UX Akron

Beyond Personas: Designing with Jobs-to-be-Done in Mind with Michele Oliver, Ph.D.

Tuesday, September 23rd at 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM ET.
This is an online event.

Tired of vague personas and guesswork? The Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework offers a powerful lens for understanding what truly drives user behavior. In this session, we'll break down how JTBD helps uncover the real motivations behind choices, align cross-functional teams around customer needs, and prioritize product decisions that solve the right problems.

Whether you're a UX professional, product leader, or researcher, you'll leave with practical strategies to put JTBD into action, grounded in real examples and ready for immediate use.

About our speaker: Michele Oliver, Ph.D.

Michele L. Oliver, Ph.D. is a Principal UX Researcher at Ellucian, a leading educational technology company, where she drives research strategy for global digital products focused on improving student and institutional outcomes.

With over 10 years of experience, she brings deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methods, user-centered design, and data-driven decision making.

Dr. Oliver holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Experimental Psychology from Central Michigan University, where she specialized in sychophysiology, statistics, and research methods, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering (formerly Polytechnic University).

She began her career in academia as a professor of Statistics and Research Methods at Texas State University. During her tenure, she also served on evaluation teams assessing educational and community programs, merging her passion for teaching with real-world impact through data analysis, interpretation, and reporting.

Before joining Ellucian, she worked at Newell Brands as a Senior UX Researcher, where she helped improve consumer product experiences through evidence-based design recommendations. Across sectors, she is known for her ability to synthesize complex data into actionable insights that improve products, systems, and services.

Sexy Versus Scrappy Tech: Using IA and AI to Help Real People Do Everyday Things with Carrianne Tuckley

Thursday, October 23rd at 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM ET.
This is an online event.

Does your job work with sexy, innovative technology? Are you working on cognitive retail applications, bioinformatics, or autonomous delivery? I’m sure there are those of you who are. But in reality, many of us are working on projects where today, tomorrow and this week are what’s important, and our users have much more practical needs.

I work on public sector sites for cities, counties, and libraries. My users are from a wide range of demographics and technological abilities need to be able to complete quite a varied set of tasks.

This talk will outline examples of ways that we use artificial intelligence tools and other technology advances in “scrappy” behind-the-scenes ways to assist citizens in completing everyday tasks.

About our speaker: Carrianne Tuckley

Carrianne is the UX Research and Strategy Manager at Interpersonal Frequency, an agency that designs, builds and hosts websites for public agencies including cities, counties, state agencies, public utilities and libraries. She has over 13 years of experience in Information Architecture and User Experience roles.

Carrianne has been organizing World IA Day in Northeast Ohio since 2015, serves on the board of UX Akron, and served as a mentor for the Akron StartupBus in 2019.

Carrianne is actively involved with many local charitable organizations, most notably the Northern Ohio Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Delta Sigma Tau local sorority.

When she’s not busy at work, Carrianne loves taking in live music of nearly every genre, race walking, baking, and all sorts of puzzles and games.