UXPA Conference Preview Night

Members of our very own Chicago community will be speaking at the UXPA Conference (http://uxpa2014.org/) in London this year. We are very excited for the opportunity to see their conference presentations in advance of the main event.

• Kathi Kaiser - Are you a Super Hero or a Super Villain? Using Design Psychology for Good (and Evil)

• Kamaria Campbell - Future of UX Ignite Session

• Elizabeth Allen - Red Herrings: Debunking the Pop Psychology of Color

Drinks will be provided by our generous host, ÄKTA (http://akta.com/)! All are welcome, please share with colleagues and bring friends!

Details:

ARE YOU A SUPER HERO OR A SUPER VILLAIN? USING DESIGN PSYCHOLOGY FOR GOOD (AND EVIL)

by Kathi Kaiser (https://twitter.com/kathikaiser)

Are you a UX super hero or super villain? Take the quiz! Find out if your judgments on a series of UX ethical dilemmas peg you as a Defender of The Good or a Dark Lord of All. User experience professionals make tough choices every day in their interactions with stakeholders, participants, developers and each other. What motivates our choices? Where do we draw ethical boundaries, and under what circumstances do we cross the lines we’ve set for ourselves? This talk will explore the ethics of UX – you just might learn something about yourself…

About Kathy

Kathi Kaiser is co-founder and partner at Centralis, a leading Chicago-based user experience consultancy. Over the past fourteen years, Kathi has led the Centralis team in creating great user experiences for global clients including Sony, LexisNexis and Warner Bros. When she’s not at the whiteboard or in the lab, Kathi may be found observing users on boats, in museums, at train stations, and anywhere else where the digital and physical worlds collide. Beyond her work at Centralis, Kathi serves as an adjunct faculty member at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, where she teaches usability evaluation methods.

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FUTURE OF UX IGNITE SESSION

by Kamaria Campbell (https://twitter.com/kaccampbell)

The purpose of this session is to get attendees dreaming about the possible, the likely, and the probable future of UX Design - and to inspire them to be a part of making these dreams a reality. 5 visionary speakers will discuss what's possible, likely, and probable in 20 years, 50 years, and 100 years with regard to personal and organizational technology design.

About Kamaria

Kamaria is an information and user experience professional focused on mobile, social, and cross-channel computing. She is passionate about helping businesses differentiate themselves through superior user experiences of their products and services. She has a master’s degree in Information from the University of Michigan and currently works for IBM as an Information Architect and User Experience Consultant.

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RED HERRINGS: DEBUNKING THE POP PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOR

by Elizabeth Allen (https://twitter.com/elizallen_)

It’s no secret that color is important to designers: when employed correctly, color not only looks pretty, but also can capture attention, convey a message, and toy with emotions. The problem is, UXers often miss the mark when thinking about how to use color effectively – we rely on “pop psychology” knowledge that hasn’t been supported by scientific research, or even worse, is just plain wrong. In this presentation, I’ll use fun visual demos and interesting color perception research to explore the RIGHT ways to use color to communicate emotion, significance, and meaning when designing user experiences. I’ll also discuss how to design more accessible experiences for people with color perception problems, such as colorblind and older users. You will leave the session with a number of flexible color-choice strategies for designs that are more memorable, meaningful, and easier to use!

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth lives in Chicago and works as a UX Specialist at Centralis, a UX research and design consulting firm. Her expertise spans user research, usability testing, IA, and experience design for web, mobile, and physical products. Elizabeth’s UX skills are based in a deep understanding of the human mind: before starting in the field, she completed a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Chicago, researching the relationship between attention, working memory, and visual perception. She stays in touch with the scientific world by serving as a reviewer for Journal of the Optical Society of America, Trends in Cognitive Science, and Cognition. In her spare time, she likes to play the banjo, fall asleep outside on sunny days, and plan elaborate backpacking vacations.