Design First: Prototype

#1 Meetup
Design First: Prototype

The first ever “Design First” event will focus on the topic of prototypes. We have four amazing speakers with different approaches, processes and team dynamics.

There's going to be amazing food and drinks, provided by our sponsor — InVision.

#DesignFirst

Speaker list:

Matt Hartman, Betaworks
Jessica Phan, Zurb
Will Dawson, Huge
Donna Lichaw, Parsons

Schedule

6:00 — Meet & Greet.
6:30 — Talks
8:00 — Networking
9:00 — Finish

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Matt (https://twitter.com/matthartman) is the director of seed investments at Betaworks (http://betaworks.com), the company behind companies such as Digg, Instapaper and Dots. He will open the meetup talking about code-less prototyping, approaching the topic from an investors point of view.

Jessica (https://twitter.com/ohjphan) is an x-ZURB (http://zurb.com) (a design consultancy that builds prototyping platforms) that will talk about Product design and methods that help us with everything from idea validation to detailed interactions. From sketching to hi-fi and coded prototypes.

Will, a product design at Huge (http://hugeinc.com), approaches prototyping from a business perspective and explains the inhouse iterative design process.

Finally, Donna (https://twitter.com/dlichaw) is a independent professional with 15+ years of experience who taught at most NYC design schools, currently at Parsons. She’s approaching the topic using the most effective tool: the structurally sound story.

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Sponsors

Five (http://five.agency) is a design driven app development company with offices in NYC and Croatia.

Shoutem (http://shoutem.com/) provides everything you need to create amazing apps.

InVision (http://invisionapp.com/) Design Better Experiences for Web & Mobile. A Prototyping, Collaboration & Workflow Platform

WeWork (http://www.wework.com) is a platform for creators that offers the space and the community.

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Matt Hartman
Director of Seed Investments @betaworks (http://betaworks.com/)
https://twitter.com/matthartman

“How To Build Your Prototype Without Code”
A 15 minutes talk about how you test a hypothesis for a startup without using any code, in the context of what data investors look for.

Matt Hartman manages seed investing at betaworks. Previously, he worked at Hot Potato (acquired by Facebook) and Trammell Crow Company (acquired by CBRE) and started ReferBoost and JustBecause.

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Jessica Phan
Product Designer x @zurb
https://twitter.com/ohjphan

“What is Product Design”
As product designers, it's important for us to have a wide range of skill set from ideation, interaction design, visual design and front-end code. These skill set helps us validate ideas, test detailed interactions and prove the overall concept while we create sketch prototypes, hi-fi prototypes and coded prototypes.

A product designer in the Silicon Valley, Jessica designs solutions to create delightful and meaningful human-centered digital experiences. Previously at ZURB, an interaction design consulting firm, she worked with a broad range of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, such as Samsung, SAP, JCPenney and BDBiosciences.

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Will Dawson
Senior Product Designer @huge (http://hugeinc.com)

“Benefits to Prototyping for Business”
It’s often hard to imagine how a product will perform and feel before it is built. At this session, I will discuss the prototyping process at Huge and how we use it to continuously evaluate these variables throughout the iterative design process.

Will Dawson is a Senior Product Designer at Huge, where he designs and builds digital products for some of the world's largest brands, including Gucci and Harvard Business Review. He was previously a designer for Pennebaker in Texas, and received a B.A. in Political Science and Visual Arts from Emory University.

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Donna Lichaw
Independent Consultant @parsons (http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/mfa-design-technology/)
Adjunct Faculty Member, Parsons Department of Design + Technology
https://twitter.com/dlichaw

“Story-first: A Narrative Approach to Prototyping Products and Services”
Prototyping is essential to designing memorable experiences with products and services. While many of us seek out the newest and shiniest tools to prototype interfaces, we often overlook one of the oldest, leanest, most effective prototyping tools out there: the structurally sound story. In this talk, you will learn how taking a story-first approach to designing, building, and testing prototypes and demos can help you build more successful products and services.

Donna Lichaw has helped businesses such as Atlantic Records, Citi, Bloomberg, Seamless, Apartment Therapy, and WNYC to create, launch, and innovate digital products, campaigns, and services. In addition to running her product strategy and consulting practice and building and training design and product teams, she is on the adjunct faculty at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. Donna is currently writing a book about using narrative structure to design successful products and services for Rosenfeld Media.

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