Usability Anonymous: A 12 Step Program for Better User Experiences

Building successful user experiences often requires an intervention. Understanding common user interface mistakes and examples of good design can help developers and make their applications more usable. We'll look at a set of principles and practices to help developers to build better, more engaging user experiences for software and web applications.

	Jay Goldman, President, Radiant Core, Inc. Jay has been providing a human side to technology for over ten years, as both a User Experience Specialist and a Visual Designer. His career has been focused on the interaction between people and technology, and his insights have helped to greatly improve products on mobile, web, and desktop platforms, including IBM DB2 and Mozilla Firefox. Jay co-founded Radiant Core and has led our Professional Services Team on a wide variety of engagements across industries including homebuilding, financial services, consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, travel, and software. He has been instrumental in the continued growth of the BarCamp community in Toronto and was one of the co-conductors of the very successful TransitCamp event held in February 2007 at the Gladstone Hotel. Radiant Core was founded on the belief that clients deserve a passionate ambassador for the success of their projects. In addition to sales and business development, Jay helps clients to understand their needs and to formulate technology and business strategies to take advantage of the evolving online world. His keen eye for design has helped clients to win awards, including Editor’s Choice awards from CNET and PC Magazine for the Mozilla Firefox 2 official theme. Jay has successfully led cross-disciplinary teams ranging from small technology startups to sizeable development groups working on DB2, one of the largest software projects in the world.
	David Crow, Senior User Experience Advisor, Microsoft Canada, Instigator, BarCampToronto and DemoCamp, Radiant Core, Inc. David Crow is a emerging technology community advocate. At Microsoft Canada, David is responsible for bringing together the design and technology communities. David has spent his career as a bridge between designers and developers. Although he is trained as an interaction designer, David has spent time working in both design and engineering organizations and understands that the creative tension between differing viewpoints is key in creating successful products and innovations. Prior to joining Microsoft Canada, David has designed, built and shipped products for early-stage technology companies including Radiant Core, the now defunct Ambient Vector, Reactivity, and Trilogy Software. David received a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and an Honours Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo. He has spent 10 years working with early-stage technology companies and larger, well-established organizations to bring design thinking and human-centered methodologies to product development. David has helped organize events and conferences including HFES, CHI 2000, BarCampToronto, and 14 DemoCamps. David has presented at conferences such as O'Reilly's Web2Expo, O'Reilly's FooCamp and ACM SIGCHI. David blogs at http://davidcrow.ca/ and http://blogs.msdn.com/canux/