The Art Institute of Portland - Open Space

"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.

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.

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.

The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event. GGJ brings together thousands of game enthusiasts participating through many local jams around the world. GGJ is a project of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).

We will begin on Friday evening at the Art Institute of Portland with a keynote, icebreakers, idea generating activities, and team selection (approx. 2 hours). After jammers are satisfied with their ideas and teams, they will work on their games until we approach our deadline on Sunday afternoon. They will begin to upload their "completed" games by the Global Game Jam deadline. Exact times will be available in our schedules during the jam.

Join the Portland game development community in an awesome games showcase from the Global Game Jam and other local projects!

Over the course of a 48 hour weekend this recent January, game developers and enthusiasts from 300+ cities around the world worked to create their very own games, many of which we will have available for play! Developers from the Portland jam will also be on site, telling us their own team- and personally-oriented experiences and challenges they faced over the weekend.

This event is also open for free to any additional exhibitors who want to showcase a game-related project for the evening. If you are interested in having a table at the Global Game Jam Postmortem, please e-mail Will at pigsquad (at) gmail [dot] com!