Educational Design, User Assistance, and Working with Engineers!

Join us this month for engaging presentations and lively discussions at Google in Cambridge! We're excited to have InVision (https://nvite.com/InVisionApp/b101) sponsor the after party where you’ll have opportunities to talk shop over drinks, apps and the Patriots. Game starts at 8:30 and we'll have our own private space and big screen upstairs at Meadhall. Swing by and say hi to Brian Tino (https://www.linkedin.com/in/btino) and all from InVision!

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1. Educational UX Design: Crafting an Ecology Curriculum for Incarcerated Youth (6:35-7:00)

By Kim Ducharme (Twitter (https://twitter.com/kimducharme) | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimducharme)) and Christina Bosch (Twitter (https://twitter.com/crunktini)| LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/boschchristina))

How do you shape a digital curriculum project around difficult-to-reach users — incarcerated youth? During this talk, we’ll highlight how we are leveraging user experience design in an educational context for Project RAISE (Reclaiming Access to Inquiry Science Education for Incarcerated Students). CAST, Inc. has traditionally used a research-based framework for curriculum development to design education tools that meet the widest range of learner needs. Recently, we’ve begun to borrow and integrate UXD methods to enhance and evolve our processes and products. Through workarounds and creative research strategies, we are developing an ecology curriculum that is flexible enough to address the unique needs of students and teachers, while at the same time accommodating institutional, educational, and technological constraints.

About Kim. Kim Ducharme is Director of Design at CAST, Inc., an educational research and development organization, and formerly headed up interactive design at WGBH. At CAST, Kim heads up design strategy and user experience for the development of interactive learning environments and tools that expand learning opportunities for all individuals through Universal Design for Learning. She is committed to harnessing the power of design to tackle the educational challenges of our time.

About Christina. As an instructional designer and research associate at CAST, Inc., Christina Bosch's work blends UX and Universal Design for Learning strategies with pedagogical expertise from special education and arts integration teaching experiences. She is interested in synthesizing approaches from multiple disciplines to tackle complex problems in education.

2. User Assistance! (7:00-7:25)

by Deborah Sauer | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/deborah-sauer/0/b61/30b) | Twitter (https://twitter.com/deborahsauer)

User assistance has a bad rap. And who needs it anyway? User interface design strives to make an app so intuitive that people can perform the desired task without thinking about the user interface with which they are interacting. This seamless experience is the goal, but it is difficult to attain for all use cases, all personas, and all screen sizes. Assistance still needs to be available when the user needs it, and not be in the way when the user doesn’t. We’ll look at some successful and some less than successful attempts at user assistance and discuss ways to implement user assistance in mobile apps.

About Deborah. Deborah designs user assistance content for Sonos, Inc., a leader in wireless music systems. Previously, she designed content for companies such as Philips Consumer Electronics, Avid Technology, iRobot, and Land O’Lakes. Deborah ran her own consulting business for 12 years and taught at companies such as Sprint and Brooklyn Academy of Music. She also taught in the graduate Technical Communication program at her alma mater, Northeastern University. She is a frequent speaker at Society for Technical Communication programs and conferences.

3. Working Effectively with Engineers (7:25-7:50)

By Mary Murray | LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/uxmarymurray)

Have you ever gotten into a shouting match with an engineer over an interaction? Have you put hours into specifications only to find what the developer implemented seems to have little relationship to what you designed? If so, this talk is for you. We'll cover strategies to help make the relationship between designers and engineers more collaborative and productive.

About Mary. Mary is a UX designer who has worked with engineers at large enterprises and tiny startups. In addition to her experience designing software, she curated the exhibit The Maker’s Revolution at the Cambridge Science Festival and displayed Interactive art at the CyberArts Festival, CyberArts Gallery, and Axiom Gallery.

4. Meadhall (8-11)

Sponsored by InVision (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClIbn_IF31U) | @InVisionApp (https://twitter.com/InVisionApp)

Head to Mead Hall for an InVision sponsored party to watch the Patriots. Food and drinks will be provided all evening by Brian Tino (https://www.linkedin.com/in/btino) of InVision.

About InVision. InVision gives teams the freedom to prototype, review, iterate, manage, and user test web and mobile products—without a single line of code and all in one place. Founded in 2011, InVision helps over one million designers at companies like Evernote, Adobe, Twitter, and Salesforce unlock the power of design-driven product development.

Physical Security

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Parking

You may want to allow extra time to find a parking space, but street parking is available on the side streets. Pilgrim Parking (http://www.pilgrimparking.com/boston-parking-garages/kendall-square-south-garage.htm), 350 Kendall Street has an $8 rate if you enter after 4pm.

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Looking for speakers!
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