User Experience in Education

Somewhere along the path, the United States either lost sight of what was important in our communities–our future leaders, our children–or it focused too much on them and became hyper sensitive to their needs. We also began to follow the money by allowing our school system to be tied to a monetary system that, as we have now learned, was not sustainable.

In this paper I will describe my UX in Education project, why I started it, and share my findings so far. There are many questions that remain but I’ve made great progress in looking at Education from a User Experience perspective.

User Experience in Education Paper (PDF 704 KB)

Making The Case For Social Networks in Organizational Settings

Olga Howard presented on the topic of Making the Case for Social Networks in Organizational Settings at the IA Summit of 2009.

The broader question this paper asks is this.

If we agree that the value of an organization is its people, then we will also agree that the value of the organization is the sum of the knowledge of its people. If this is true, and your organization is operating in an email platform, your employees only have access to a small portion of that knowledge.

Read the paper to get the entire context (PDF 2.6 MB):

Audio will be available via podcast from Boxes and Arrows in the next couple of weeks. This just in…the Gremlins messed up the audio but we have another opportunity for audio at the IAS IxD Redux here in DC.

A great example of the benefit of Contextual Blueprints created by social platforms:

Yet more evidence to support my argument that people who use social networks at work don’t waste time.

Read the article: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090402/tc_nm/us_work_internet_tech_life

Here’s a different angle on the subject. In Economist.com they discuss the pitfalls of trying to create a collaborative workplace. I understand their point but what I’m talking about in my paper is meeting our peers through the context of their everyday experience. The kind of getting to know you that we currently experience in Twitter.

Getting Hired in Information Architecture

As part of my UX Network Local Ambassador duties I helped gather companies that employ Information Architecture professionals in the User Experience field to help define what a good resume might look like.

This report is informed by a panel and workshop that brought Information Architecture employers and those seeking to get hired in this field including Comcast, Eight Shapes, and Respironics (now part of Philips).

Download the UX Employers Report to read about the event and find a resumé template you can use. PDF Size 50 KB

You can find my subsequent article based on this report now published in My B&A Article on What UX employers want to see from IAs.