Interaction Design
Leandro Agro
Leandro has more than 10 years of experience as an interaction designer and manager of IxD teams. He specializes in next generation user interfaces that provide human-like interaction with intelligent virtual assistants. At Key-One, in Milan, Italy, Leandro is providing detailed specifications for the behaviors of such virtual assistants, including gesture, language, and social skills; defining emotional models that let these assistants respond to the moods of users; and designing visual user interfaces and voice-recognition systems. Before joining Key-One, Leandro was Advanced Design Director at the innovative startup SrLabs, where he focused on eyetracking for the usability market. While there, he led a design team that created the first hands-free, multimodal GUI with voice and gaze input. Previously, he was co-founder and Vice President of a large eConsultancy with offices in Milan and Boston. Leandro studied interaction design at the Domus Academy, in Milan, Italy. He is actively involved with the Milano Bicocca University, TorVergata University, and others. Leandro is a prolific writer on topics from IxD, usability, and UX to natural, multimodal user interfaces. He was the founder of Idearium.org, the first Italian eZine/community for UX designers, and is co-producer of the Interaction Frontiers conference.
Read Leandro’s blog, in Italian, at www.leeander.com.
Specialties: Interaction Design | UX Design | Usability
Elizabeth Bacon
Liz discovered her calling in 1999, when she joined Cooper as an interaction designer. As a Cooper consultant, she performed ethnographic research, developed personas, and delivered innovative interaction design solutions. She worked on projects in a wide range of domains, from consumer-oriented Web sites to enterprise resource planning systems to blue-sky designs for office telephones. As a supervising/principal designer with a theoretical bent, she also helped advance Cooper’s methodology and practice. From 2002–2006, Liz worked in technology product planning at St. Jude Medical—a Fortune 100 company that develops implantable medical devices for cardiac rhythm management—where she led UX design for complex software systems. Her elegant yet friendly user experiences improved clinicians’ ability to provide good patient care. A resident of Portland, Oregon, Liz is the IxDA Local Coordinator and is active in CHIFOO (ACM SIGCHI). She is also on the IxDA Board of Directors.
Specialties: Interaction Design | UX Design
Practice Director of Interaction Design, at Quarry Integrated
Communications
Robert leads projects for clients who want to distinguish
themselves through products that are well designed, usable,
and deliver an outstanding customer experience. As Practice
Director of Interaction Design, he also works with teammates
to develop Quarry’s design methods. For instance, Robert introduced
the use of personas to Quarry and has
since then employed personas for projects in a variety of industries.
He has also helped develop methods for better aligning usability
with the goals and practices of marketing and branding. Some
of this expertise is captured in Robert’s invited chapter
about “Marketing Versus Design Personas,” in
The
Persona Lifecycle,
a book Morgan Kaufmann will publish in 2006. With over 14 years of experience designing software
and Web applications, Robert has worked throughout North America
and Europe, at companies with familiar names such as Sony and FedEx.
Specialties: Brand Strategy | Consulting | Interaction Design | UX Design | UX Strategy
Richard F. Cecil
Rick has nearly a decade of experience envisioning and designing innovative solutions for a variety of companies, including startups, non-profits, universities, and Fortune 100 companies. During his tenure at Motricity, he has worked with Cingular, BET, Ask, Alltel, and other clients and has been the Design Lead for their core product offering. Rick was a co-founder of both the Interaction Design Group—now the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)—and the Triangle Usability Professionals Association (UPA). Active in the UPA, he also serves on the organizing committee for World Usability Day. Rick is also the UXnet Local Ambassador for Research Triangle Park.
Specialties: Interaction Design | UX Design | UX Strategy | User Interface Design
Garett Dworman
Tec-Ed specializes in knowledge-management analysis and design. Garett has over ten years of experience in product and user interface design for firms ranging from established financial institutions to high-tech startups. Garett has published extensively on how people and organizations disseminate, access, and consume information. He holds a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Specialties: Consulting | Information Architecture | Interaction Design | UX Design
Lindsay Ellerby
Lindsay started her career as a content analyst before realizing her true calling as an information architect/interaction designer. She has been involved in projects ranging from interaction design for online applications to information design for product pages to the information architecture of marketing Web sites. She has also worked on financial, home renovation, energy and utility, and automobile Web sites. With a particular interest in pattern-based design, Lindsay was instrumental in creating a robust pattern library for Critical Mass. She is an active member of her local UX community, viewing informal gatherings as the best way to share ideas and inspiration.
Specialties: Information Architecture | Interaction Design
Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Principal User Experience Architect, at Spirit Softworks LLC
At scanR, Pabini is leading user experience strategy and design for Web and mobile applications that let users scan digital photos of whiteboards and documents. Founder of Spirit Softworks, a Silicon Valley user experience strategy and design consultancy, Pabini has over 15 years of experience designing digital products. She is highly skilled in interaction design, information architecture, and visual interface design and has designed innovative desktop and Web applications in product domains that encompass authoring, hypertext, collaboration, and networking and communications. Past clients include Google, Cisco Systems, Tellme Networks, WebEx Communications, Chemdex, Whistle Communications, Kaleida Labs, Apple Computer, and Ashton-Tate. Formerly User Experience Manager at WebEx, Pabini designed Web applications for online meetings, training sessions, seminars, and remote collaboration, including the award-winning Meeting Center and Training Center. Pabini is an Emeritus Member of the Board of Directors of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and IxDA Local Coordinator for Silicon Valley, Co-Chair of BayDUX, UXnet Local Ambassador for Silicon Valley, BayCHI IxD BOF (Birds of a Feather) Leader, and a former Interactions Editorial Board Member.
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design | UX Design | UX Management | UX Strategy | Visual Design
David Heller Malouf
David has been active in Web application design for over ten years. Domains in which he has experience include business-to-business exchanges, corporate information portals, complex collaborative business process engines, logistics systems, securities trading applications, and retail operations. David is a Founder, Vice President, and on the Board of Directors of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), a member of the Executive Council of the User Experience Network (UXnet), and for the second year running, a member of the IA Summit planning committee.
For David’s blog thoughts and photos, go to Synaptic
Burn.
Specialties: Interaction Design
Joshua Kaufman
At Tiny Pictures, Joshua is creating user-centered designs for Radar, a social media service that lets people engage in visual conversations using camera phone pictures and videos. He has over 7 years of experience working as an interaction designer and user experience consultant, in both the United States and Europe. He earned an M.S. in Human Computer Interaction from University College London, University of London. Joshua is an active member of the user experience design community, is a member of IxDA and BayCHI, and was previously the London Local Ambassador for UXnet and a columnist for Digital Web Magazine.
Read Joshua’s writings about design, technology, and products on his blog unraveled.
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design | UX Design
Afshan Kirmani
A usability analyst with a background in psychology, Afshan analyzes and determines users’ real needs within specific contexts before designing Web sites and applications. Her user studies go beyond the cognitive approaches users take when using a user interface. Applying her knowledge across domains, she believes that, without an understanding of the human mind and interpretive insights, attempts at creativity and innovation fail to deliver what is essential to users. Afshan values opportunities to connect with other experts in the global UX industry and has presented at local HCI meetups. She values innovation and has faith that usability will emerge as a best practice in software design, globally.
Specialties: Interaction Design | Usability
Laurie Lamar
Information Architect and Interaction
Designer, at Lamar Online Design
Laurie Lamar is a consulting information architect and interaction designer in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Her clients range from Fortune 100 companies to nonprofits, government agencies, and startups. Projects include large marketing and support-oriented Web sites, intranet portals, search engines, custom content-management user interfaces, and complex Web applications. Laurie serves with Karyn Young as a UXnet Local Ambassador for the Denver area. She is also chair of the Rocky Mountain CHI chapter. Laurie’s interests include languages, world travel, and the interstices between disciplines.
Specialties: Consulting | Information Architecture | Interaction Design | Usability
Luca Mascaro
Owner and Lead User Experience Architect, at SketchIn
Luca has more than 10 years of experience in information design, user interface design, interaction design, and accessibility for Web sites and Web applications. He is founder of SketchIn—a user experience design and strategy consultancy located in Lugano, Switzerland—and co-founder and UX manager at Phiware Engineering—a Swiss firm specializing in enterprise applications. Luca’s work focuses on agile UX design, applying user-centered design principles to projects for clients such as Generali Assurance, Swiss-Italian Television, the Swiss Post, and Italy’s Innovation Department. Luca is president of IOSHI (International Organization for Standards in Human/Computer Interfaces)—an association that promotes standards in Human/Computer interfaces—is a member of many international organizations—such as IWA/HWG (International Webmasters Association/HTML Writers Guild) and UPA (Usability Professionals’ Association)—and participates in the W3C HTML, Web Content Accessibility, and Web Application working groups as well as that for ISO software ergonomics.
Read Luca’s blog, in Italian, at www.lucamascaro.info.
Specialties: Brand Strategy | Consulting | Information Design | Interaction Design | UX Design | User Interface Design
Sam Ng
Founder and Director, at Optimal Usability and OptimalSort
As a co-founder and Director of the consultancy Optimal Usability and a passionate generalist, Sam has been involved with over 100 usability and design projects with clients in such diverse domains as government, ecommerce, education, finance, telecommunications, and not-for-profits. With a desire to practice what he preaches, Sam recently led a small team to design and develop the online card sorting tool, OptimalSort. Built on a modest budget and with limited resources, OptimalSort is now being used by hundreds of leading companies and Web professionals worldwide.
Specialties: Consulting | Information Architecture | Interaction Design | UX Strategy | Usability
George Olsen
Principal, Interaction by Design, LLC
George has more than 10 years of experience doing award-winning design work for a variety of companies—from dotcom startups to Hollywood studios such as Disney to Fortune 500 companies, including Nestle Transamerica and The Capital Group, and to Internet giants such as Yahoo!, where he was the interaction designer for Yahoo! Search. For the past two years, George has headed his own user experience consultancy. He has also taught at UCLA Extension, spoken at numerous conferences, and written articles about user experience design. Back when George had a hands-on role in crafting Web sites, he co-founded The Web Standards Project, a grassroots coalition of Web developers who sought to ensure browser-makers fully supported HTML, CSS, and other Web standards that help make the Web accessible to all. He was also a co-founder of both Boxes and Arrows, a peer-written online journal about user experience issues, and UXnet, a group seeking to make connections between people, resources, and UX organizations. Recently, DevSource™ featured George in its series of video interviews with experts in the field of software and Web development, “Great Minds in Development.”
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design | UX Design
Matteo Penzo
Director of Design and Development, Research Center, at Consultechnology
At Consultechnology, an ITC company with offices in Milan and Lamezia Terme, Italy, Matteo’s research projects focus on natural interactions between people and computers, automotive applications, and universal design—specifically for the elderly and the disabled. Matteo began his career in information technology working for Anixter International at their Milan and London offices, managing their intranet design and programming team. Then he worked as a project manager for a leading Italian Web agency in Milan, where he managed Internet projects for international Fortune 500 companies. Matteo is a sought after speaker at national and international seminars—including CHI2005, Macromedia, and VNU to mention just a few—and is a professor for the Interaction Design course in the Masters program in Humanistic Computer Studies at Bicocca University, Milan. He has written numerous articles on the subjects of natural interfaces, user experience, and technological innovation. He is also the UXnet Local Ambassador for Milan.
Matteo is the founder and publisher of an online magazine
about user experience for Macromedia® Flash® called
Flashability.
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design | UX Strategy | Usability
Isabelle Peyrichoux
Based in Montréal, Canada, Isabelle has six years of experience in conducting user research and designing useful, usable Web sites and applications for organizations in Canada, France, and the United Kingdom. Now specializing in user research, she has significant experience in usability testing, eyetracking studies, non-directive interviews, and focus groups. With a passion for exploring users’ mental models, she is currently focusing on conceptual research, including contextual inquiry and task analysis. Isabelle has a Masters degree in Information Science from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, in Paris, France. Isabelle has also earned two certificates in psychotherapy and has conducted about sixty psychotherapy sessions with clients and students. She has endeavored to integrate her knowledge of psychotherapy and psychology into her practice as a user researcher and thereby contribute new approaches to the field of user research. An engaging speaker, Isabelle has given presentations and workshops for professional associations and conferences. At the IA Summit in 2006, she spoke about her experience conducting an international needs analysis across North America, Europe, and Africa.
Specialties: Information Architecture | Interaction Design | Usability | User Research
Steve Psomas
Steve has specialized in Web application design and development, with six years of experience as a user experience designer and four years in UI component engineering, working at Responsys, Neoforma, Intuit, Clear Ink, and Maus Haus. Steve is currently responsible for all user experience design for the Responsys Interact® application. Steve has developed and presented an audioconference on How to Succeed as an Interactive Designer in a Rich Internet Application World. In his work as a designer, he also draws inspiration from his prior experience as a technical writer, teacher, and coach. Steve graduated from the University of San Diego with a B.A. in English. He is a member of UPA and SIGCHI.
Specialties: Human Factors | Information Architecture | Interaction Design | UX Design
Robert Reimann
Robert has spent the past 18 years pushing the boundaries of digital products as a designer, writer, and consultant. He has led dozens of interaction design projects in domains including e-commerce, Web portals, desktop productivity software, authoring environments, medical and scientific instrumentation, wireless and handheld devices, kiosks, and consumer electronics for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Joining Cooper in 1996, Robert played a key role in the development and refinement of their goal-directed design methods, including personas and scenario-based design. He has lectured on these methods at major universities and to international industry audiences. Robert is President and on the Board of Directors of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), a past member of the advisory board of the UC Berkeley Institute of Design (BiD), and co-author, with Alan Cooper, of About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design.
Specialties: Interaction Design | User Interface Design
Dan Saffer
Interaction Designer, at Adaptive Path
Currently at Adaptive Path, Dan previously worked at such companies as Organic and Datek and has a Masters in Design, in Interaction Design, from Carnegie Mellon University. He has worked with a wide variety of clients, from startups to Fortune 100s, designing Web sites, applications, and devices. Dan is on the Board of Directors of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). He is also a member of AIGA and IDSA.
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design
Lucinio Santos
For the last eighteen years, Lucinio has been a user experience architect, working on IBM software offerings. During his tenure, he has led, managed, and contributed to usability and design initiatives for systems management, application development, middleware, and portfolio management software. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive and Experimental Psychology from the University of New Mexico.
Specialties: UX Design, Interaction Design, User Interface Design, Usability, User Research
Specialties: Interaction Design | UX Design | Usability | User Interface Design | User Research
Kevin Silver
User Experience Designer, at Clearwired
Kevin is an empathetic champion of users and a strong proponent of user-centered design. He strives to design digital products that are simple, elegant, and easy to use. Involved in desktop application design and development since 1995, he started tinkering with HTML in the late 90s—just in time for the flurry of growth on the Web before the big .com bust. Kevin has worked on a diverse range of projects, including designing applications for Indian Health Services (a federal agency), Envision Utility Software, University of New Mexico, Anchor Computer, the United States Air Force, and Web sites for Norwegian Cruise Lines, Dr. Martens, Buck Knives, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Adobe, to name a few. One thing Kevin has learned through all of these engagements is that satisfying the needs and goals of users is central to a successful experience. He is a member of IXDA, IAI, and ASIS&T and has presented at the IA Summit.
Kevin blogs, infrequently, at www.kevintsilver.com and more frequently has something to say at The Loop.
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design | UX Design | User Interface Design | User Research
Janet M. Six
Principal of Lone Star Interaction Design
As Principal of Lone Star Interaction Design in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Janet M. Six helps companies design easier-to-use products within their financial, time, and technical constraints. For her research in information visualization, Janet was awarded the University of Texas at Dallas Jonsson School of Engineering Computer Science Dissertation of the Year Award. She was also awarded the prestigious IEEE Dallas Section 2003 Outstanding Young Engineer Award. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications and the Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science. The proceedings of conferences on Graph Drawing, Information Visualization, and Algorithm Engineering and Experiments have also included the results of her research. Janet is the Managing Editor of UXmatters.
Specialties: Brand Strategy | Consulting | Interaction Design
Joe Sokohl
Joe has more than 15 years of experience in user experience-related fields. He has concentrated on crafting excellent user experiences, using information architecture, interaction design, writing, and user research. At Keane, Joe acts as an advocate for user experience consulting: information architecture, user research, interaction design, and usability evaluation, along with visual design and Web design. He manages the careers and education of 35, mostly offshore, information architects, visual designers, technical writers, and Web developers, mentoring them in skills competency, along with general business consulting practices. He also evangelizes best practices in UX among both internal and external clients. Previously, Joe held UX positions in Hamburg, Germany; Richmond, VA; Chicago, IL; and Durham, NC. Once upon a time, he’s also been a soldier, a cook, a radio DJ, a road manager, a teacher, and a reporter.
Read Joe’s blog, at facetime.blogspot.com.
Specialties: Consulting | Information Architecture | Interaction Design | UX Design | UX Management | User Research
Todd Warfel
Founding Partner, at Messagefirst
At Messagefirst, Todd focuses on research and design of consumer and b2b products. A recognized leader in the design research and usability fields, Todd speaks regularly at universities and industry conferences and contributes to industry publications. With over 14 years of industry experience and a background in English, cognitive psychology, and product design, he has worked on over a dozen industry-first products. Todd has done work with a variety of clients, including Albertsons, AT&T Wireless, Bankrate, Bank of America, Comcast, Cornell University, Dell, GSK, IntraLinks, Palm, Sallie Mae, Splenda, SBC, SUNY, and Tufts University.
Blog: toddwarfel.com
Specialties: Consulting | Interaction Design | Usability | User Research
Joost Willemsen
Joost has been an interaction designer since 2000. Working with Lost Boys, he designed successful solutions for clients like KLM, Postbank, and Nuon. His initial focus was on information architecture, with a preference for big, complex projects. Over the years, his expertise has expanded to encompass interaction design and user experience design. Joost joined Backbase—a leading provider of Ajax software, in Amsterdam—to be in the forefront of Rich Internet Application design. At Backbase, Joost is developing prototypes for RIAs. Clients include ABN AMRO, D-Reizen, and KPN. Joost loves his work as an interaction designer, because it combines analysis, creativity, and client contact.
Specialties: Information Architecture | Interaction Design | UX Design
Russell Wilson
Currently the Director of Product Design at NetQoS, Russ reports directly to the CEO and is responsible for the company’s R&D budget and interface design for all NetQoS products. He redesigned their flagship product, SuperAgent. Previously, Russ was the VP of Engineering at HyPerformix, a simulation and modeling company. Before joining HyPerformix, Russ founded a successful startup that generated over $4 million in revenue. As both CEO and CTO, he prototyped all interfaces for the company’s products and worked closely with clients to improve usability. Russ has extensive experience in interaction design, rapid prototyping, and usability and holds a BS in Computer Science and an MS in Software Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Russ is the Austin Local Ambassador for UXnet and an Austin representative for IxD, as well as a member of ACM, IEEE, SIGCHI, UPA, ASIS&T, and AIGA.
Read Russell’s blog, Dexo Design.
Specialties: Interaction Design | Usability
