Big Design Conference

Brandon Aaron

Brandon Aaron is a core contributor to the JQuery project and Principal Technologist at Nokia. Brandon is a developer driven by creativity. He loves beautiful code that creates beautiful experiences.

Mostly you'll find Brandon playing the role of a Front-End Engineer but he's done his fair share of working with the other end as well. Brandon loves bringing experiences to life on the web with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

BJ Allen

BJ Allen is a "Renaissance Man." He designs and builds software, has a degree in Music Education from UT-Austin, and taught high school band. BJ is an admirer of mid-century architecture and furniture. He is the currently the membership director of DFW-UPA and is one of the organizers of the Big Design Conference.

Keith Anderson

Keith Anderson is a 15-year veteran of the Technical Communication Wars. He has served with honor on many industrial fronts including healthcare, banking, telecommunication, retail, and IT consulting. He is also the first person his family calls when they have computer problems. Keith's shady past forced him to take on many disguises to get the job done: trainer, technical writer, software developer, web developer, and business analyst.

After a life-changing epiphany of epic proportions, Keith decided self-employment was not like the brochures and is currently working for Sprint as an application developer in the retail software division. Like most adult children, he spends too many waking hours on Twitter (@suredoc) hoping somebody will notice him, but feels he's forged many genuine friendships as a result. Keith is also the creator of the "Beerinar", which is a social meeting experiment to get people to drink with a purpose.

Stephen Anderson

Stephen P. Anderson is a product strategy and design consultant who helps large companies create valuable customer experiences.

Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Stephen spent more than a decade growing and leading teams of information architects, interaction designers and UI developers in the creation of all types of interactive experiences, bringing value to clients such as Nokia, Frito-Lay, Sabre Travel Network, and Chesapeake Energy as well as smaller technology startups.

Stephen is passionate about elegant design, remarkable customer experiences and managing maverick teamsÐ topics he loves to write and speak about. In addition to consulting, he is in the process of doing research for a book that will teach businesses how to attract and manage rockstars, superheroes and other misfits.

As time permits, Stephen enjoys sharing his thoughts at poetpainter.com.

Burin Asavesna

Burin Asavesna is a savvy, asocial media and web development professional with a passion for bringing people together using technology. He develops a number of web sites and web applications using industry best practices and web standards.

Burin specializes in application development in Ruby on Rails, PHP, and numerous front-end technologies, including jQuery, html, and css. He is a passionate technologist, who is well-versed in promoting web accessibility, progressive enhancement, and user experience.

Chris Bernard

Chris Bernard is a user experience evangelist for Microsoft, whose passion is working with the software design, development and business domains to communicate Microsoft's position on the importance of user experience in software design.

Chris likes to focus mostly on motion graphic and interactive design but these days he find himself usually working on transactional Web-based applications and design specification artifacts.

As a design professional, Chris's mission is to apply the principles of contextual research, cultural, human, physical and social factors to the products, services and systems that he develops.

Chris is passionate about linking the value of design to business and measurable objectives and don't like people that think designers are merely decorators or designers that act like decorators.

Taylor Cowan

Taylor Cowan loves to propose new applications, research specific areas of emerging technology (ex. Semantic Web, OWL), work with development teams to solve strategic problems, assist with developer communities, and co-ordinate research with vendors. Taylor has been a research scientist, Bar Camp enthusiast, and music student.

Jim Carlsen-Landy

Jim has managed successful enterprise-wide initiatives in UI design & technology, and software process improvement. He has years of experience as a software project manager in supply chain management, manufacturing, communications, and defense with a technical background in user interface design and development, object-oriented design, and artificial intelligence.

Currently, Jim can be found managing a web design group at Sabre Airline Solutions, where his team provides solutions that help airlines to do their business. If you took a plane to get the conference, the software used to route, schedule, maintain, stock, plane/deplane, gate assignment, equipment turns, assign seats, and so on was probably something that Jim's team helped to design.

Joe Dyer

Joe Dyer is a Senior Information Architect with Travelocity, in Southlake TX and has 11 years of design, information architecture, usability, and web strategy experience. Joe and his UX Architect wife have two small children who will soon know how to classify and categorize all their toys.

Joe has completed work for such organizations as USAA, Air Force Space Command, Texas Workers' Compensation Commission, Maxwell Silver of New York and has taught Principles of Interaction Design as an Adjunct Instructor for ITT Technical Institute.

Susan Hura

Susan Hura is Vice President of User Experience at Product Support Solutions. Susan is a specialist in voice user interface design, usability, and tuning. Susan also performs applied research in speech interfaces.

Travis Isaacs

Travis Isaacs is a Principal Consultant at Improving Enterprises in Dallas, Texas. You will always find Travis designing and building consumer application. Travis is very active in the local UX community with speaking, blogging, and other activities. When he's not designing or developing, Travis enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter. You can find more information about Travis at his professional site (http://travisisaacs.com).

Jeremy Johnson

Jeremy Johnson is the User Experience Manager for Sabre. Jeremy loves all things visual, indie films, mobile applications, web interactions. Jeremy just sees things differently. Jeremy is a "Designer's Designer" with a rich knowledge of interaction design, user experience, information architecture, and anything else loosely related to those topics. He is, of course, an avid photographer, gamer, and Lego fanatic.

Adam Keys

Adam Keys is a software developer, entertainer and lover of animals. He's written software in too many languages to name at startups, small businesses and Fortune 100 giants. His philosophy of coding is to write less code and have more fun writing it.

Outside of software development, Adam has studied double bass performance, performed standup comedy and written comedy sketches. He and his wife volunteer for Central Texas Dachshund Rescue and reside in Dallas, Texas, with 3 dachshunds and 2 tabby cats.

Chris Koenig

Chris Koenig is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft, based in Dallas, TX. Prior to joining Microsoft in March of 2007, Chris worked as a Senior Architect for The Capital Group in San Antonio, and as an Architect for the global solution provider Avanade. As a consultant, Chris worked with a variety of clients from many vertical markets, ISVs and other solution providers on enterprise-class Windows and web-based applications. Today, Chris focuses on building, growing, and enhancing the developer communities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. You can contact Chris through his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/chkoenig, via email at chris.koenig@microsoft.com, or via Windows Live Messenger at chris@koenigweb.com.

Tom McCracken

Tom McCracken is the Director and President of LevelTen Interactive. Tom is a Drupal and agile development evangelist. LevelTen is a professional Internet strategy and Web design company based in Dallas, Texas. LevelTen specializes in Web 2.0 Drupal development, best-in-class website design, Internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and training programs. LevelTen features an integrated team of web consultants, creative designers, writers, programmers and marketing professionals that know how to get online results. Tom is passionate and active in the Dallas UX community.

Ryan Merket

Ryan Merket is an interactive creative specializing in social media, and 3rd party social applications.

Ryan joined Facebook in February 2009 and left in January 2010. He was an Associate on the Facebook Developer Network team. Ryan was evangelizing and supporting major brands implement Facebook Connect.

Before Facebook, Ryan worked as a Senior Social Designer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco, CA, where he built Facebook applications, and helped launch the first ever public facing Facebook Connect implementation, on CBSÕs TheInsider.com.

Ryan co-founded Workstir.com in May 2008. Workstir connects local service providers with consumers that have needs. TechCrunch described the site as a "Craigslist/Yelp hybrid".

Ryan also co-founded Ping.fm in December 2007 (acquired by Seesmic in 1/2010), a website application that allows users to blast a micro-blog to nearly all social networks and micro-blog services (such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter). Ryan no longer is involved in the day to day operations of Ping.fm.

Jenni McKienzie

Jenni McKienzie is a Voice User Interface Designer with over 12+ years in the industry. Jenni has created voice systems for Travelocity, Intervoice, and Sewell & Associates.

Theresa Neil

Theresa Neil is a true "design genie" with design experience for web, desktop, and mobile applications. Theresa loves the challenge of complex data visualizations. She is the co-author of "Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions" with Bill Scott.

Theresa specializes in user research, persona development, work flow maps, paper prototypes, wireframes, hi-fidelity mock-ups, usability testing, interaction design, information architecture, prototype development, development support for Flex/AIR or Ajax, form and behavior specifications, and heuristic evaluations. She is a Òdesign genieÓ to us.

Alfonso de la Nuez

Alfonso de la Nuez is the Founding partner and Global Chief Marketing Officer at UserZoom, an online UX research software company. Additionally, Alfonso is the founding partner of Xperience Consulting, Spain's leading usability consultancy. Alfonso specializes in remote, unmoderated usability testing and UX benchmarking.

Erica O'Grady

Erica O'Grady is the #1 Erica on Google - Most days :) She is currently a Social Media Consultant based in Houston, Texas. Wearing many hats - including Social Media Consultant, Award Winning Web Designer/Developer, Creativity Coach, Writer, Part-Time Tutor, Aspiring Film-Maker, BarCamp Enthusiast, World Traveler, and Grown-up Girl Scout, Erica Specializes in Community Marketing and is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Social Media and Technology. She is currently the CXO of Peanut Butter Media, co-founder of SheConnects.Me, and sits on the Advisory board for Knowbility.org, The Creative Space, & Westwood College. She blogs at: http://reinventingerica.com and is the On The Road Correspondent for The Business Maker's Radio Show heard on Talk Radio 950 KPRC.

Chris Pitre

Chris Pitre is the Social Marketing Strategist at IDEA (www.ideaii.com), a national digital agency headquartered in Houston. He oversees the social media initiatives for clients, as well as the agency, and serves as an in-house maven on social, mobile, and integrated strategies. Prior to joining IDEA, Chris worked in marketing roles at web development firms and a traditional ad agency. In addition to helping brands navigate the social web, Chris sits on the boards of the American Advertising Federation Houston as the Social Media chair and served as chair for Interactive Strategies, an interactive marketing conference hosted by the Houston Interactive Marketing Association. Chris, a Houston native, graduated with a BBA in Marketing from The George Washington University and sits on the GW Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Ryan Plesko

Ryan is a marketing strategist and web designer/developer hybrid with a concentration on user experience design, information architecture, and usability. He's currently vice president of the Dallas Chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association and designed and developed the critically acclaimed chapter website (as well as this one).

He's a founding member of The Creative Space, a coworking space full of tech creatives, developers, and entrepreneurs, a founding member of RefreshBCS, and played host to BarCampTexas. He has been involved in the planning and production of the BIL Conference, an open analogous version of TED, since it was a just an idea rattling around The Creative Space.

He believes people should never ever stop learning and is an avid reader of a massive amount of blogs, magazines, and books. He studies people and how they interact, both with each other and with the products and services they use.

Adam Polansky

Adam Polansky is the Manager of the Information Architecture team at Travelocity where he concentrates on Internet applications and processes associated with the practice of IA.

He has been an Information Architect since 1997 and has over 20 years experience in media development. He has lead or contributed to the development of Web-sites for such companies as Dr Pepper, Radio City Entertainment, American Express, AARP, Intel, Microsoft, Sabre, Corporate Express, and Texas Instruments.

He is a contributing author to "Usability Success Stories - How Organizations Improve By Making Easier-To-Use Software and Web Sites" - Gower Publishing, 2006

A member of the IA Institute, he is also involved with the American Association of Information Science & Technology, where he served as an inaugural officer of SIG-IA. He is also a past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Usability Professionals Association.

Kelsey Ruger

Kelsey Ruger is Vice President of Operations at chaione, Director at The Business Makers Radio Show, and Blogger at Themoleskin.com. Kelsey has been working in web engineering, user experience design, information architecture and web marketing for more than a decade. His consulting, design and web roots provide him with a unique perspective that bridges the gaps between strategy, creativity and execution, creating useful digital solutions for his clients and their customers.

His personal mantra is "think, try, teach". Kelsey likes "building things for people". Simply put, Kelsey is a creative guy who helps design focused solutions that fix problems while providing a useful, significant experience.

Sharron Rush

Sharron is the co-founder and Executive Director of Knowbility, a nonprofit organization that grew from the first Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) in Austin in 1998. Sharron leads the effort to replicate the AIR program in cities throughout the country. Because of AIR, professional Web developers from hundreds of state agencies and technology companies have learned about the benefits, tools, and techniques of accessible Web design. In addition to improving the accessibility of their own work, AIR volunteers use their accessible Web design skills to create sites for more than 500 nonprofit groups, affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Sharron believes strongly in the power of technology to support the independence of people with disabilities – and in the value of dynamic, ongoing collaboration to strengthen communities. She has led Knowbility to national recognition, including appearances on the Oprah Winfrey TV show, "Best Practice" feature at the National Labor Skills Summit, and recognition for excellence and innovation by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation. In April of 2001, she was named one of the Top 25 Women of the Web and in March 2002, she received the Dewey Winburne Award for Community Service through Interactive Media. She is a ComputerWorld Laureate, an advisor to the SXSW Interactive Media Conference, was named Community Tech Champion by the Congressional Black Caucus and co-wrote the book, Maximum Accessibility which is recognized as one of the definitive accessibility resources. Sharron annually assembles the best minds in web accessibility to deliver training conferences that teach and define interactive accessibility from the basics to the bleeding edge.

Bill Scott

Bill Scott is author of Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions and director of UI Engineering at Netflix in Los Gatos, CA, where he plies his interface engineering and design skills. Scott is the former Yahoo! Ajax evangelist and pattern curator for the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library.

He has a long and glamorous history in the IT world, due mostly to his unique understanding of both the technical and creative aspects of designing usable products. His ramblings and musings can be found at www.looksgoodworkswell.com.

Nathan Shedroff

Nathan is one of the pioneers in Experience Design, an approach to design that encompasses multiple senses and requirements and explores common characteristics in all media that make experiences successful, as well as related fields, Interaction Design and Information Design. He speaks and teaches internationally and has written extensively on design and business issues, including, Experience Design 1 and Making Meaning. He's a serial entrepreneur, works in several media, and consults strategically for companies to build better, more meaningful experiences for their customers.

Lately, he's spent a lot of time building strategies for start-ups and established firms using a variety of online technologies to deliver new solutions that enhance and evolve their online brand, develop new offerings, and enhance their customer relationships. He also consults on corporate strategies for sustainability since earning his MBA in Sustainable Management.

Dr. Paul Sherman

Paul Sherman is founder and principal consultant at ShermanUX. He has worked in the field of usability and user-centered design for the past 12 years. He was most recently Senior Director of User-Centered Design at Sage Software in Atlanta, Georgia, where he led efforts to redesign the UI and improve the overall customer experience of the Peachtree Accounting desktop application and ePeachtree web-based app.

While at Sage he also designed and implemented a customer-centric contextual innovation program that sought to identify new product and service opportunities by observing small businesses "in the wild". He also led efforts to modernize and make consistent Sage North America's product user interfaces.

In the 1990's he was a Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies in New Jersey, where he led efforts to develop cross-product user interface standards for several telecommunications management applications. As a consultant he has conducted usability testing and interface design for banking, accounting and tax preparation applications, Web-based financial planning and portfolio management applications, and ecommerce Web sites.

Paul received his Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focused on how pilots' use of computers and automated systems on the flight deck affects their individual and team performance. Paul is Past President of the Usability Professionals' Association, was the founding President of the UPA Dallas/Fort Worth chapter, and serves on the UPA's Board of Directors and Executive Committe. He is also contributor and editor of the Gower book Usability Success Stories: How Organizations Improve by Making Easier-to-Use Software and Web Sites, published in October 2006. He writes a regular column for the online user experience magazine UXmatters and has presented at conferences around North America as well as Asia, Europe, and South America. Email Paul at paul@shermanux.com.

Ben Smithee

Ben Smithee is a Market Researcher, who has worked with Fortune 500 in domestic and global markets. Recently, Ben has started his own company called Spych Market Analytics, which targets its Market Research into youth markets. The Spych team has young moderators trained in the latest technology and methods, including social media and viedographic research to uncover market trends in the social networks.

Ben's team will be conducting market research and videography at SxSW Interactive. Plus, the Synch team will be conducting video interviews, in-session market research, posting videos to the Big (D)esign Blog page, tweeting, and asking loads of questions for attendees and speakers. If anyone will have the pulse of the conference, it will be Ben.

Jared Spool

Jared M. Spool is the founder of User Interface Engineering, the largest usability research organization of its kind in the world. If you've ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he's probably the most effective and knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. He's been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers.

Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual UI Conference and Web App Summit, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time. He is author of the book, Web Usability: A Designer's Guide.

Brian Sullivan

Brian Sullivan is Usability Principal at the Sabre Human Factors Center. He is the President of the DFW-UPA chapter, one of the organizers of the Big Design Conference, and for the past two years, Brian has been the chair of World Usability Day. He is a reviewer for the UPA Body of Knowledge project. Brian enjoys collaborating with designers. Brian's mission is to prevent usability issues rather than to treat them.

Russ Unger

Russ Unger is the Director of Experience Planning for Draftfcb, a advertising/marketing agency in the Midwest and currently serves on the board of directors of the Information Architecture Institute as president. Russ has been working on websites since 1993 when there was only Notepad to code with and Mosaic was the only browser around. That was when he found his interest in User Experience Design and Information Architecture began to flourish.

Since then, he has worked with a number of major brands, including Sharpie, Kraft, Kmart, Gatorade, Propel, Quaker and Celebrity Cruise Lines, as well as on large scale Intranet and Extranet applications for such companies as Volkswagen Credit, Audi Financial Services, Information Resources, Inc. and Marsh.

In addition, Russ is co-author of the book "A Project Guide to UX Design" for Peachpit Press (Voices That Matter). Russ is also co-authoring a book on research methods due out in 2010.

Dr. Susan Weinschenk

Dr. Susan Weinschenk has over 30 years experience as a consultant worldwide and is Chief of Technical Staff and Services at Human Factors International. Her areas of expertise include persuasive interface design, neuropsychology, user centered design, and generational differences.

Dr. Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University. Susan has had 4 books on user experience published, and her most recent book is Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? published by New Riders. She is a highly rated workshop and keynote presenter.