Meet Alice Toth. She's one of our amazing and accomplished TechWeek trainers, and you should get to know her before you attend her TechWeek training session Sunday, July 24 from 11:000 a.m. to noon.
You can currently find Alice advocating for the user as a Director of Interaction Design at Arc Worldwide (an affiliate of Leo Burnett) in Chicago, and she's thrilled to be working with a team that values both experience design and strategy. As a UX lead, Alice is involved throughout the entire SDLC from concept to release, bringing user-centric design and concerns to all stages of a project.
On July 24 at 11:00 a.m., you're going to want to be in the Merchandise Mart Conference Room to take part in a thought-provoking discussion led by Alice.
You see, up until this century, information was generally associated with a place: clustered 'round the radio for FDR's fireside chats; at the kitchen table talking on the telephone; lounging in the living room watching The Ed Sullivan Show; surfing the web on your desktop at work. Well, now the phone's in my pocket and I'm listening to music on my iPod while downloading a movie on my iPad - - these events are not occurring within the context of their own unique place; rather, these events are occuring where I'm at. I am the place.
The boundaries of where and when information is received began to blur with the advent of the web and now have disappeared completely with wifi and mobile devices. I now expect information to be where I am, instead of my having to be there at the one place and the one time where information is delivered. I am the place. Finally, it's all about me.
So what does this mean? Well, we need to rethink how we design products. Rather than starting with the end, we need to start up front with delivery and act (what information is relevant to where the user is and what they're doing). It's a different way of thinking but an important distinction to understand in order to design products that are relevant in today's culture.
Remember, your TechWeek Conference & Expo pass includes this and the other training sessions at no additional cost.
