We’re (hopefully) making an appearance at SXSW Interactive 2011

Some of us in the User Experience Services group submitted presentation proposals to the popular SXSW Interactive 2011 conference. In addition to planning committee recommendations, they use crowd-sourcing to narrow down over 2300 proposals to about 500 conference presentations.

We’re putting the word out and urge you to vote for our proposals. We have some great presentations that we’d like to share with the community and with your help we can make this a reality. First register for the website. Then you can vote by then clicking on our individual proposals below and selecting the thumbs up icon. Voting ends on Friday, August 27, so vote today!

This year we’ve submitted the following proposals:

“Your mind is leaking! But, don’t be alarmed.” by Joel Eden - Cognitive science researchers working in the areas of “the extended mind” and “distributed cognition” are studying how many of the artifacts around us actually become part of the machinery of thought. The problem is these newer views on cognition are currently underrepresented in the practical methods that make up user-centered design. I’ll cover topics such as why many of the most useful and usable resources become invisible with respect to their contribution to the accomplishment of an activity, especially activities that would be called acts of intelligence, and what this means for the practice of user-centered design…including why we should switch to use-centered design.

“Retina Displays and User Experience: Eye-opening Facts” by Tobias Komischke - What can displays show and what can we actually see? There’s a lot of hype but also confusion about super high-res displays (e.g. iPhone 4) and their effect on UI design and the user experience. This presentation boils the topic down and shows how “eternal” UI design rules have changed.

“Contextual user interview tips for research novices” by Amy Quinn - Contextual user interviews are a key research tool that can help you gain valuable information about your product and users. If you have little familiarity with contextual user interviews, how can you adopt some of these techniques in your business? This workshop will provide guidance on how to effectively conduct this type of research and use findings to create innovative business solutions.

Thanks for voting and we all hope to see you at SXSW Interactive 2011!