IxDA SF - Tuesday, April 28th at 6:30pm

When UX Research is Evil
Usually when you design and conduct a user research study, you're focused on keeping the methods sound, recruiting good users, and asking the right questions, which is already a tall order. Unfortunately, no matter how well you conduct your studies, your methods have little to do with how the research ultimately gets used. Everyone's a little bit to blame for this: researchers can do evil by conducting useless research and presenting it ineffectively; clients can do evil by misconstruing findings, or by undervaluing research to begin with.

This talk will cover the ways that research can be misconducted, misinterpreted, and misunderstood, and on the other hand, how you can involve your clients in your research, to show them how and why it's done, and get inspired to think about design problems through the eyes of real users.

NOW EXTRA SPICY! this panel promises to a knock-down, drag-out, battle to the last! Not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.

Nate Bolt
After pioneering and directing the User Experience department at Clear Ink in 1999, Nate Bolt co-founded Bolt | Peters. He now serves as the CEO, where he has overseen hundreds of user research studies for Sony, Oracle, HP, Greenpeace, Electronic Arts, and others. Beginning in 2003, he led the creation of the first moderated remote user research software, Ethnio, which is being used around the world to recruit hundreds of thousands of live participants for research. Nate regularly gives presentations on native environment research methods in both commercial and academic settings, and is currently co-authoring Remote Research, a book on remote testing, published by Rosenfeld Media.

Mark Trammell
Mark Trammell is the User Experience Architect at Digg in San Francisco. His work on the Web spans more than a decade and includes co-authoring two books on Web standards and tenures with the United States Navy, the University of Florida, the Web Standards Project Educational Task Force, and PayPal. While leading a standards-based rebuild of the University of Florida Web presence, he started an extensive user research program including tests throughout Florida and taught user-centered design in UF's Digital Worlds Institute. Trammell now leads user research at Digg. Trammell enjoys live music, photography, and burritos.


Peter Merholz
Peter Merholz is a founding partner, board member, and president of Adaptive Path. For more than seven years, Peter has been instrumental in developing Adaptive Path's ability to provide world-class consulting, training, and public events


Jared M. Spool
If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. 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 User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.


Location
Hot Studio
585 Howard Street, First Floor
San Francisco 94105

Schedule
6:30 pm – Socializing with light refreshments and Hiring Salon (employers/recruiters, bring job descriptions to share)
7:00 pm – Presentation

This event is FREE and open to the public.