Expert Speakers

For the UI13 conference, we’ve sought out experts who have the most advanced thought on the topics designers want to hear. We’ve recruited a fabulous group of speakers, ready to help you solve your biggest design problems.

UI13 Keynote Speaker

Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

Jared M. 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.

UI13 Spotlight Plenary

Bill Verplank, Visiting Scholar, Stanford University

Bill Verplank

Bill Verplank is an expert interaction designer, human factors engineer, and visiting scholar at Stanford University. His focus is on interactions between humans and computers. He studied mechanical engineering and product design at Stanford. His PhD is from MIT in man-machine systems.

At Xerox, Bill participated in testing and refining the Xerox Star graphical user interface. For seven years, he taught Graphical User Interface Design, Graphic Invention for User Interfaces, and Scenerios for Observation and Invention as tutorials at the ACM SIGCHI conference.

He's worked as a design consultant with Bill Moggridge at IDTwo and IDEO to bring graphical user interfaces into the product design world. At Interval Research, he directed research and design for collaboration, tangibility and music. At Stanford, during that time, he worked with Terry Winograd to establish a studio course on Human-Computer Interaction Design which he taught for five years; during the last two years, he has taught an experimental course on input devices.

  • On Thursday, October 16th, Bill Verplank will present the Spotlight Plenary on Sketching Metaphors.

Scott Berkun, scottberkun.com

Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun is the best selling author of Making Things Happen (formerly titled the art of project management) and The Myths of Innovation. He worked at Microsoft from 1994-2003, as a usability engineer, design evangalist, and program manager, and worked on Internet Explorer v1.0 to 5.0. Since 2003 he works as an independent author and lecturer. His work as a writer and public speaker has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired magazine and on National Public Radio, and he blogs on management and creative thinking at www.scottberkun.com/blog.

Dana E. Chisnell, Usability and User Research Consultant, UsabilityWorks

Dana Chisnell

Dana is an independent usability consultant and user researcher who founded UsabilityWorks in San Francisco, CA. She has been doing usability research, user interface design, and technical communications consulting and development since 1982.

Dana took part in her first usability test in 1983 while she was working as a research assistant at the Document Design Center. It was on a mainframe office system developed by IBM. Since then, she has worked with hundreds of study participants, for dozens of clients, to learn about design issues in software, hardware, web sites, online services, games, and ballots (and probably other things that are better forgotten about). She has helped companies like Yahoo!, Intuit, AARP, Wells Fargo, E*TRADE, Sun Microsystems, and RLG (now OCLC) perform usability tests and other user research to inform and improve the designs of their products and services.

Dana’s colleagues consider her an expert in usability issues for older adults and plain language. (She says she’s still learning.) Lately, she has been working on issues related to ballot design and usability and accessibility in voting.

Andrew Crow, Senior Experience Designer, Adaptive Path

Andrew Crow

Andrew Crow is a senior experience designer, trainer, and speaker at Adaptive Path. He has a passion for developing innovative design solutions for customers' needs.

Initially a print and web designer, Andrew moved into information architecture and interaction design to promote holistic user experiences to corporate clients. Andrew has over 12 years of design, technical, and strategic experience in the technology industry.

Before joining Adaptive Path, Andrew managed the web and user experience team at Princess Cruises where he led the development of an entirely new online booking system, e-ticket solution, and online branding and marketing initiatives. Prior to that, he worked with element18 and Interfocus Advertising in Los Angeles.

Kim Goodwin, VP Design and General Manager, Cooper

Kim Goodwin

Kim's design expertise and teaching skills have made her a top-rated presenter at many of User Interace Engineering's events. She applies her years of experience as a creative director to ensure excellent delivery of Cooper's design, consulting, and training services.

Kim has played a major role in developing Cooper's Goal-Directed methods and has led the effort to turn those methods into the Cooper U Interaction Design curriculum. Kim has led a wide range of design projects, from e-commerce applications to information appliances, IP telephony systems, and healthcare applications.

Jeremy Keith, Clearleft

Jeremy Keith

Jeremy Keith is one of the industry's most respected experts in the field of Javascipt and Ajax interactivity. A regular speaker at major design conferences, Jeremy is the author of the best selling books, Bulletproof Ajax and DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model.

Jeremy is a member of the Web Standards Project where he was recently elected to serve as joint leader of the DOM Scripting Task Force. The DOM Scripting Task Force was created to evangelize the adoption of unobtrusive JavaScript; a way of thinking based on modern, standards-compliant, accessible web development best practices.

A more personal side of Jeremy can be found at Adactio, a popular blog where he writes about web design and web standards issues. When he's not building web sites, Jeremy plays bouzouki in the alt.country band Salter Cane. He is also the creator and curator of one of the Web's largest online communities dedicated to Irish traditional music, The Session.

Donna (Maurer) Spencer, maadmob

Donna Maurer

Donna (Maurer) Spencer is a freelance information architect, mentor, writer, and trainer. She has 8 years experience working in-house and as a consultant doing strategic and tactical design. She has designed large intranets and web sites, ecommerce and search systems, business applications, design patterns, and a CMS.

Donna is an experienced speaker, who has taught workshops and presented sessions at local and international conferences, on information architecture, interaction design, and whatever else crosses her mind.

She spends her (little) remaining time on the board of IAI and writing a book on card sorting. Sometimes she even gets time to weave and sew.

Peter Merholz, President, Adaptive Path

Peter Merholz

Peter Merholz is the President of Adaptive Path. He is an experienced information architect, writer, speaker, and leader in the field of user-experience design. Clients include Cathay Pacific, Yamaha, and the California Health Care Foundation.

Peter's major projects at Adaptive Path include: Unifying PeopleSoft's three disparate Web properties into one unified presence; conducting research on health care policy for CHCF; recommending improvements for Yamaha's next generation digital keyboards; and helping Intel wrangle their massive set of product offerings into a manageable experience.

Peter is a regular speaker at web design and information architecture conferences, such as ASIS&T's Information Architecture Summits (years 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004). He keynoted both the Institute of Design's 2003 About With and For conference, and 2004 SIGCHI.NL, the premiere Dutch HCI conference.

Jeff Patton, AgileProductDesign.com

Jeff Patton

Jeff Patton has designed and developed software for the past 12 years on a wide variety of projects from on-line aircraft parts ordering to electronic medical records. Jeff has focused on Agile approaches since working on an early Extreme Programming team in 2000. In particular Jeff has specialized in the application of user centered design techniques to improve Agile requirements, planning, and products.

Some of his recent writing on the subject can be found at www.AgileProductDesign.com and Alistair Cockburn’s Crystal Clear. His forthcoming book to be released in Addison-Wesley’s Agile Development Series gives tactical advice to those seeking to deliver useful, usable, and valuable software.

Jeff works currently as an independent consultant, is founder and list moderator of the agile-usability Yahoo discussion group, a columnist with StickyMinds.com and IEEE Software, and a winner of the Agile Alliance’s 2007 Gordon Pask Award for contributions to Agile Development.

Christine Perfetti, VP & Managing Director, User Interface Engineering

Christine Perfetti

Christine is responsible for User Interface Engineering's business strategy initiatives. She manages UIE's events and training business development and helps to ensure coordination of affiliates.

As one of the most requested consultants and instructors at User Interface Engineering, Christine has worked with dozens of companies on their toughest web design problems. With her extensive knowledge of human factors, task design, user recruitment, and usability testing practices, Christine has been a top-rated presenter at CHI 2001- 2005, the UIE Research Forums, and STC regional conferences. She has also taught Human Factors at the Tufts University Gordon Institute for Engineering Management.

Christine previously worked at Fidelity Investments, where she was an influential member of their highly-talented instructional design team. At Fidelity, she specialized in the areas of corporate training, instructional design, project management, and web site design and development. She received her Master’s degree in Experimental Psychology from Brown University.

Luke Wroblewski, Principal Designer, Yahoo! and LukeW Interface Designs

Luke Wroblewski

Luke Wroblewski is an experienced interface designer, strategist, and author. He is currently a Principal Designer at Yahoo! Inc. and Principal of LukeW Interface Designs, a digital product design consultancy he founded in 1996. Luke has authored a groundbreaking book on web interface design principles, Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability, as well as numerous articles featured in his own online publication, Functioning Form. Luke is a member of the board of directors of the Interaction Design Association and a frequent presenter on topics related to Web Design.

Previously, Luke was the Lead User Interface Designer of eBay Inc.’s platform team. At eBay, he led the strategic design of new consumer products and internal processes including design pattern and creative asset management systems. Luke also taught interface design courses in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois and worked as a Senior Interface Designer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), birthplace of the first popular graphical Web browser, NCSA Mosaic.