Demystifying the UX Team: Who are the players?

Demystifying the UX Team: Who are the players?

Almost every company, be it a UX/UI firm or any industry that has a UX team - all seem to have different team structures and working methods.

UX/UI/Usability is a relatively new field, so we’re getting 5 UX Directors and Managers together from various companies to form a panel and answer UXPALA's questions and yours:

• How do you figure out where you fit in with different companies?
• Who are the players in a UX team?
• Why are teams different from company to company?
• Why do some job definition, like UX Designer, differ so much from one company to another?
• What roles and work load does each team member do
• How do you work together?
• What’s a typical Day on a project?
• What environment do you work in (Agile or Waterfall)? And why?

AGENDA:
6:30-7:00 pm — Networking
7:00-7:30 pm — Community and Business
7:30-7:45 pm — Intro of event and panel
7:45-8:45 pm —10 minutes presentations per panel member
8:45-9:00 pm —15 minute moderated Q&A
9:00-9:30 pm — 30 minute General Q&A

SPEAKERS:

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Jaimi "J.J." Kercher, Director of User Experience, AppFolio (http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkercher)

Formally educated in commercial photography, Jaimi's passion for experience followed a series of neatly-connected dots to define her UX career. She has worked exclusively with web and software development teams for over 8 years, serving as Director of Product and UX at Bargain Network, Senior Product Manager at Lynda.com, and as a consultant for several technology startups. The last 5 years of her career have been focused on integrating user experience and research into agile development environments.

Jaimi is currently the Director of User Experience at AppFolio, a ridiculously fun company working to bring the power of well-designed SaaS products to a multitude of vertical industries.

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Sean Michael Kelly, Senior Manager, User Experience, Kaiser Permanente (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/sean-michael-kelly/35/a72/aa0)

As well as being an instructor in the UX Certificate Program AT CSUF, Sean Michael Kelly is Senior Manager of UX at Kaiser Permanente focusing on helping patients make sense of the complicated world of health care. With over a decade of experience in UX, he enjoys making order out of chaos and making the complicated simple for users.

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Brandon Applefield, Associate Experience Lead at Huge (http://www.linkedin.com/in/applefield)

Brandon Applefield is an Associate Experience Lead at Huge where he develops information architecture and user interfaces, creates wireframes, and documents functionality for some of Huge's largest initiatives. He has worked with clients including Golf Channel, FX Networks, Veterinary Pet Insurance, National Geographic, Maybelline, and Vans. Brandon holds a B.A. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Jay Stakelon, VP Product Design, Fullscreen (http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaystakelon)

Jay is like a Swiss army knife for digital products with expertise in product management, user experience design and software development. He has over 10 years of experience designing and developing digital products. He's the VP of Product Design at Fullscreen, where he previously ran product management and now focuses on UX, interaction and visual design, prototyping and building a super-kickass multiplatform design team.

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Skot Carruth, Co-founder and UX/Product Strategist, Philosophie LLC (http://www.linkedin.com/in/skotcarruth)

Skot Carruth started making websites in 1995, just five years after Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Skot started his first e-commerce business in 1997, and consulted for small businesses throughout high school and college. After a brief stint in investment banking, he came back to his digital roots to co-found philosophie. He currently heads up User Experience Strategy at philosophie, where he and his team create awesome experiences...and then make them better.

SPONSORS:

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Brighter Collective — For their generous use of venue! (http://www.brightercollective.com/)

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CyberCoders — For the AWESOME refreshments! (http://www.cybercoders.com/)

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O'Reilly Books — For donation of 3 books to giveaway! (http://oreilly.com/)

SOCIAL MEDIA:

@uxpaofla
#UXTeams
#jjkercher
#stakelon
#skotcarruth
#seanMkelly
#bapplefield
#hellobrighter
#OReillyMedia
#cybercoders

LIVE STREAM:

https://www.youtube.com/user/uxpaofla

Our Youtube.com channel. We'll be updating the Live Link on the day of the event.