User Experience Thursday

Your hometown UX conference

Designed For User Experience Pros

Led by UIE's own Jared Spool, UX Thursday Chicago consisted of case study style presentations from local superstars and keynotes from leading UX experts. Based on the success of that January 2013 event, we’ve got more on the way. Stay tuned for details on the next event.

Interested in bringing UXT to your city? Vote now…

Chicago Keynote Speakers

Jared Spool kicked off the day sharing valuable research and insights on the effect mobile has with the user experience. Stephen Anderson will wrap the day with an entertaining and informative talk on how micro-moments make huge impacts with user experience.

Jared Spool

Jared Spool

CEO & Founding Principal
User Interface Engineering

Jared Spool took UX to a new level in 1988 when he launched UIE. And by, "to a new level," we mean "validated UX as a vital component of our work, then spent the next 25 years conducting research and writing tirelessly to keep validating it."

Jared often can be found onstage, where he captivates crowds with stunning data that reveal how UX can affect a company’s bottom line. He's helped thousands of companies worldwide to increase their profits, identify interaction failures, and integrate UX research and design into their product development cycles.

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Twitter: @jmspool

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Stephen Anderson

Stephen Anderson

Independent Consultant
PoetPainter, LLC

Stephen P. Anderson is a speaker and consultant based out of Dallas, TX. He offers product strategy and design expertise to help large companies create valuable customer experiences. He also spends unhealthy amounts of time thinking about design, psychology and leading intrapreneurial teams - topics he frequently speaks about at national and international events.

Stephen’s publications include the Mental Notes card deck, a tool to help businesses use psychology to design better experiences and his book Seductive Interaction Design where he explores this topic of psychology and design in more detail.

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Chicago Speakers

See bios and hear presentations by clicking on each speaker’s name. Jared Spool personally chooses and works closely with every presenter to make sure you’ll get access to great case studies and be on the road to becoming a leading UX designer!

Will Hacker

Will Hacker

UX Architect/Mobile Web
Cars.com

Will Hacker is a User Experience Architect at Cars.com, where he focuses on UX design and usability for the mobile web. His background includes user experience design for B2C and B2B ecommerce websites and financial services web products. Will also has written about mobile design topics for Smashing Magazine.

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Twitter: @willhacker
Website: willhacker.net

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Shay Howe

Shay Howe

Designer & UI Engineer
 

As a designer and user interface engineer, Shay Howe has a passion for solving problems while building creative and intuitive products. Currently working for Groupon, Shay specializes in user interface design and development. Additionally, Shay teaches a front-end design and development class at the Starter League and helps co-organize Refresh Chicago and UX Happy Hour.

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Twitter: @shayhowe

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Mark Meeker

Mark Meeker

Principal UI Engineer
Orbitz

Mark is Principal UI Engineer for Orbitz Worldwide. At Orbitz, he leads the development of the presentation layer for their family of travel websites around the globe. He focuses on building interactive and usable interfaces which follow web standards and are accessible. He is a client-side developer at heart, but spends a lot of his time finding better ways for front-end code and UX to play well in large web applications and the teams that build them.

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Twitter: @meeker

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Jeff Steffgen

Jeff Steffgen

UX & Design Director
SuperConnect

Jeff Steffgen is the User Experience & Design Director at SuperConnect, a Chicago-based software start-up. He has been involved with technology companies in the Chicagoland area for almost 15 years, and is currently focused on mobile user experience design for enterprise and cloud-based applications. Jeff has extensive experience in leading design strategies for various mobile platforms such as iOS, Android, and most recently, Windows Phone 8. His agile design methodologies use a balance of information architecture, usability research, and both interaction and visual design to create user-centered solutions that simply work.

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Twitter: @_jeffgen_

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Russ Unger

Russ Unger

Senior UX Leader
GE Capital

Russ Unger is a User Experience professional in the Chicago area and is a Senior UX Leader for GE Capital. He is co-author of the book “A Project Guide to UX Design” for Peachpit Press (Voices That Matter) and is co-authoring the book "Designing the Conversation" with Dan Willis and Brad Nunnally, due out in early 2013, as well as book on guerrilla research methods with Todd Zaki Warfel due out… well, sometime. Russ is also on the Advisory Board for the Department of Web Design and Development at Harrington College of Design.

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John Yesko

John Yesko

Director of UX
Walgreens

John Yesko is Director of User Experience at Walgreens E-Commerce in Chicago. He is responsible for the customer experience at the company’s websites (Walgreens.com, drugstore.com and Beauty.com), as well as in-store interfaces and mobile applications. He manages a 20-person User Experience group, leading information architecture/taxonomy, interaction design, and user research.

Prior to Walgreens, John worked in UX leadership positions at a number of consultancies, including Roundarch, Fry, and closerlook. He put his stamp on websites for many leading brands, such as Aon, Eddie Bauer, Motorola, and Sears.

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Twitter: @jyesko

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Future

Want UXT to come to your town?

UX Thursday is nothing without you! Tell us where you want to see us next.

Chicago Sponsors

Thanks to our sponsors for their generous support.

Walgreens logo

From mobile prescription refills, to ordering products online or for store pickup, to creating photo prints and creative products ­ the Walgreens.com omni-channel experience is about ultimate convenience for our customers.

cars.com logo

Visited by more than 11 million car shoppers each month, Cars.com is the leading destination for online car shoppers, offering credible and easy-to-understand information from consumers and experts to help buyers formulate opinions on what to buy, where to buy and how much to pay for a car.

gogo logo


Interested in sponsoring UX Thursday?
Please contact Lauren Cramer, 978.327.5561 or email events@uie.com

Hosts

Vitamin T

Vitamin T was created to meet the unique needs of ad agencies, mid-sized companies, and the digital creatives we all love. We personally meet our candidates and have proprietary hands-on assessments to provide carefully screened designers, developers and copywriters on a freelance and Talent Bridge basis.

User Interface Engineering

User Interface Engineering is a leading research, training, and consulting firm specializing in web site and product usability. Jared M. Spool founded the company in 1988 and has built UIE into the largest organization of its kind in the world. With our in-depth research findings based on user observation, we empower development teams to create usable web sites that increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.