Michigan World Usability Day

User Experience, Usability, and the Value of Simplicity in Design

The UXPA, Michigan CHI, and the Interaction Design Association are coming together to celebrate World Usability Day for the first time in Grand Rapids.

World Usability Day is a single day of events occurring around the world that brings together communities of professional, industrial, educational, citizen, and government groups for our common objective: to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.

SCHEDULE

5:30 -6:00

• Check-in, registration, food and networking

6:00 -8:30

User Experience (UX) Across Industries

• UX Beyond the Lab

• The Demand for Simplicity in Design

• The future of UX: A common language across brand and products

PRESENTERS

Gino Fiore

Co-Founder, UX Strategy, Traceable Change, Inc.

Gino believes that creative collaboration is the core of successful business engagements and outcomes, and he thrives to be a true partner to his clients. With a particular focus in the auto industry, he utilizes his experience leading creative workshops and in-depth interview methods to design new products and exceptional customer experiences. Prior to his career in UX, Gino was an industrial designer, strategist, and innovator at major product development and branding consultancies, and he brings a unique and cross-disciplinary perspective to UX.

Martin Ho

Co-Founder, UX Strategy, Traceable Change, Inc.

Martin focuses on delivering best-in-class insights, solutions and strategy to help companies infuse UX across their organization. He has partnered with clients across numerous industry verticals and have led research and design teams to shape experiences across a variety of products. Martin continues to push the boundaries of traditional and historical UX with this simple tenet: great UX researchers are also great UX designers, and vice versa. He believes the blending of these two practices is critical to ensuring optimal output and project success.

Whitney McKedy

Co-Founder, UX Strategy, Traceable Change, Inc.

Whitney is passionate about stretching the boundaries of UX by engaging innovation and developing custom products and approaches that answer difficult and challenging business questions. Experienced in user-focused research and design, Whitney looks to be a strategic partner to clients looking to improve the way people experience their products. Whitney has extensive UX experience in the auto industry ranging from digital interface usability evaluation and design to next generation concept ideation. Prior to her career in UX, Whitney’s work was in the realm of social and cognitive psychology, as well as language and communication sciences.

Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus

Senior Human Factors Engineer, Multimedia Systems, Hyundai American Technical Center

Principal, Clear Usability, LLCOfficer, Michigan CHI

Dave has made his career designing products to fit people. He has designed physical, visual, and auditory user interfaces for hand-helds, kiosks, web sites, production machines, and automobiles, and has conducted user research in the lab, on the web, in the field, on the phone, in cars, and in the homes of consumers. Dave has held user experience consulting, sales, and management positions in both corporations and in consulting groups including OnStar by General Motors, Quicken Loans, Compuware, Eastman Kodak and ForeSee. He is currently a Senior Engineer for Multimedia at Hyundai American Technical Center, Principal of Clear Usability, LLC, and an officer of the Michigan CHI.