Nov 2-7

Nov 16-21

Evening Events

After a day of intense learning, unwind with us at three stimulating events aimed at broadening your view of usability and your networking opportunities.

The reception and both plenary talks are free for all conference attendees, no matter which days you’re registered for. Just show your conference badge at the door.

Evening events run from 5:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. in Chicago and 17.15 - 18.45 in Amsterdam; the two keynotes are followed by Q&A sessions.

Monday Keynote: Usability for Evil

Chris Nodder, Nielsen Norman Group

As with nuclear fission, usability can be employed for either good or evil. For too long, we’ve devoted our attention to helping our users. But after years of selfless toil, we’ve yet to win respect from even a second-rate world power, let alone achieve our ultimate goal of total world domination. Absent an orbiting usability death ray, we must turn to tools that are more familiar.

It’s time for user experience practitioners to exit the shadows and claim our rightful place. Never before has total control over humanity been so easily achievable. Today’s interconnected operating systems and browsers make it laughably simple for us to subjugate users by reducing them to quivering, frustrated, malleable wrecks.

Join Chris Nodder in his secret lair as he plots to bow humankind to his iron will. Among other nefarious tricks, you’ll

• See how simple interface changes can result in hours of entertainment at the user’s expense
• Witness how starting small with careless designs can help you quickly progress to full-on evil interfaces
• Experience the thrill of raising user expectations only to dash them on the rocks of despair
• Learn how to manipulate behavior, extort money, and make people cry
• Practice the secret Usability4Evil sign

Tueday: Evening Networking Reception

At this informal reception, you’ll have an opportunity to meet and share insights with other user experience professionals.

Wednesday Keynote: Sociable Design

Donald A. Norman, Nielsen Norman Group

Sociable design extends the arena of design from function, aesthetics, and emotion to the world of social interaction. Other people are involved in many of our activities—even those we believe we’re doing in isolation. In this sense, all tasks are social; none are fully isolated from the needs or experiences of others.

Other people teach us how to do our jobs. They also teach us how to behave in novel situations, whether they directly instruct us, we observe them, or we observe “signifiers”—signals in the physical or social world that we can interpret meaningfully. Trails, for example, are important signifiers that allow us to follow others, whether walking through the woods, selecting which music to listen to, or deciding on a book to buy.

In this keynote, I’ll discuss important issues in sociable design, including the social aspects of designing services. A major component of service design, for example, is how to design the waiting experience to minimize the unpleasantness and maximize the good.

The work I’ll report on is part of my forthcoming book, tentatively titled Sociable Design.