, remotely, around 6:00. (This is earlier than usual, so please try not to be late!)

You can purchase a copy of the book at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/UX-Careers-Handbook-Cory-Lebson/dp/1138901067/) or CRC Press (https://www.crcpress.com/The-UX-Careers-Handbook/Lebson/p/book/9781138901063).

About the book:

The UX Careers Handbook offers an insider’s look at how to be a successful User Experience (UX) professional from comprehensive career pathways to learning, personal branding, networking skills, building of resumes and portfolios, and actually landing a UX job.

This book goes in-depth to explain what it takes to get into and succeed in a UX career, be it as a designer, information architect, strategist, user researcher, or in a variety of other UX career specialities. It presents a wealth of resources designed to help readers develop and take control of their UX career success including perspectives and advice from experts in the field.

About the author:

Cory Lebson has been a UX consultant for over two decades. He is the Principal and Owner of a small UX consultancy, a builder of UX community, and a past president of the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA). Not only a practitioner of UX, Cory teaches and mentors to help professionals grow their UX skills, and conducts regular talks and workshops on topics related to both UX skills and career development.

All participants must read and abide by Puppet Labs' Event Code of Conduct below:

Event Code of Conduct

Exhibitors, speakers, sponsors, staff and all other attendees at events organized by Puppet Labs (PuppetConf, Puppet Camps, training classes, and others) or held at Puppet Labs facilities are subject to these Community Guidelines and Code of Conduct. We are dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, and we do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

We ask you to be considerate of others and behave professionally and respectfully to all other participants. Remember that sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any event venue, including talks. Participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the event without a refund at the discretion of the organizers or Puppet Labs staff members.

Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, real or implied violence, intimidation, oppression, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.

If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the event organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the event with no refund. If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of the event staff immediately.

Event staff will be happy to help participants address concerns. All reports will be treated as confidential. We strongly encourage you to address your issues privately with any of our staff members who are organizing the event. We encourage you to avoid disclosing information about the incident until the staff have had sufficient time in which to address the situation. Please also keep in mind that public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. We do not condone nor participate in such actions.

We value your attendance. If you cannot find a member of the event staff or are not comfortable contacting one of the staff, you can alternatively contact [email protected], Kara Sowles (kara at puppetlabs.com) or Nathan Rawlins (503-806-2992 or nathan.rawlins at puppetlabs.com).

We expect all participants to follow these rules at all event venues and related social events.

UX Book Club PDX is back! Tell your friends and colleagues! This will be a good one for practitioners of all experience levels.

Joe Leech, author of Psychology for Designers, will be joining us for Q+A and a lunch-hour virtual discussion.

Joe has generously offered his book as a free download: https://mrjoe.uk/download-the-book/

At 69 pages, it's a quick read. So give it a gander and come with questions!

UX Book Club is back! Without a book...

Instead, please bring a few of your favorite UX-related resources (blogs / blog posts / articles / papers / podcasts / books / etc) to share with the group.

They can be your all-time favorites, or just something helpful or remarkable you've come across recently.

Be prepared to discuss what blogs / people / podcasts / etc you follow to keep up with the latest in UX and UX-related news.

We'll also discuss what book(s) we should read in the coming months.

Hope to see you there!

Interested in user experience in all of its forms? Enjoy reading? Want to combine the two in a social setting with other smart, like-minded people, and maybe drink a beer?

Join us for Portland's third UX Book Club meeting on Tuesday August 18. For this session, we're reading "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman: http://bit.ly/1aEa7D

Feel free to bring snacks or drinks (alcohol is a-okay), for yourself or to share. We'll be meeting at Tyesha's house--the address will be posted closer to the date.

Please RSVP here: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/3070658

A casual event for all those into talking about UX and consuming beer.

The 2nd ever Portland UX Happy Hour will be at Thirsty Lion. Join us for a mix of people into UX + beer + food!

The white owl is closing for a private event so we are moving to the Green Dragon

For May, we'll be taking our beer and UX-loving selves over to White Owl in SE. Anyone with an interest in user experience is welcome, so you don't have to strictly be a designer.

UX Happy Hour is a monthly drinkup for anyone interested in user experience & design!

Ready for your August dose of UX, beer, and socialization?

We'll be meeting up again in the SE area. Whether you're a designer, dev, PM, or founder, if you have an interest in talking about user experience design, you're more than welcome!

For October, we'll be trying out Base Camp for our monthly meeting of beer + UX-y goodness.

You don't have to be directly involved in UX or design to attend - anyone who's interested is welcome to come hang out and chat!

Also, just a heads up: our next UXHH won't be until early Dec.

We're back for a December UX Happy Hour right before/in between the holidays!

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The spiel: UX Happy Hour is open to anyone who's interested in user experience and design. There aren't any talks or workshops; it's just us hanging out.

UX Happy Hour returns for its monthly gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and anyone else interested in chatting about user experience!

As the name might indicate, it's just beer and hanging out.*

• Beer not required, can be substituted by other beverages or food.

UX Happy Hour is a monthly gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and anyone else interested in chatting about user experience.

As the name might indicate, it's just beer and hanging out!

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To help us get a big enough table, you can optionally RSVP via http://attending.io/events/pdx-ux-happy-hour

If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected].

For April, we'll have 2 copies each of Lean UX and Designing Multi-Device Experiences to give away, first come first serve!

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To help us figure out how much space we need, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and anyone else interested in chatting about user experience.

As the name might indicate, it's just beer and hanging out!

For June, we'll return to Southeast. To help us figure out how much space we might need, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and anyone else interested in chatting about user experience.

As the name indicates, it's just beer and hanging out!

It's July, and you've just gotten back from your long weekend. Because we're all nerds UX-loving people, let's head to Dig a Pony and share some beverages and laughs.

To help us figure out how much space we might need, you can RSVP. (But it's totally optional and you can just drop on by, impromptu.)

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly event open to anyone interested in talking about user experience design.

There are no talks or presentations; it's just a casual gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and more!

August means we're rotating back to the Pearl! Come hang out with a bunch of UXers (or UX enthusiasts) and enjoy some tasty beverages after work.

To help us figure out how big a table we need at Bluehour, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly event open to anyone interested in talking about user experience design. There are no talks or presentations; it’s just a casual gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and more!

For Sept, we're going gluten-free at Ground Breaker (formerly known as Harvester) Gastropub in Southeast.

To help us figure out how much space we need, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly event open to anyone interested in talking about user experience design. There are no talks or presentations; it’s just a casual gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and more!

It's October and we're reconvening at Dig A Pony!

To help us figure out how much space we need, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly event open to anyone interested in talking about user experience design. There are no talks or presentations; it’s just a small casual gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and more!

November means rotating over to the Northeast neighborhood and trying out Swift Lounge!

To help figure out how much space we might need, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly event open to anyone interested in talking about user experience design. There are no talks or presentations; it’s just a casual gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and more!

Come trade food, drinks, and stories with fellow designers, researchers, and people into user experience! This month, our tab will be covered by Ziba, so just RSVP if you'd like to come.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly event open to anyone interested in talking about user experience design.

Join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over food and drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX designers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

Venue note: for summer we're meeting at the food cart pod at 11th and SE Madison. We'll be in the west area of the pod with the covered picnic tables, behind most of the food trucks. The pod has a beer cart and many food options - come enjoy dinner with us!

Join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over food and drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX designers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

Venue note: We're still meeting at the food cart pod at 11th and SE Madison. We'll be in the west area of the pod with the covered picnic tables under the heaters, behind most of the food trucks. The pod has a beer cart and many food options - come enjoy dinner with us!

It may be a bit rainy, but it shouldn't be too cold plus there are covered areas to sit with heaters! See you there.

Join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over food and drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX designers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

Venue note: For fall we're still meeting at the food cart pod at 11th and SE Madison. We'll be in the west area of the pod with the covered picnic tables, behind most of the food trucks. The pod has a beer cart and many food options - come enjoy dinner with us!

It may be a bit rainy, but it shouldn't be too cold plus there are covered areas to sit with heaters! See you there.

Please join us for another night of new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Capra Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour monthly event in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Send us a message on our Facebook page to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us.

Please join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Capra Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us!

Please join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Capra Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us.

Please join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us.

Please join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Capra Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us!

Please join us for another night of meeting new friends and chill design conversations over drinks. Your hosts are Rachel Glaves and Leo LaCroix, both local UX freelancers. Welcome! We hope you swing by and say hi.

This is a monthly series of happy hours to build and strengthen our local design community. We are actively seeking venue suggestions and co-hosts - we're both based in SE Portland but know that folks come from every corner of the city. Want a UX Happy Hour in your neighborhood? We welcome you to host one or suggest a venue you love! Message us to get started.

Venue note: Monday happens to be Lucky Lab's "Happy Day", with $1 off pints and specials on pitchers. We will have a few signs with "UX Happy Hour Portland" on the table so you can find us.

For May, we'll be giving some UX love to Northeast for the first time! To help us figure out how much space we might need, you can optionally RSVP.

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UX Happy Hour is a monthly gathering of designers, researchers, developers, and anyone else interested in chatting about user experience.

As the name indicates, it's just beer and hanging out!

What changes after the 2016 elections? How do folks from the design and tech communities come together to fight the good fight? How do we learn how to help?

In this workshop, we’ll work with both ideas and actions, by joining with community partners to envision, plan, scope and scale a User Experience project. We’ll begin by discussing problems and needs with our stakeholders, using the Envisioning Cards toolkit from the Value Sensitive Design Lab at UW. We’ll then explore User Experience methods and tactics using IDEO’s method cards. Lastly, we’ll plan deliverables, discuss resourcing, and create a budget for our project.

Workshop is limited to 10 participants. We'll have plenty of time for discussion and exploration.

Participants will receive a copy of the UX Night School Field Notebook and our UX Project Planning and Methods Guides to use in their own work. Snacks and beverages will be provided.

Want some expert eyes on your UX portfolio?  

Join us for a portfolio review session where you can get valuable feedback on your UX portfolio, resume, or case studies from UX hiring experts.

An exercise in creativity and collaboration! Make some friends, hang out, and have fun, all while learning about the UX solution crafting process. We'll be breaking up into teams and competing for 1 hour to make the most awesome, fun, random solution using the mystery set of user stories provided. Each site will need mockups, and a short explanation of how each user need is met in order to win, so everyone from the most inexperienced user experience aficionados to the most die-hard veterans of UX can participate.

The rough schedule is:

7:00 - 7:10 Introduction to the activity and group assignments

7:15 - 7:45 Group work

7:50 - 8:25 Solutions presentations

8:25 - 8:30 Activity wrap up

If folks want to mingle afterward, mingling to follow at the Lucky Lab NW at 1945 Northwest Quimby Street.

In this workshop we will practice design challenges similar to those one might encounter either on the job or during the interview process for a UX, Product or Service Design position. We will approach the challenge with a mindset on innovation before honing on on what aligns with our user experience and business goals.

Using a combination of pre-work, rapid-research and team activities, we will aim to steer away from "safe innovation" and run-of-the-mill solutions to dive deeper into what is possible and what might most delight our users, customer and clients.

During the session we will practice...

Ideation Innovative thinking Rapid Prototyping Design-thinking White-boarding ...and more! This workshop is designed for UX and HCD professionals of all skill levels but participants will ideally have a basic understanding of human-centered design, UX design, product design or a similar mindset to get the most out of the night.

LOCATION CHANGE: because of the rain, we're moving indoors to the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne.

Take an evening to relax and join us for the second UX BBQ at Colonel Summer's Park. We'll be trading summer adventure stories and yes, nerding out on UX too. And this time, we'll try not to get shut down by the fire department.

Bring

• Food & drinks for yourself or to share
• Blankets or chairs, if you like
• Kids
• Dogs
• Friends

We'll have

• A barbecue for use by all
• Some basic BBQ grub
• Coolers and ice

Details

• Thursday, June 26th
• 5pm - 8pm
• Colonel Summers Park (Look for us in the SW corner closest to SE 17th and Taylor)

Doors open at 5:30pm, talk starts at 6:00pm.

Blockchain technology surfaced with Bitcoin and was first conceptualized by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Bitcoin’s underlying technology is blockchain, one does not exist without the other. However, many individuals soon realized the true power and seemingly unlimited potential of blockchain technology. Over the last 8.5 years, we have seen innovation paving the way for what many deem the second generation of the internet. To many this is still the early days of blockchain technology, even though it has been 8, going on 9 years since introduction. Our understanding of a blockchain, possible applications, and the world of possibilities associated is rapidly evolving and changing.

This talk will discuss the basics of blockchain and touch on the concept of public, private, and hybrid blockchain; specifically, Dragonchain.

Our Presenter, Eileen Quenin

Eileen Quenin is a UX Strategist and tech evangelist for Dragonchain, an open source platform. It’s is best described as a distributed crypto ledger framework protocol that makes it easy to create cost-efficient business networks where virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded.

Eileen is active in the Seattle start up ecosystem. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design and a Master of Science degree in Engineering with a focus on Human Computer Interaction.

Prior to joining working on Dragonchain, she spent 3 years in Amazon Global Payments guiding product development for gift cards, AmazonPay and Amazon PayPhrase. She holds a patent on techniques for intelligent selection of a currency preference conversion.

Prior to that, Eileen worked at LexisNexis on fraud prevention, background checks, public records, and identity management solutions was instrumental in bringing to market visualization and drawing tools designed for creating link analysis charts—visual relationships between individuals, addresses, vehicles, corporations, and other items.

We have an awesome venue: eBay will be our host for the night, with appetizers, beer & wine, and non-alcoholic beverages.

Join us for our first UX Writers Meetup in Portland, led by Kathryn Strauss, the Organizer for the San Francisco UX Writers Meetup.

We'll explore the world of UX writing, help define some confusing roles & terms, practice our skills, and find out what everyone is interested in!

Can't wait to see you there!

If you volunteer for 8 hours, you'll get a free ticket to Open Source Bridge! Come to orientation to get details! And sign up for your shift hours at http://volunteer.opensourcebridge.org/welcome/.

OSBridge organizers will show you around the facility, go through roles and some conference best practices, and teach you how to respond to a Code of Conduct report.

If you volunteer for 8 hours, you'll get a free ticket to Open Source Bridge! Come to orientation to get details! And sign up for your shift hours at http://volunteer.opensourcebridge.org/welcome/.

OSBridge organizers will show you around the facility, go through roles and some conference best practices, and teach you how to respond to a Code of Conduct report.

Ground Zero for Dangerous Thinking

Explore the Future of the Web

WEBVISIONS PORTLAND // May 22-24, 2013

WebVisions explores the future of web and mobile design, digital media, UX and technology with an all-star lineup of visionary speakers, including Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing.net and MAKE Magazine, Ethan and Malachai Nicolle (creators of AxeCop), Carla Diana (Smart Design NYC), Jason Kunesh (Director of UX, Obama for America), Carolyn Chandler (Manifest Digital), Mark Trammell (Twitter), and more!

"WebVisions is like the medium that spawned it: unique, personal, honest, emotional and eye-opening." –Jeffrey Zeldman

Register online at http://webvisions-portland.strangertickets.com/

WebVisions explores the future of web and mobile design, UX, digital media and technology with a badass lineup of speakers: Maria Giudice (Facebook), Tomer Sharon (Google), Internet legend Tim Bray, Brian David Johnson (author and Intel futurist), John Carlin (Funny Garbage) and more!

Early Bird rates end March 26!

Register today!

WebVisions (http://www.webvisionsevent.com/portland/) explores the future of Web and mobile design, technology, user experience and business strategy. Speakers include Jeff White of ILM, Nathan Shedroff (author of Make it So), Crystal Beasley of Mozilla, Ross Mayfield of Slideshare, Anant Anthale of American Express, Thea Boodhoo of AKQA and others.

Register by March 30th for the Early Bird rates.

» Register online

This is Design x Strategy: Building the Future Web WebVisions Portland May 18-20 at PNCA and Revolution Hall http://www.webvisionsevent.com/portland/

Discover how mobile and connected devices, design, user experience and content strategy are impacting the the future of the Web. Get the inside scoop from the Internet’s leading experts: Douglas Rushkoff will explore themes from his new book, “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus”, Mike Monteiro muses on why “This is the Golden Age of Design...and we’re screwed”, Nina Freeman will share her experiences in creating indie games and more. Sign up for a Three Day Pass to experience awesome workshops with Nathan Shedroff, Aaron Draplin, Leo Frishberg, Paul Backett, and Chris Butler.

Register today at: http://wvpdx16.eventbrite.com

So many of us are building really cool shit at work and in the community - let's share, recognize and applaud our badassery. Through this WTT series, we aim to perpetuate the technical learning and teaching component within our industry.

Partnering with local WIT communities we'll meet monthly for a lightning talk + keynote, followed by Q&A. Oh, and food/drink. Curated for a technical audience compromised of but not limited to women, transgender and non binary friends. We'll start promptly at 5:15 and end by 6:30, we welcome kiddos too.

UX/Design Speaker Lineup!

Lightning Talk, Callie Carroll: DIY Usability Testing for Devs - UX Research for Non Researchers Callie survived the life of a front-end web developer during the (original) Dot-Com Bubble, working at companies like Yahoo!, Sabre, and Fiserv. After, she shifted her focus deliberately to usability and accessibility, earning a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction, and worked in house as a User Experience Researcher at Amazon and Intel, and in accessibility at Apple.

Keynote, Carrie Bisazza: Design Leadership - Solving CX At Scale, My Path from Pixels to Spreadsheets Carrie is the Director of Selling Design Experience at eBay.

Questions/want to chat/interested in speaking? [email protected]

Welcome to World Information Architecture Day 2013! Please register for this event on Eventbrite.

Come learn about what Information Architecture means and about some of the challenges facing Portland's leading practitioners.

Ideal for: Anyone interested in technology, creative tech, business of tech, industry pros, students and everyone in between. 

Thanks to our sponsors: AIGA, IxDA, PDX Web and Design Meetup, Northwest Creatives Social Club, People's Sandwich of Portland and Floyd's Coffee

Our speaker lineup is amazing!

10am: Jeanne Turner-Walmart Labs  Cultivating Good Will in the Digital World When we have to wait 20 minutes for service after being seated at a restaurant, or when a grocery store is disorganized and the clerk is distracted and unhelpful, then we know that something is wrong with the situation. In the physical world, lack of information and poor interactions are obvious. In the physical world, we know how to make improvements that increase customer satisfaction. How can we translate this understanding to the digital world? What do we need to understand about human nature to improve digital experiences? In this talk, Jeanne Turner will discuss concepts and techniques that allow us to cultivate good will in the digital world.

11am: Patricia Colley-Interactionflow Civilizing Information Architecture: A meditation on systems design What is the scope of information architecture practice? To design optimal architectural structures, we know we must empathize with its inhabitants, and apply deep expertise in organization, language and flow. But we've learned, this alone will not ensure a design's success. As we dive deeply into the churning sea of design and technology trends, tools and methods, we often forget how we orient to design practice, and its increasingly complex problems, as thoughtful human beings. Will our apps, widgets and gadgets come to serve us, or will we lose ourselves in a wilderness of unmitigated digital distractions and breakdowns? To civilize our digital future, we are compelled to take a systems view of design practice. We are compelled to shift our perspectives and spark grander dialogues.This session will examine the origins and evolution of the IA role, the current and emerging climate in which our products reside, and put forth a few principles and methods to help answer the call to broaden our vision and expand our influence in a changing world.

12p: Huston Hedinger-Wikisway Networks as a User Interface The mathematics of graph theory and its many applications via network science in sociology, bioinformatics, intelligence, and even physics, represent a paradigm shift in how we study and consider information. Over the last 30 years, machines have allowed us to structure data in such a way that allow us to analyze the complex interactions between the individual actors in networks. These interactions turn out to reveal patterns that are both predictable and obedient to mathematical laws- many in the academic community are just beginning to grasp the power an the importance of these claims. The ability to visualize networks allowing the researcher/user/customer to quickly understand the structure and behavior of a network is the main focus of this talk.

1p: Matthew Baranauskas and Noah DiJulio-Ziba Meeting the Challenges of Innovating on Top of Existing Platforms Information architecture is the keystone of every digital experience. It's where consumer needs and desires often collide with a brand's hopes and dreams. The danger for companies as they grow is figuring out how to integrate new features into their customer's existing experience. Using real world examples and personal anecdotes, Matthew and Noah will discuss how they navigate the challenge of innovating on top of existing platforms using a consumer-centric approach. You'll gain perspective on where to look for inspiration and insight, how to prioritize features into something that is meaningful and authentic, and how not to lose your mind in the process.

2p: Joel Barker and Michael Sulis-Wordlions and Summit Energy Tech, respectively Capture, Tagging and Release of Institutional Knowledge: Delivering Information in the Real World When creating a system to deliver institutional information outside of the organization, the success of the project rests on understanding the requirements and work process of all stakeholders. In this case study, Summit Energy Tech and Word Lions collaborated to collect, organize, and make available the mission critical institutional knowledge that was the foundation of our client’s relationship with their customers. This presentation will cover not only our solution, but the points where understanding the client capacity makes the difference between implementation and project failure.

3p: Alison Stump-The Social Wall Visualizing Insight: Getting Started in Information Architecture Information Architecture has only recently been given the respect it deserves by those outside the realm of User Experience. Often the designs we build are so elegant they appear simple. The average person on the street knows that a menu bar probably goes at the top of the page. In most cases its "common sense". It is positioned on the top of the page because an Information Architect thought about all the options, considered the usability and user research data and delivered a product that just works.That is what information Architecture is. So how do you do it? We will discuss a basic schema, various tools and resources to help you get started as well as key terms and phrases that will allow you to escalate your career.

4p: Dedrick Sprick-OHSU Progressive Content Strategy: A content commitment model There are a lot of hurdles to overcome for managing content well on any site. Managing content well includes knowing your website, scheduling tasks, getting the resources together, staying on top of trends and responding to visitor needs. Learn how to tackle this monumental task one step at a time, so your team can grow with your website.  

We can have only 80 guests/session, so it's all first come, first served, so make sure you're on time! 

Also, food and drink is allowed, but not provided. Please go to Floyd's Coffee across the street or People's Sandwich of Portland to find food, or bring your own.

Afterparty @Backspace 'til whenever. Please register through Eventbrite for this. http://worldiadaypdx2013.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you all here!  

WORLD IA DAY - ARCHITECTING HAPPINESS THROUGH DESIGN THINKING - FREE!

Our world is increasingly made of information, yet so much of that information is not as clear or accessible as it could be to those it is intended for. Every organization out there seems to say that they want to make their users happy, but who is really delivering on those promises? Who is really architecting for happiness?

On February 21, 2015 we want to ask the world to help us uncover answers to questions we believe to be critical to the future of what Information Architecture is and how we practice it:

Can information affect happiness? How can we best architect structures for information that promote happiness? What work are organizations doing to bridge the gaps we face as we transition from a primarily analog to a primarily digital way of life? What does Information Architecture actually mean?

Agenda:

9:00 - 10:00 Spencer Williams, Architect and City Planner, Futurewise

Social Architecture and City System Design: Integrated, Iterative And Intuitive Placemaking

In this talk, we'll examine why current city systems have the designs they do and what kind of information is required to plan for people. Information Architecture and Architecture itself are synonymous. What makes being in a building, a city, a community, or a body so rewarding is how that information is communicated and the response gleaned from those experiencing it. This talk covers information-as-architecture, cities that are more than a collection of just these objects (sidewalks, intersections, etc) and what we can learn about this planning process that can be applied to nearly any industry.

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10:00 - 11:00 Thubten Comerford, Co-Founder of Pitchlandia, Founder & CEO of WePost Media

Optimal Sequencing - Human Interaction Design

Designing success in life and business through the strategic sequencing of interpersonal communication.

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11:00 - 12:00 Jose Caballer Chief Education Officer, The Skool + Director of Digital Strategy, Blind and Chris Do Co-Founder, The Skool + CEO and Creative Director, Blind

Designing Powerful Facilitated Work Sessions

Brainstorming doesn't work. This talk is focused on how to design powerful, effective work sessions, which result in high-fidelity team interaction and create happiness for all involved. The most important takeaway will be how the design of the agenda extends beyond the work session, which will reveal techniques you can use right away. For example; shifting from follow-up design tasks to design experiments can be seen as a happier way of producing more innovative solutions. We will explain the best ways to document and track your ideas to help them become reality by engendering ownership from each team member and instill confidence across all stakeholders.

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1:00-2:00 Sara Stowe, PHR; Talent Acquisition Manager, Smarsh

Culture Fit: More Than A Feeling

A bad hire is costly—financially as well as the impact on happiness and morale within the team. When we look back to understand what went wrong, it’s unlikely that the person wasn’t qualified or had the necessary skill set. More often, it turns out that they weren’t a “fit.” How can you really predict if someone is going to fit in and be successful? Does success at one company mean success at yours? Interview teams struggle to properly assess fit, and often rely on their “gut feeling.” Intuition is hard-wired for our survival, yes, but we’re also fallible human beings who have history, culture, experience, context which creates bias and, in hiring, makes the talent pool even more shallow. Understanding and articulating your company’s culture is at the crux of developing an approach to identify culture fit and the potential for success. It is the foundation of a structured approach to assessing talent, employer brand, engagement, talent development and performance feedback. Sara will walk you through her experience at Smarsh as they embarked on developing a program to assess fit, where “not-a-fit” trumps experience every time.

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2:00-3:00 Rain Dove, Androgynous Supermodel and Public Figure, Major Model

Identity Design: Breaking The Binary Gender Code

Genderqueer Supermodel Rain Dove will help audiences become more aware of identity design through a look at binary gender identity ('he' and 'she'), its origins and why this form of social design is no longer relevant. This person will discuss implementation of a new system of gender identity, which exposes the advantages of designing one's own identity and thus engagement with the world around them

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3:00-4:00 Ken Rubin,VP Culinary Training, Rouxbe Online Cooking School

Not Enough Cooks In The Kitchen: Curating Food Culture with Technology & Design

How does technology and information design around food impact how we cook and eat? In a world marked by an increasing sense of culinary culture amnesia, cooking is a lost art and many have a fragmented and distant relationship to food. So, the world needs more cooks - people who craft their world through a lens of food, cooking and eating. Cooking is not only a potent symbol of empowerment, it is among the most human of all acts that stands at the center of an opportunity for widespread social impact. An increase in cooking has innumerable positive outcomes for individuals, communities and our planet. As an example, cooking literacy is at the core of how we will solve our public health and chronic illness crisis. In designing learning technologies and educational experiences to build confidence in the kitchen, I am on a mission to (re)produce food culture through active participation and engagement with others.

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4:00-5:00 Joshua Burkhow, Global Ops. Performance Management & Analytics, Nike

We Need All The Help We Can Get: Analytics For Happy People

One form of happiness is having the confidence to make fact-based decisions, but when there's so much data thrown at us, how can we make sense of it, regardless of our professional industries? Believe it or not, there is a shortage of Information Professionals and so we'll share what kind of valuable work these people do, how you can employ the best practices, even if you're a solopreneur and how best to organize data research. We'll leave you with key techniques that can be enacted before leaving this conference.

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5:00-6:00 Cynthia Owens, Senior Consultant, XPlane

What the F*CK is IA?: Learn About IA Through Visual Thinking

After a day of sessions, we will discuss some key visual thinking concepts and develop a PDX-specific answer to that compelling question. Learn how visual thinking will help make the practice of developing IA delightful.

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6:00-7:00 Charles Adler-KEYNOTE Designer, Co-Founder, Kickstarter

Designing for the Unknown

The design of any system is an experiment. The design thinking and execution behind Kickstarter was no different. Yet everything has been done before, so how do we cross the chasm of these two extremes? Using Kickstarter as an example, we'll look into experimentation across multiple facets of the platform, applied models from blogging, web video and audio while also pressing the envelope with regard to collective fundraising, community, and transparency. Charles will share stories from the company's genesis, design decisions met along the way, shaping Kickstarter into what it is today - the largest funding platform for creative projects.

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ABOUT WORLD IA DAY

World Information Architecture Day is a free one-day conference hosted annually by the Information Architecture Institute and held simultaneously in selected cities all over the world. Each year, a new theme is selected, new cities are added, and our community continues to grow as more people from all across the world join this truly global celebration of Information Architecture.

http://www.2015.worldiaday.org/

ABOUT IAI

The Information Architecture Institute is a non-profit organization empowering local communities to shape the global practice of information architecture by providing places to share and opportunities to learn.

http://iainstitute.org/

FAQs

You can reach the organizers at [email protected] or [email protected] The conference, food and drink are all free and open to the public, but you must register! The afterparty is from 7-9 at our sponsor, FINE's HQ (wearefine.com), located at 1140 SW 11th, suite 200, Portland, OR 97205. This is a fair distance from the venue, and we will have transportations options available The raffle will take place at the afterparty, it's also a free event Yes, I need vounteers. Please email if you'd like to get involved! [email protected] All of the information shared at WIAD will be streamed live, uploaded to youtube, flickr and slideshare and available for free afterwards. *Doors at 8:30

World IA Day is a global event aimed at bringing together the information architecture community.  Full day events are taking place in 24 cities, 14 countries, and 6 continents--including Portland, Oregon!  Get your tickets for World IA Day PDX early... they will likely sell out!  

After the event, join PDX-UX for an after party just a few blocks away with beer, food, games, and networking!

Celebrate the importance of usability on World Usability Day on Wednesday, Nov. 10th. To match Portland’s unique flavor, we have developed a unique urban challenge: The PDX UX Scavenger Hunt. With the theme of communications in mind, teams will comb the urban landscape to find examples of what works, what doesn’t, and why in the world around us.

This event is open to everyone in the world. It's not Portland-specific at all.

Teams will have from 12:01 am on Wednesday, Nov. 10th until 4 pm on Thursday, Nov. 11th to hunt for a list of communication-themed items. Teams will photograph each of their finds and then upload the pictures to a website so entries can be viewed in real-time. Teams can work together in their own neighborhood to allow hunting as time permits during the day.

Start forming your team today! Prizes will be awarded at the no-host prize ceremony at 7 pm Thursday, Nov. 11th at Bridgeport Brewpub at 1313 NW Marshall Street. Winners need not be present to win.

Whether you call it a living style guide, pattern library or a design system one thing remains true about the style guide; it in itself is an experience. It can serve as a contract, a learning tool, and single source of truth for not just engineers but for designers and product owners. An understanding of each stakeholders' needs will better inform the design and process fit of your style guide.

In this talk UTI Worldwide UX Architect Edward Irby will explain the five basic factors of successful style guides.

• Workpace

• Components

• Animations & Interactions

• Namespace

• Utility Styles

He'll then go into detail about finding process fit, dealing with uncertainty (unknown/changing codebases), and imbuing your style guide with intent.