The final track that I attended was given by Whitney Hess (twitter), and was by far one of the most inspiring and influtential tracks of the IA Summit. Her message was simple, to be a success and be part of a community you have to get involved. The following are my tweets from her session:
It is standard for a User Experience Designer to have a passion for the people, but occasionally they forget about the business that serves them. Christina Wodtke (twitter) gave the attendees of the IA Summit a reminder of why keeping the business in mind is important for any design project. The following are my tweets from her session:
If there was a best of show award given at the IA Summit, Fred Beecher’s (twitter) track on prototyping would be one of the nominees. Jonathan Knoll (twitter) summed it up best by stating ‘@fred_beecher’s prototyping session is turning into the most directly educational & practical I’ve seen in a long time.’ Below are my tweets from the presentation:
Personas are one of my favorite tools in the user experience tackle box. They can be used to drive the design of a project from start to finish, and also answer many pesky design problems. Adrienne Massanari (blog) pointed out another use for them at this years IA Summit in Memphis, political leverage. The following are my tweets from the session:
Cindy Chastain (twitter) started an amazing conversation with her presentation at this years IA Summit in Memphis. It is common practice for authors and playwrights to use themes when creating a new story. Cindy, through real world practice, has discovered that this same concept can be applied to designing a user experience. The following are my tweets from this session:
Mike Atherson gave an extremely touching and inspiring presentation about the Imagineers of Disney, and the amount of love that goes into their work. It was enlightening to hear the story on how much detail went into generating the experience that a visitor has when visiting one of Disney theme parks. The following are my tweets from the session:
Andrew Hilton (on twitter) gave us an amazing presentation about how to view context in the digital space. The presentation was entertaining and conveyed a lot of good information. The following are my tweets from the session.
Vegas is setting up a program that will watch everyone while you spend money, give a WOW factor, and transcribe what you are buying.
The opening keynote at this years IA Summit down in Memphis, TN was given by Micheal Welch. The following are my tweets from the session:
His research began from his work in Papua New Guinea. Studied for a full two years in the area.
He used a sleeping bag he called his ‘Little America’ to isolate himself from all the bugs.
That’s awesome, he wrestled around with his own right arm.