User-Centred Innovation & Design - Dr. Rachel Jones, Instrata

Synopsis
User-centred design: where it adds value and when you would engage this expertise in a development project.

User-centred designers have a skill set to carry out activities as varied as user interface design, user testing, user requirements specification, user research, concept creation, and user-centred innovation. On existing projects, a software engineer or business analyst is often asked to do some of these activities and muddle along as best they can.

In this talk, Rachel will discuss the type of development projects where user-centred design skills add value (and the type of projects where muddling along is fine) and indicate where and when user-centred skills are best engaged. User-centred designers also show new directions and spawn new projects in concept creation and user-centred innovation. Rachel will use case studies from projects with organisations such as Nokia, Skype, Microsoft and Oxfam, as well smaller organisations, to illustrate the various types of project where user-centred design expertise is used, the techniques employed and the process that is involved.

About Dr. Rachel Jones

Rachel has over 20-years experience working in user-centred design. Rachel founded Instrata with the purpose of bringing a people-centred approach to the innovation and design of technology to improve the user experience of systems and services and hence deliver greater value. Instrata is a leader in new service definition, novel concept creation, user research, and user-centred interactive solutions. Instrata has been conducting global projects for over eight years and has worked with clients such as BBC, BT, Microsoft, Nesta, Nokia, Orange, Oxfam, Reuters, Skype, Vodafone and Yahoo.

Prior to Instrata, Rachel was employed by two of the foremost pioneers of user-centred design, Xerox EuroPARC and Sapient. Rachel has a PhD in Human
Computer Interaction, publishes internationally and has authored 10 patents. Rachel is on the steering committee for the International Conference on
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry, she was Industrial Chair of the International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia in 2009, and co-technical chair for the British HCI conference in 2009.

Agenda:
18:30 - 19:00 Registration and Networking
19:00 - 20:30 Talk
20:30 - 21:00 Networking

Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Event free of charge if you add your name to the list of attendees on or before February 15th, £10 thereafter (payable by invoice).

A light buffet will be available from 18:30.

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Comment by Mark Dalgarno on February 22, 2010 at 10:11pm

I asked in the session about progress in Usability - coincidentally Jakob Neilsen covers this in his February Alerbox.