via Julie Lowe of the Austin UPA:

The Austin Chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) is looking to put together a panel discussion on user research technologies.  We’re looking for 3-4 panelists to speak on the topic.  Each panelist would provide a 5-10 minute presentation on technologies (think Balsamiq, Morae, GoToMeeting, etc.) in user research and the impact they had on the findings, with the clients, and with the designers.  The rest of the time would be set aside for questions, answers and discussion.

Please email AustinUPA@gmail.com by Wednesday March 17^th if you’re interested, and if not, please feel free to forward this on if you know of someone else who might be interested.  We’re looking at conducting the panel on April 6th .

Thanks!

Julie Lowe

Austin UPA President

Two design positions open:

Senior User Experience Designer

Senior User Experience Designers generally work on software applications end-to-end, starting with user-centered design research, client goals, and product expert recommendations to develop initial requirements in conjunction with Product Managers, and then working with Engineering to take the application through paper prototyping, interaction modeling, low-fi and hi-fi mockups, user-testing of in-progress application development, and final usability and post-release user testing, all within an agile software development framework.

You should be passionate about customer satisfaction and customer success.

Apply online

Product Designer

Common Ground | Austin, TX

Overview of Product Designer Role:
The Product Designer plays a critical role in the development of new Common Ground products. Working hand-in-hand with Product Management the Product Designer will be responsible for defining the overall user experience (user interface and interactions) and developing detailed user stories describing the expected product capabilities. The UI design and associated user stories will then serve as the primary product requirements. With the initial requirements completed the Product Designer will work interactively with the engineering team in the production and delivery of the new functionality including direct assistance with the implementation of the user interface as needed.

Apply online

How do you communicate with stakeholders?  What about developers/implementers? What do you say, and what do you not say?  How do you create buy-in and get others to share your vision and get excited about it?

AustinUX and Austin UPA are hosting a panel discussion on collaboration & communication techniques that work.  Come and hear our panelists share their experiences, and come and share your own.

Tuesday, October 6th, 6:30 - 8:30, at Convio HQ in the Domain.    This is a free event, but space is limited.  Please RSVP online:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/434397294

6:30 - 7:00:  Arrival and networking

7:00 - 8:30: Panel and open discussion

PANELISTS:

Edward Garana is the User Experience and Design Director of Hoover’s Online.  He leads a whip-smart design team and is responsible for the overall visual design and user experience of the Hoover’s site.

Jon Kolko is Associate Creative Director at frog design, and is the Editor-in-Chief of interactions magazine.  Besides working with entities that don’t believe in capital letters, Jon sits on the Board of Directors of IxDA, and is author of Thoughts on Interaction Design.

Paul Sherman is founder and principal consultant at ShermanUX.  He is a contributor to and editor of Usability Success Stories: How Organizations Improve by Making Easier-to-Use Software and Web Sites, and writes a regular column for the online user experience magazine UXmatters (UXmatters.com).

Robin Silberling has focused on user experience design for web applications and web sites for over a decade.  She has been on the forefront of interface design, working for both Apple and Netscape in the 1980s and 90s.  In this millennium, Robin currently serves as a Senior User Experience Designer at Open Text/Vignette software.