Interaction 11

Plan your IxDA trip with our detailed schedule

We’re very pleased to unveil the detailed, day-by-day schedule of speakers and events for Interaction11, so you have a better idea of how to plan your time in Boulder. We’ve taken a new approach to the program for 2011, with limited parallel tracks and specially-designed groupings of different speakers (lightning and keynote) followed by a Q&A “talkback” that will let you engage with the speakers in lively discussion about what’s been presented during each session.

Be sure to leave your schedule open for some great times on Friday afternoon, when we leave the traditional conference presentation format to Dine Around Boulder for lunch followed by interactive physical activities that will bring you into the heart of this great city. Of course, we also have some out-of-this-world evening events planned for you courtesy of sponsors EffectiveUI and Microsoft.

As you’re finalizing your plans, don’t forget our optional pre-conference workshops on Wednesday; there are still some spots left for some amazing learning opportunities like Winning the Work with Jennifer Bove — a way to learn how to close financial deals and advance your consultancy.

View all of our great programming here. We look forward to seeing you in Boulder!

Follow Interaction11 speakers and sponsors on Twitter

For those of you who like to do your homework, we’ve created some Twitter lists of our Interaction11 keynote speakers, workshop organizers, lightning round presenters, and sponsors (where available).

Go forth and follow:
Keynote speakers
Lightning session presenters
Workshop organizers
Sponsors
And an aggregate list of all the above

I11 workshopper Kristian Simsarian on “Design consultantship”

Check out this interview of Interaction11 workshop organizer Kristian Simsarian by our media partner Johnny Holland.

In it, Kristian talks about his workshop, Design consultantship: The art of hearing and being heard, and changes he’s seen in the role of design consultant based on his ten year tenure with IDEO.

One of the key skills we’ll focus on will be setting expectations. The other day, I was talking to a project lead and he said, “I don’t know if I like this job because all I do is fight fires.” During our discussion, I said “Actually the secret is to this job is to put out fires before they start or even better, remove the fuel.” A lot of people who encounter these situations realize that the issues that arise are often trace back to how expectations were set.

If you’ve registered for Interaction11, but you haven’t signed up for a workshop yet, it’s time to get on it. The selection of workshops covers a broad array of design topics and offer you a chance at deeper learning on a specific aspect of design from thought leaders in the field. But seats are going fast…

Check out the full lineup to find the right workshop for you.

1. Log in to your registration to add morning and/or afternoon workshops. (If you can’t find your login info — which was part of your registration confirmation — please email ixda@gomeeting.com.)
2. Complete payment and save your confirmation screen.

Questions? Email us. See you in Boulder!

Workshops, get yer workshops here!

Holy smoke! Interaction11 has sold out already. Here’s a quick heads-up to all of you who are registered for the conference: have you gotten your workshops yet? If you’ve been considering it (or even if you haven’t) now is the time! The remaining seats will go fast.

As you may know, workshops are a great opportunity to learn more about a specific aspect of interaction design from recognized leaders in the field, and in a small-group classroom setting. Here are just a few:

• Indi Young, author of Mental Models (Rosenfeld Media), will present a generative approach to conducting interviews in Non-Directive, Qualitative, Generative Interviewing Style. Participants will practice and hone their skills in the workshop setting.
• Senior Nokia researcher Rachel Hinman will share techniques, design exercises, prototyping methods and more in her workshop, Mobile UX Essentials, where participants will be equipped to begin designing mobile experiences with confidence.
• Mike Kruzeniski, Creative Director for Windows Phone, will explore challenges and opportunities faced by design teams tasked with regularly delivering innovation within an organization in Designing Advanced Design. As a participant, you will engage in hands-on exercises framed to help you consider how you would create or refine an advanced team in your workplace.

Check out the full lineup and get ‘em added! It’s simple:

1. Log in to your registration to add morning and/or afternoon workshops. (If you can’t find your login info — which was part of your registration confirmation — please email ixda@gomeeting.com.)

2. Complete payment and save your confirmation screen.

Questions? Email us. See you in Boulder!

Keynote Erik Hersman interviewed by Johnny Holland

Interaction11 media partner Johnny Holland posted an interview today with Ushahidi founder Erik Hersman, one of our conference keynote speakers. JH talked with Erik about his hopes and dreams for crowdsourcing, and the role interaction designers can play in fulfilling that dream. Erik also gave a brief preview of some of the topics he’ll address at Interaction11:

“I want to touch on some of the constraints and cultural difference in Africa that make designing and launching new services here so different than their counterparts in the rest of the world. It’ll be about how we see the world differently, making it hard for people with Western assumptions of what the internet and phones are to design for Africa.”

Read the full interview here: http://johnnyholland.org/2010/11/08/on-the-power-of-crowdsourcing-an-interview-with-erik-hersman

Interaction11 is full!

Thanks to the great response from the IxDA community, the conference is sold out! We’ll see you in Boulder; if you missed your chance to register for this great event, plan on registering early for IxDA 2012 – in Dublin, Ireland!

Interaction11 Kickoff Video Wins Gold

We recently learned that the Interaction11 kickoff video — created and donated by the dynamic duo at Cruz Dann Productions (plus a dedicated group of on- and off-screen volunteers) — has been recognized by the International Academy of Visual Arts with a Gold Award from the 2010 W3 Awards in the Branded Content Category: Promotional/Branding.

W3 Awards honor creative excellence on the web and recognize the professionals behind the work. The W3 is the first major web competition to be accessible to the biggest agencies, the smallest firms, and everyone in between. The W3 is judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals whose members include executives from organizations such as Conde Nast, Disney, HBO, MTV, Wired, Yahoo! and many others.

How great is it to have people in our community recognized for exemplifying IxDA mission values of individual initiative, contribution, and sharing? Congratulations all around!

Join us in Boulder!

Many of you are gearing up for Boulder in February, purchasing flight information and checking out hotels. I’m hoping to clarify some of the details about the conference here, to make your travel plans easier and to help you build a plan for getting the most out of interaction eleven.

Conference/ Our conference begins on Wednesday with pre-conference workshops. If you want to take advantage of these, you better hurry – attendance is limited. The main conference begins on Thursday, with keynotes, lightning sessions, and some great parties and surprises. Friday morning brings more keynotes and lightning sessions, and on Friday afternoon, all attendees will enjoy activities our and about in the city of Boulder. Saturday concludes our program with even more keynotes and lightning sessions, and then a great closing party from our lead sponsor Microsoft.

Food and Drink/ If you are budgeting for the conference, consider yourself in good hands. Included in your registration is an awesome lunch on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, heavy hors d’oeuvres on Thursday evening, an amazing dinner on Saturday, and we’ll make sure you have your fill of complimentary beer and wine throughout the conference.

Travel/ You’ll want to fly into Denver International Airport, and then we recommend taking the bus from the airport to Boulder. The ride will take you about 45 minutes. You can take a cab, but it’ll be really expensive ($87.50 one way); a rental car is a better option, especially if you share with a group ($40/day). We’ll shuttle you around Boulder to the various conference activities, so don’t worry about that one bit.

Hotel/ While there are a number of hotels in Boulder, we recommend booking a room at the official conference hotel, the St. Julien. To reserve your room and grab our special rate, call 877-303-0900 and when connected to Reservations, say you are with the Interaction Design Conference. You can also email reservationsmgr@stjulien.com and in the subject line put: Interaction Design Conference.

Weather/ The temperature in Boulder in February can be tricky – sometimes its 30F, while other seasons it gets as hot as 55F. We’re counting on some snow, but part of the fun is going to be responding to whatever mother nature brings our way.

We’ll have more details coming on November 1st, and we’ll have a detailed schedule coming soon after. In the meantime, if you haven’t already purchased your ticket to this great event, now’s a great time – it’s selling out fast!

Whoa – What a Program!

At long last, we’re announcing the full Interaction11 program — and what a lineup it is! Check out our full list of lightning sessions, workshops, and the first few of many special events we’ve got planned. Highlights include:

• Smart pre-conference workshops where you’ll learn from pros like Todd Zaki Warfel, Indi Young, Karen McGrane, and Mike Kruzeniski.
• Dozens of lightning sessions on topics ranging from ethics to complexity to cinematic influence. Hear from designers working at Disney, Cooper, NPR, Madpow, Cisco, Microsoft, and more.
• Seven keynotes arranged and solicited to provoke, challenge, and influence your world-view of design.
• Over 15 Friday afternoon activities designed to get you out of your seat and bring you closer to nature, your work, and each other. Hike the flatirons, go on a treasure hunt, learn to mix drinks, chill with some yoga, or go climb a rock.
• Lots of special events sponsored by our friendly partners — like Core77, UX Show and Tell, and UX Bookclub (with more yet to come) — to get you actively engaged.

Registration is open! Enjoy a discounted rate of $650 until November 1, when the price goes up. Hey, we’ve sold out three years in a row so don’t miss out on the most talked-about conference of 2011; bring your voice to the global IxD conversation in Boulder!

Announcing keynote Bill Verplank!

We are pleased and honored to announce interaction design pioneer Bill Verplank as our final invited keynote speaker. If you’re a new to the field, Bill is a human-factors engineer with an extraordinary career in design, research, and education. He’s been teaching and creating design-related curricula since he was a MIT graduate student. He lectures regularly in human factors, user-interface design and, most recently, “new music controllers” at Stanford. Between 1986-1992, while consulting with IDEO to bring graphical user-interfaces into the product design world, Bill began calling the work “interaction design” instead of “user-interface design”. Consider for a moment how our field has burgeoned since then, in such a short time. Wow!

Bill completes our stellar array of keynote speakers who, together with emerging voices from our community of practice, will engage Interaction11 attendees in state-of-the-world discussion. Full program details coming October 1!

Only six weeks left save your seat for $650…the price jumps November 1.