Abstract
As user experience professionals insinuate themselves into product teams, a question inevitably arises: What is the best way to fit UE into our organization?
Should we have a centrally managed group? Should we have a loose organization, with pockets of UE people attached directly to each product team? Should they act like consultants – available for hire on a project by project basis? And how does each of these paths translate into creating better products, individual development, and building corporate knowledge?
If you think these questions are for MBA's only, think again. They have a profound affect on the day to day life of all UE professionals, as well as how our profession is perceived and valued. The members of this panel have a great deal of real life experience with these issues. They will share their insights on this vital topic at our September meeting.
Bios
Doug Gibson is Sr. Manager of UI Design at Symantec, where he has worked for the last five years designing interfaces for security products and innovative processes for maximizing the contribution of his team. His career history in UI design spans 20 years including work for Polaroid, Digitas, Kronos, and Data Genera and leading UI design projects for LL Bean and General Motors. Doug holds multiple UI patents and teaches a course entitled Practical UI Design at the Harvard Extension School. (Doug is also the new Chair of BostonCHI .)
Fred Leichter is the Senior Vice President of Customer Experience and User Interface Design for Fidelity Investments’ Electronic Business Group. Mr. Leichter has been with Fidelity for 16 years. Since 1995, he has been immersed in the development and dramatic expansion of Fidelity’s Online Brokerage business and Online Benefits Servicing businesses. Fred established design as a unique discipline at Fidelity, and now manages a team of over 150 associates who are responsible the information architecture, visual design, and usability testing for all of Fidelity’s customer facing interfaces, web, software and wireless. Prior to joining Fidelity, Mr. Leichter was a Product Manager for Saddlebrook, a Cambridge Massachusetts based banking software provider. He began his career as systems developer with Merrill Lynch in New York. Mr. Leichter holds a BA. in mathematics from Swarthmore College and has done graduate work in Computer Science at Columbia University.
Alan Schell earned a Ph.D. from Boston University in Applied Linguistics in 1989, during which he worked on a study at Children's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He then worked at Wang Labs, Ciba Corning, Bose Corporation, and Lernout and Hauspie as a User Experience Designer/Manager. At Bose, Alan did the User Interface Design for the Wave Radio/CD, the Acoustic Wave and other popular products. Alan taught Human Factors Engineering and Design in the Graduate Mechancial Engineering program at WPI as well as in the Design program at Northeastern University. He holds numerous patents for his work. Alan has been the Director of User Experience Design at EMC since 2002.
Dan Workman has over 15 years of experience as a UX professional, including user testing, design and prototyping, and leading UX teams. He currently leads the Business Intelligence User Experience (BIUX) team at Oracle. The BIUX team is an interdisciplinary team of UX professionals focused on understanding the needs of business users and designing experiences that allow them to better understand and manage their business, from analysis and information visualization to action. Prior to focusing on BI, Dan established Oracle's Boston UX team, supporting products including Pharmaceuticals, Configuration Management, Financial Analysis, Planning and Budgeting, Data Mining and OLAP. Prior to Oracle, Dan was a UI Architect at Eastman Software, and held UX positions at Wang Software, Wang Laboratories and MIT Lincoln Laboratories. He hold BS and MS degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, with a Human Factors focus.
Video
A video of this talk is available at
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid507869808/bclid1243712625/bctid1243644474