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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.

A story in today's News & Observer profiled some of Motricity's recent user research. Congratulations to Rick Cecil, TriUPA president, and the rest of the Motricity UX team!newsobserver.com | Rest for an overworked digit Motricity looks for simpler ways for cell phone users to download content Motricity of Durham studied how people use their cell phones so that it could make the interaction easier. The goal: to get more people to spend more money.

How did you become interested in user experience design?
I have became increasingly interested in user experience design throughout my time at SILS. Evaluating websites and developing websites for client really puts you in the user's position and you learn just how important it is to design your system or your interface around the needs of the user.

What’s your favorite aspect of user experience design?
I enjoy analyzing people to figure out what their needs are versus what can realistically be done. Creating user-centered systems is like putting together a puzzle - all of the pieces have to fit.

What’s one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?
I really enjoy interfaces on iPods. It's effective and easy-to-use - it does exactly what you want it to do. I despise frames - they are the worst thing to ever happen to websites!

What do you do when you’re not dreaming about how to improve all of the world’s broken products?
When I'm not in school I do yoga, I run, and I read absolutely anything I can get my hands on. And of course, there's my Nintendo DS which provides hours of fun.

How did you become interested in user experience design?I became interested in being a user experience designer when I came to SILS and started learning about the different specialties of Information Science. I became particularly interested in User-Centered design processes and all the techniques and disciplines that fall under that. What's your favorite aspect of user experience design?Thinking about and mapping out the users' flow through their interaction/information space.What's one of your favorite designs (of any kind)? One of your least favorite?

• Delicious Library Application for MacOS X
• Backpack from 37signals
• TextMate text editor for the Mac
• OmniOutliner Application from OmniGroup

What do you do when you're not dreaming about how to improve all of the world's broken products?World Domination… oops I mean Peace.Actually, I'm probably analyzing the latest episodes of my favorite TV shows: LOST, Jericho, and Heros. That and hoping to get a new Mac everytime a new model comes out.

Making Life Easy is an initiative to "make some noise about things that are hard to use." You can:1) See what is frustrating other people
2) Rate these annoyances on a scale of Usability Pain (coming soon!)
3) Upload a photograph and describe what makes life needlessly difficult

Register for World Usability Day Announcing the 2006 World Usability Day celebration in the Triangle! Join UX professionals from around the Triangle area for an Interactionary (a live design competition), keynote speech, food, drink, and fun! RSVP today! When: November 14th, 2006 from 6PM to 9PM Where: GlaxoSmithKline's Ruvane Auditorium Keynote: Graeme Boddy, VP of Information Services Business Applications of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Interactionary Design Competition We held a student competition last year and it was a huge success! This year we're expanding the competition to include two professional teams competing against each other and two student teams. Plus, each team will have only 10 minutes (Last year it was 20!) to design and present their solution to the problem. Professional Competition: IBM vs. TBA IBM Team

• Nicole S. Robbins - User Experience Design, IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory
• David Kovach - Senior User Experience Designer, IBM developerWorks
• Lisa M. Salcedo Eichorn - IBM Software Group, WPLC - Lotus Product Design
• Ryan L. Urquhart - IBM Software Group, Tivoli, Tivoli User Experience Engineer

Student Competition: UNC vs. NC State UNC Team

• Brian Landau
• Christie McDaniel
• Noel Fiser
• Lisa Thursby

NC State Team TBA RSVP today!

The NEW Web: An Unconference When: Saturday, November 4, from 9 to 5 Where: Talley Student Center on the NC State Campus Cost: Free to attend What to bring: Laptops with wireless if you have them, lunch money, an open mind Who can attend: Everyone! STC Carolina and NC State STC Student Chapter are hosting our first ever unconference! The idea for this event is to share up-to-the-minute information about new web developments that are both easy and essential right now. We have scheduled sessions, but if there is something else you want to discuss then we can do that, too. The best part of any conference often takes place outside of the formal sessions; learning from and sharing with your peers is just as important and often more useful. That's the opportunity this unconference provides. - Abe Crystal