If you ask around about what makes an effective website, many people will tell you that a good website is a website that's easy to use. But how do you go about making a website--or any product or service--easy to use? While there are plenty of industry leaders, books, articles, and best practices to learn from, what matters is context. For whom are you designing? What are the users' goals, motivations, and pain points? What are users trying to accomplish? Good design solves real problems. It doesn't just decorate. How can you design to solve real problems for real people?
This session will explore the fundamentals of user experience. We'll explore industry best practices and examples of websites that solve real problems for real people. There are many tools and disciplines within user experience, from content strategy to information architecture to user research. By understanding these tools and when to use them, and by understanding the context of each design problem we are faced with, we can begin to understand how to utilize design thinking and creating user experiences that are useful, usable, and desirable.
Happy Hour
Afterwards, keep the conversation going by joining us for a happy hour at Nodding Head Brewery (1516 Sansom St.) from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. All are welcome, but the first 40 who register for our session will receive a drink ticket on us! (Drink ticket may only be obtained by attending the session.)
Speaker: Jess Ivins
While in college, Jess took a class devoted to HTML and CSS, fell in love, and never looked back. She began her career as a front-end developer, and while working in the real world, she fell in love again with the principles of user-centered design. Previously a senior experience designer at Happy Cog, she is now senior UX specialist at AWeber.
A strong advocate for universal usability, Jess is the first to admit that she’s befuddled by a lack of clarity in everything from road signage to food packaging. She’s passionate about making things easy and enjoyable to use and regularly contributes her time and experience to the UX community. She has served as an officer for Philadelphia’s UX community PhillyCHI and is currently the main organizer for Philadelphia UX Book Club. She has sat on panels, taught UX classes, and spoken at numerous conferences including the 2011 IA Summit, SXSW 2012, Midwest UX 2012, The Wharton UI Conference 2011-2012, and Pittsburgh Web Design Day 2012.
In her spare time, Jess busies herself with reading, cooking, and enjoying a fine glass of wine. She’s also mildly obsessed with the TV show Forensic Files.