NYC Usability Professionals Association present Jared Spool, speaking on:
Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs

As children, we're told the world is a magical place. Babies are delivered by storks. The tooth fairy harvests retired teeth in exchange for currency. Bunnies deliver candies in brightly covered baskets on a spring holiday. The world's adults use magic to explain away the complexity of life.

In our work, confusing complexity is the natural result of an unchecked design and development process. Teams work hard, responding to customer requests through incremental improvement and feature enhancements, yet they often end up with a dismaying array of features that make users unhappy.

In this entertaining presentation, Jared will share some of his recent research into the craft of professional magic. He'll demonstrate the parallels between the world of magical illusions and the world of digital design, comparing the similarities between professional illusions and some of today's top design techniques.

In this presentation, you'll learn how:

• Illusions performed by professional magicians follow the same design principles as your computer's file system
• Designers can create specific mental models to eliminate perceived complexity
• Simple design tricks can make designs seem to be faster than they really are
• Whimsicality, attention, and functionality are essential elements to creating delightful experiences

You'll see examples of illusions built into a variety of designs, including those from Microsoft, Flickr, Netflix, YouTube, and Google. Jared will also, possibly at his own peril, reveal the secrets from several magical illusions to show you just how the tricks were created and the effects are realized, giving you the ammunition necessary to build illusions into your own designs.

Speakers: Jared Spool
Founding Principal, UIE - User Interface Engineering

Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Cost: See ticket prices at top of page (Pre-payment online required)
Time: Approx. 6:00 – 8:30 pm

Location: Avenue A | Razorfish, 1440 Broadway (Between 40th & 41st), New York, NY 10018
Dinner: Optional, post-event dinner

Please note that dinner is an optional, post-event social activity and is not included in the event fee. It will be the responsibility of each individual who chooses to attend the dinner to pay for their own food, drink and any other expenses that may be associated with the dinner.

Note: Due to the size of this event, we are unfortunately unable to offer discounted member pricing.

Registration closes at 4 PM Monday, September 15^th, 2008 (1 day before the event).

Refundable until noon, Thursday, September 18^th, 2008 (2nd day after the event) by sending a request to RSVP@nycupa.org .

Transferable on or before noon Monday, September 15^th, 2008 (1 day before the event) by sending a request to RSVP@nycupa.org. You must notify us, and get a confirmation, of this transfer or it will not be valid.

Our organization: You can learn more about our NYC organization or learn about our parent organization.

NO EMAIL RSVPs ACCEPTED FOR THIS EVENT

Members of our parent organization, the UPA (the Usability Professionals' Association), must join the NYC chapter to qualify for member rates. We encourage everyone to join our parent organization, though you do not need to do so to become a member of our chapter. You can learn more about our NYC organization or learn about our parent organization.

About the Speaker
If you’ve ever seen Jared Spool speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don’t know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers.

Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.
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Our Mission
The NYC chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association (NYC UPA) seeks to gather members of the marketing, design, technology and research communities who share a common vision: creating websites, applications, and projects that are compelling, intuitive and customer driven. By bringing together professionals from different industries and disciplines and sharing our collective experiences, the NYC UPA hopes to create a forum for learning and professional growth in the New York City metropolitan area.