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SPEAKERS (a-z, except Keynote and Closing)
Jess McMullin
Keynote: To be announced Jess McMullin is an international leader in design and the public sector, and the founder of Situ Strategy and the Centre for Citizen Experience. Working in design since 1996, in 2009 he dedicated his management consulting and coaching to helping government work better for people. He works with purpose-driven clients to develop their capability and culture to tackle complex adaptive challenges. Based in Edmonton, he frequently teaches and speaks around the world.
Gene Smith
Closing: To be announced
Gene is the president and owner of nForm, one of Canada’s leading user experience strategy and design firms. Gene works with nForm’s public and private sector clients to create successful digital strategies and deliver high-impact websites, applications and intranets.
Ammneh Azeim
Speaker: Product Strategy: Bringing Organizational Change Ammneh is the team lead for UX design and strategy team at iomer internet solutions. She has been in information technology field since 2002. At iomer, Ammneh provides strategic direction to public and private sector customers and their managed information technology projects. She is a founder of User Experience Edmonton group, where she has been providing guidance and leadership since 2009. Ammneh has also taught User Experience theories at Grant McEwan University. She is actively involved in IT community and speaks at various events including a speaking engagement at Information Architecture Summit in Baltimore (April, 2013), World IA, acted as a mentor for Health Hackathon Edmonton event and spoke at Startup Edmonton regarding UX research methods and design.
Davis Levine
Speaker: Generating Empathy in Design Through Arts Based Practices The concept of empathy in user-centred design is a vital component to help inform designers of the complex lives their users operate in. As designers, if we can generate a sense of empathy with our end user we can better understand the emotional journey they must traverse in a given context. This understanding provides deeper insight while designing a product or service unique to that particular user group. The field of design has developed a selection of research tools and methodologies to position designers in a certain model of empathetic engagement and mapping. However, I believe an under-explored area of design methodology taps into arts based practices and artistic forms of representation Davis Levine is a user experience and interaction designer based in Edmonton, Alberta.
Lejjy Gafour
Speaker: Communication with Flexible Documentation The fundamental process we follow of how we understand design problems, users, and content hasn’t changed much, but the documentation we deliver and how we deliver it is a bit in flux. We’re experts in cognitive science, usability, and solving problems with design. However, device fragmentation forces us to think through flexible experiences with portable content and in turn, to rethink how we communicate to our clients throughout the process. Lejjy is a Solutions Architect for the University of Alberta. Specializing in Enterprise Architecture and User Experience, he has recently been using techniques from both worlds to create a more cohesive strategy and execution plan for his domain. This last year he was lucky enough to get a User Experience certification from Nielsen Norman group, and look forward to more!
Ashley Janssen
Speaker: A Framework for Deciding the“How” After the “What” Do your projects often go over budget? Do you question why someone on your team implemented a feature a certain way? Are you unsure how to proceed when starting work? Do you want to ensure your client is getting the user experience you intended, while staying within the scope, resources, and timeline you agreed to? I will talk about a framework that you can use to communicate with your team to help them think critically about the decisions they are making during the planning, design, and development of a project. This framework will give them a reference for being mindful about how they plan a project, how and why they implement features in a certain way, and the impact that has on the project as whole Ashley is a Principal at AgileStyle, a software consulting and custom web development company in Edmonton. After graduating from the University of Alberta in 2006, she started her career with the Government of Alberta in business and operational planning. In 2009 she joined her husband and business partner in building AgileStyle. Over the past several years they have grown from two people in a basement suite into a talented, ever-expanding team with a trendy office in Garneau. Like most entrepreneurs, Ashley’s role in the company has transitioned many times over the years but currently her time is spent on business development and strategy. When she is not developing relationships in the web development, business, and not-for-profit communities she is spending time with her Little Sister through Boys and Girls Clubs Big Brothers Big Sisters, playing volleyball, or reading a good book.
Bob Evans
Speaker: Selling User Experience in Your Organization If you’ve ever had to sell the concept of User Experience to your organization you will recognize that it can be an uphill battle. In this session we will discuss strategies and talking points on how you can convince the higher-ups that User Experience is not only fairly scalable and cost effective, it’s critical to the success of any product Bob Evans is the Senior Product Manager at Localize, a Edmonton-based food data company and a true start-up success story. He is a User Experience evangelist and helped to co-found UX Edmonton which he continues to help run. Has has multiple years of experience working as a UX consultant, information architect, interaction designer and project manager. His current focus is on product parenting, design and delivery. When he’s not senior product managing he’s probably at the Garneau, prattling on about movies while his wife politely feigns interest.
Paul Bellows
Speaker:
Bob Evans is the Senior Product Manager at Localize, a Edmonton-based food data company and a true start-up success story. He is a User Experience evangelist and helped to co-found UX Edmonton which he continues to help run. Has has multiple years of experience working as a UX consultant, information architect, interaction designer and project manager. His current focus is on product parenting, design and delivery. When he’s not senior product managing he’s probably at the Garneau, prattling on about movies while his wife politely feigns interest.
Emotional Design: From Client Management through Product Launch Panelists (a-z)
Trevor van Gorp
Trevor van Gorp is the co-author of “Design for Emotion”, and the founder and principal of Affective Design Inc., a trusted user experience consultancy with a focus on emotional design.
He’s spent the last decade developing a deep understanding of the relationship between
design and emotion. During that time, Trevor has created information architecture, performed interaction design and conducted user research & usability evaluations for large organizations including the City of Edmonton, the Edmonton Transit System, Comcast, Ancestry.com, DDB Canada and the Government of Alberta.
His research, comments and design deliverables have been featured in the books “Designing for Emotion”, “Deconstructing Product Design” and “Universal Methods of Design”. Trevor has also given presentations on emotional design at conferences in Canada, the United States and Sweden.
You can find him online at: http://designforemotion.com http://affectivedesign.com
Jeff Archibald
Jeff Archibald is co-founder of a design agency in Edmonton called Paper Leaf, an award-winning shop that builds custom brands, websites, and applications. When not wielding his (figurative) design sword, Jeff often talks at events and sits on design panels to share his knowledge with the community. You can find his articles on design & business in FastCoDesign, Business Insider, and Lifehacker.
Claire Devaney
Claire Devaney is a co-founder of Elements Digital Studio, where she leads all things design. Elements Digital is a small but busy studio that focuses on increasing brand equity through custom branding and websites. Claire grew up in a family business and quickly learned that good UX is good business. When Claire isn’t in the studio, playing soccer, or searching for “fresh tracks” on a mountain, she’s a board member for the Advertising Club of Edmonton.