Interaction Design Association Leadership
Liz discovered her calling as an interaction designer in 1999 while obtaining her Master's degree. That year, she joined Cooper, where she consulted on IxD projects for complex software systems, consumer websites and office telephones, and also helped advance Cooper's methodology and practice. In 2002, Liz helped establish the Human Factors group at St. Jude Medical, a Fortune 100 company that develops implantable medical devices. At St. Jude, she led all facets of user experience design work throughout the product development process. Today, Liz is Chief Design Officer of Devise, an interaction design and development consultancy based in Portland, Oregon. In Portland, Liz also organizes the IxDA Local Group and is an active participant in CHIFOO (an ACM chapter). Most of the rest of Liz's time is spent with her daughter Evelyn, born in October 2006, or dreaming of her next autocross race.
Bill has over fifteen years experience as a writer, information architect, product manager and now senior interaction designer with Ziba Design in Portland, Oregon. With Ziba, he is fortunate to work on a variety of challenges, from handheld satellite radios and medical devices to community websites and interactive spaces, giving him a wide view of interaction design. Bill also writes about the variety and history of interaction design in everyday experiences on his blog, History of the Button, and is a frequent speaker at industry events. He is determined to stretch how people think about interaction design, from beyond the pure digital to any interaction between humans and the artifacts they create. After that, he plays the ukulele.
Senior Lecturer, Communication Design, RMIT University
Jeremy manages a program of research at ACID, the Australasian Cooperative Research Center for Interaction Design, researching IxD for remote presence and socially driven knowledge environments. As a faculty member at RMIT University's Communication Design program in Melbourne, he has over a decade of experience teaching IxD and supervising graduate students in research projects involving IxD and other related design fields.
Originally studying Architecture, Jeremy has also worked with film Directors, Artists, and mutinationals, adding IxD to projects such as online documentaries, installations, digital games, real-time performance environments, mobile UI, and medical products.
Jeremy is passionate about education, particularly interested in the role and impact IxD has in other fields of design. He is currently researching methods for facilitating collaboration and increasing learning between industry and education.
Janna manages a team of experience planners at Arc Worldwide in Chicago, designing multi-channel brand experiences. Prior to Arc, Janna designed consumer websites at Giant Step, teacher & student web-based services at McDougal Littell, and travel shopping & planning tools at Orbitz. Janna has taken special interest in how our profession is placed within organizations and in the tools used to arrive at engaging product experiences. To that end, Janna took the opportunity to meet more interaction designers by starting the Chicago chapter of IxDA and continues to serve as the resident squeaky wheel.
Founder and principal of Orbit Interaction, James has over 24 years of broad consulting experience in the area of Human Interface, Product, and Software development. His work has spanned a broad range of products, devices, systems, and software and has been part of numerous successful and award-winning products. He also has extensive experience developing non-PC interfaces, ranging from wearables, mobile handhelds, palmtops, gestural slates, webpads, and gyroscope-based remote controls in the fields of consumer, industrial, military, and medical devices and systems. He holds 13 utility patents in human interface system methodologies.
He's also served as Director of Design and User Experience at PalmSource, and Director of Human Interface and Industrial Design with PEMSTAR Pacific Consultants. His clients have included Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Apple, Thomson, Macromedia, Starsight Telecast (Gemstar), Polaroid, Kensington, Gyration, Acuson, Coherent, Pinnacle Systems, and Avica.
Greg is a member of SAP's Design Services Team, a group formed to advocate design led innovation within SAP and with SAP customers.
His previous work experience as a practitioner of IxD includes positions as Associate Director Interaction Design at Modem Media, in Norwalk, Connecticut and Senior Interaction Designer and Information Designer at Vizrt, designing real-time information systems on projects for the New York Stock Exchange and the Securities Industry Automation Corporation. Greg has taught graduate-level courses at the University of California Los Angeles, in the School of Arts and Architecture, and the Parsons School of Design, Department of Design and Technology. Additionally, Greg is a licensed architect interested in how the digital world inhabits and forms the physical.
Niklas has an MFA in industrial design and interaction design from Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden. Since 1998 Niklas has worked in the web industry and telecoms both with web, mobile and software interaction design as both contractor and in-house designer.
In June 2007 Niklas signed on for Ergonomidesign as senior interaction designer. There he will work with IxD on both the software and hardware of products. Updates to come.
In May 2006 Niklas started the Swedish IxDA Local Group in Stockholm organizing lectures and workshops. Counting June 2007 the community has grown to 200+ members in Sweden only. Niklas was also the initiator of the monthly IxD F2Fs in Stockholm called Thirdthursday.
