Join us for World Usability Day 2023

Join us IN PERSON for World Usability Day – Thursday, November 9th, 2023 at Progressive Insurance.

Meet other UX Professionals from throughout Northeast Ohio at World Usability Day 2023. This year’s theme is Collaboration and Cooperation.

⏳ When: Thursday, November 9th, 2023 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm.

📍 Where: Progressive Insurance – 6300 Wilson Mills Rd · Mayfield, OH

⭐ Register here: https://www.meetup.com/uxakron/events/296055563/

💸 Breakfast and lunch is included at this FREE event (but a suggested donation of $30 is appreciated! You can donate to our PayPal account here. UX Akron is a 501 (c) 3.)

📣 Speaker Lineup

Nick Dauchot: Lessons Learned As A UX Researcher in Futuristic Retail Experiences

Nick Dauchot is a Lead Designer at Grand Studio, with a specialty in User Research, Experience Design, and Information Architecture. He strives to design products that people love. His process and methods are supported by a formal education in User Experience Design, Psychology, and Media Arts. He prides himself on unlocking user and business value through the adaptability and rigor of my process, and my ability to work collaboratively and independently.

Richard Douglass: Where Do UX and Accessibility Meet?

Richard is a User Experience Consultant. For over 20 years, he has helped create engaging experiences for companies such as IBM, Razorfish, and PwC. He has worked on various projects: Intranet, Extranet, .com, Mobile, and Enterprise and Development software. In addition, Richard has experience with multiple methodologies, including co-creation and strategy workshops, usability testing, interaction design, and persona development. In addition, he has led workshops at conferences in China, New Zealand, and the United States.

Marty Gage: The Aesthetics of “Easy to Use”

Marty is the co-author of User Experience Research: Discover what customers really want. The book is a fully illustrated, step-by-step guide to getting the first step in design thinking right every time. The content is grounded in 30 years of hands-on experience at the fuzzy front end. It was written for the Savannah College of Art and Design to support a certification in user experience research.

Marty is the VP of User Experience Research at the human experience firm, Lextant. He leads a team that defines peoples’ desired experiences in a way that is actionable for all functions in an organization. His work has produced business value for numerous Fortune 500 companies.

Keith Instone: Advances in UX Research & Practice

Keith is a user experience researcher, practitioner, and consultant. He got his start researching user interfaces in the 80s and was one of the first to hop on the web usability bandwagon in the mid 90s. He helped establish information architecture as a “thing” at the turn of the century and then spent a decade at IBM. As a UX consultant, he is focused on helping a variety of organizations (from startups to corporations to educational institutions) start, grow, and mature their user experience practice through apprenticeship, coaching, and mentoring.

Keith is also active in organizing and speaking at numerous global and local events including Global Accessibility Awareness Day, World Usability Day, World Information Architecture Day, the International Industrial Design 24-hour conference, and 24 Hours of UX. He chairs the User Experience Roundtable for OhioX.

(Keith is also hosting Game Night on Nov. 8… details at the end of this post)

Shannon Kelly 📊: UX Synergy: Strategies For Effective Cross-team Collaboration

Shannon Kelly is a senior UX strategist at OverDrive in Cleveland, OH. A neuro-divergent data geek, she prides herself on being a UX unicorn with a wide range of experience, having worked in digital marketing and product development teams over the last 18+ years. Shannon is passionate about creating great user experiences and sharing the importance of using research to improve products and services.

Felesia McDonald and Ben Woods: Is UX Being Diluted?

Felesia McDonald is a Digital User Experience Manager at Sherwin Williams. Her UX career began in journalism as an Interactive Graphic Artist at the Plain Dealer. After obtaining her MS in UX Design from Kent State University (KSU) in 2014, she worked as a User Research Consultant for the Eaton Corporation, and later at OEConnection as a UX Designer. She is also an adjunct instructor at KSU and loves to mentor the next generation of UX designers.

Outside of her UX work, Felesia is passionate about teaching coding and leadership programs for young girls and women.

D. Ben Woods is an internationally recognized expert on design and its value to business. He has presented and conducted training and workshops for organizations throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Ben’s experience spans web, mobile, custom software, and ecommerce; his industry experience ranges from manufacturing, to retail, life sciences, and financial services. He has partnered with clients ranging from small startups to some of the largest companies in the world, including General Electric, Dell, Pfizer, Rio Tinto, and Fidelity Investments.

Ben earned his MS in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management at Kent State University and is a graduate of the Executive MBA program at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.

Paul Sherman: UX Past, Present, Future

With over 20 years of experience in user experience research and design, Paul is a seasoned professional who can deliver high-quality results for complex and innovative products and services. As the founder and principal consultant of ShermanUX, he has collaborated with major clients such as Microsoft, Verizon, Dell, and more, providing them with comprehensive user research, UX strategy, and UX/UI design services.

His latest work has focused on discovering how people make use of generative AI in the workplace, leading user experience research for a SaaS contract intelligence platform that incorporates ML/AI and integrates into multiple external systems. He has also designed new-to-world features incorporating generative AI, infusing design thinking and agile discovery methods into the organization, and leading user interviews and usability assessments for high-risk / high-reward features.

Christina Turner: Building A Coalition Through Conversation: Interviews for Stakeholder Alignment

Christina Turner is a Product Marketing Designer at Bloomfire, a B2B Knowledge Management SaaS company. A UXD student at Kent State University, Christina also serves on the Board for UX Akron. Additionally, she is conducting extensive stakeholder interviews for an NSF-funded, cooperatively owned, regional Smart City information Portal scheduled to launch in 2024.

Christina’s background in fine art and library science informs her work mapping information, assessing and communicating value, and helping people find what they’re looking for.

James Warnken, CPACC: Accessibility and Usability; Where They Align and How They Differ

James is a 24-year-old, visually impaired/legally blind online accessibility specialist with expertise in search engine optimization and data analytics. For the past 5 years, working in marketing and online accessibility, James has realized that his greatest value add is connecting organizations looking to become digitally accessible with his expansive network of industry-leading service providers.

James is particularly passionate about supporting non-profit organizations in their journey of website accessibility and aspires to join forces with a global tech company that he hopes will sponsor him in these community engagement efforts. With his lived experience with progressive vision loss that typically leads to blindness, James has been proactive in learning braille, using a white cane for mobility, sourcing adaptive technologies which gives him a unique user perspective while designing websites, social media campaigns, and other online experiences.