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Nicole S. Robbins is a User Experience Designer for IBM WebSphere. "I'm currently working on IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory. With all projects, I strive to simplify the user experience and consider the user, then the technology. I joined team IBM to rally around our common initiative and meet more designers in the field."

David Kovach is a Senior User Experience Designer at IBM. "I am a user experience multidisciplinarian currently working in the IBM developerWorks organization. My background is in the enterprise software arena having been raised in the wonderful world of SAP. Much of my formal experience was in Silicon Valley - a hotbed for UE, UCD, UI, HF, Ux, HCI, and home to the 13 acronyms that were created in the last 2 minutes. I work hard to shed personal views, challenge executive beliefs and take a strong stand everyday for what users want and need. Currently, I am working on a 14 part mini-series called, "UE Blog", which will hit www.ibm.com/developerworks in the coming weeks."

Lisa M. Salcedo Eichorn works in the IBM Software Group, WPLC for the Lotus Product Design. "Working with a multidisciplinary team, I strive to create software products and information deliverables that are simple, useful and effective. Prior to joining the Lotus team, I designed IBM products for the Networking, Retail Store Solutions and Pervasive Computing divisions."

Ryan L. Urquhart is part of the IBM Software Group, Tivoli and is a Tivoli User Experience Engineer. "I am a User Xperience Engineer working with the ITCAM portfolio of products. I have a background in Industrial & Systems Engineering, with a concentration in Human Factors Engineering. In my current position, I use Copper's Outside-In-Design methodology to make the product more consumable for our customers. Additionally, I assist with mentoring other product families inside Tivoli. I decided to join this team of professionals to learn what others are doing to incorporate usability into their process, meet new people with similar backgrounds, and bring home the GOLD for IBM :-)."

How did you get involved in user experience design?
I went to college for Industrial Design and Graphic design. In the curriculum at NC State University's College of Design, I gained a lot of exposure to Human Factors. Designing with specific people and needs in mind really interested me and I chose to explore this further when choosing my career after college.

What's your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
I am an interaction designer - the problem solving inherent in this role is definitely my favorite part of user experience design. I would say that I am most happy when there is also a graphical element involved.

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a user experience designer?
Being a User Experience Designer is a challenge in itself - you see allllllll the things around you that could be better and deliberate on how you could fix them, given the opportunity.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
Palscommunity.com was a really rewarding project. I liked that it had a philanthropic goal - empowering patient advocates. Additionally, it was a "from scratch" website and was rewarding to see the process work from start to finish.

What's one of your favorite designs (of any kind)?
I love gmail!

What do you do when you're not dreaming about how to improve all of the world's broken products?
I have an amazing dog named Able who runs the remainder of my life. I am an avid painter, enjoy travelling, and have recently taken up cycling.

How did you get involved in user experience design?
Working collaboratively with our multifunctional UCD team members here at GSK

What's your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
Specialties and favorite parts - Contextual Inquiry, Usability Testing, Personas and Scenarios, High-level Navigation Design

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a user experience designer?
Managing shortened timelines and shifting goals / strategies by clients.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
Current project - high interest with so many different services - redesigning Brand site through interviews, cardsorts, usability testing, IA design and iterative design services.

What's one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
Favorite? In terms of functional design that's usable - Southwest.com (sooo easy to book a flight) Least Favorite? Automated check-out kiosks at grocery stores - argghh - still a bit of user research left to do on those.

What do you do when you're not dreaming about how to improve all of the world's broken products? Spending time w/ family & friends, traveling, swimming in the ocean, dancing, cooking, yoga, walking, reading

How did you get involved in user experience design?
Mainly through my internship here at GSK.

What's your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
I'm still learning but currently, my specialty is creating the visual design for web pages and applications.

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a user experience designer?
Finding the best compromise between the client's goals, ease of use, and what looks good.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
The project I'm most proud of so far is a computer mouse design that adjusts to accommodate a range of hand sizes. It also encourages the user's wrist and forearm to be in a neutral posture.

What's one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
favorite design: the OXO Good Grips kitchen tools line.
least favorite: Hummers - They may be well designed, but they're not meant for the road. They're overkill.

What do you do when you're not dreaming about how to improve all of the world's broken products?
When I'm not at school or work, I'm painting, playing guitar, spending time with friends, or reading.

How did you get involved in user experience design?
I was working as a trainer / tech writer for an over-engineered (unnecessarily so) application. The team brought in a Usability expert who not only suggested a larger study, but also suggested our team learn about Usability. I became one of the first members of our team to start using the techniques (with the guidance of a great mentor, and the fact that I had spent many years evaluating software for schools.)

What's your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
My specialty is research and analysis. However, I like doing many aspects of the job, including some design. My favorite part is the users expressing their appreciation of being asked for input. It makes the job seem worthwhile.

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a user experience designer?
As I am sure all in the field have - balancing user needs against business needs.

What is one product that has been your crowning achievement and why?
Can't say. It's top secret and I'd have to eliminate you if I told. :-)

What's one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
Knitting needles - how simple can it get. (see below). Least favorite - wow that could be a long list - I especially hate doors that have lack of affordance so I look like a dork trying to push a door that should be pulled.

What do you do when you're not dreaming about how to improve all of the world's broken products?
Knitting - lots and lots of knitting, and I read voraciously.

How did you get involved in user experience design?
Was a software trainer for many years & Tech Writer then was UAT (User Acceptance Testing) Analyst which was somewhat similar to this field- easy transition.

What's your speciality and is that your favorite part of user experience design?
User research- but I enjoy working with wireframes and mockups.

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a user experience designer?
Analyzing data and applying it to a new design.

What do you do when you're not dreaming about how to improve all of the world's broken products?

How did you become interested in user experience design?My family encouraged artistic and intellectual expression. Though my brother's the certified artist in the family, I always enjoyed thecreativity involved--even if I never have time for it. Web site design gave me the opportunity to apply structure to creativity through HTML and later CSS. There's so much opportunity for self-expression, as well as rigorous analytical skills, I was hooked. What’s your favorite aspect of user experience design?That's easy. When someone tells me that my work is "cool" I know I've done a good job, because they're no longer thinking about the drudgery of the task they're working on but they've been immered in the whole user experience. What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?I don't tend to have favorites because I see interesting designs every day (digg,baby!). Unfortunately, it's all too easy to make a bad user interface, so I try not to keep those designs in my mind for very long either. Plus, if you get too attached or repulsed by one thing, you automatically limit your own creativity. What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?Who has time for anything but dreaming these days? There's a lot of work out there and I try to keep myself busy--constant improvement. That said, the occasional night out, trip to the gym, or nature walk can be energizing.

Graeme Boddy, Vice President of Information Services and Business Applications at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina

Graeme was born in Nelson in Lancashire, England. He and his family spent most of their life traveling the world with his father who was in the R.A.F. After traveling through Europe, Graeme took a temporary job as a Computer Operator in 1978 to build funds to attend college. He quickly found himself in the computer boom of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and after programming in COBOL & RPG on large number of Computer Systems found himself in management.

Graeme has lead teams in many countries, with different language and cultures. He is committed to building diverse teams and providing an environment of growth.

Having built many systems as a programmer, analyst and designer, and seeing the less than stellar impact that poorly designed systems have had upon the poor users upon which they were foisted, Graeme has a new found respect for usability and its practitioners.

How did you become interested in user experience design?I began my career as an anthropologist studying material culture. I was particularly interested in how object design manipulated human behavior and how to interpret the messages people send to each other through their ownership of objects and related designs. When I started investigating how these concepts applied to technology and electronic environments, I discovered user experience design. What’s your favorite aspect of user experience design?Discovering how users relate to objects and electronic spaces in terms of understanding the layers of needs and impetus behind object use. What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?Any object perfectly balanced between aesthetically driven design, and functionality. When I find such objects, I tend to buy them for inspiration. Once, I saw a thermos at a local grocer that was so beautifully designed I simply had to touch it. Once in my hands, I noticed it had some ingenious features. I had no interest in using a thermos until I encountered that design. I want my designs to compel other people in the same way. Least favorite: Insert name of website you despise the most here >[_____]. What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?I'm a long-distance runner. I use the proverbial "runner's high" as a creative space. Some of my best creative ideas were birthed during 6-10 mile brainstorms.

We have a great panel of judges for this year's interactionary! Register to attend, today!

• Virginia Hill of IBM
• Shimon Shmueli of Touch360
• Ross Teague of Insight Product Development

Virginia Hill is an IBM interaction designer, committed to the use of a contextual inquiry approach to understand software users, their needs and behaviors, and to form the basis for user models whose goals drive the design of products.

Shimon Shmueli is co-founder of Touch360, an RTP-based strategic innovation and product design firm. His expertise is in new product development and design, innovation, and marketing. Before founding Touch360, Shimon was with IBM, where he held leadership positions in marketing, division-level business strategies, and new product development and design. Shimon was a co-founder and CTO at KeyNetica, a company that pioneered the use of the USB Flash Drive as a mobile platform. Shimon holds an MSEE/CS degree from Polytechnic University; and an MBA from Wake Forest University. Shimon has been a speaker and mentor in various forums, including Johns Hopkins University, Virginia Tech, MIT Sloan, and George Mason University, where he was an adjunct marketing professor.

Ross C. Teague Ph.D., is the Director of Research at Insight. Ross' role is to create the most useful and powerful methods for collecting product requirements from people based on their abilities, goals, and environments, and to provide the understanding and opportunity areas needed for Insight's innovation and design process. He has been conducting user research and interface evaluations for the past 15 years using methods "stolen" from psychology, marketing, advertising, sociology, and anthropology. He's currently focusing on definining the experiences consumers are interested in having with products so his team can "design for experiences." He received his Ph.D. in Human Factors and Applied Cognition from George Mason University.