This summer I'm taking a course in Service Oriented Computing. As a cold opener to the course, my class attended "Big Design '09" at SMU. This was an all-day conference that had multiple tracks talking about UX as it relates to software. What UX was they never said, but 10 hours of context clues makes me think it stood for "User Experience"
I'll save my over-all impressions for the end. What follows will be my summaries and impressions of each seminar I attended.
The Keynote Plenary was given by Norm Cox on "The UX Landscape" (again, never said what UX was :P) Norm gave a very interesting autobiography on his work with early computers using bitmap displays with the operating system. His work involved creating what could be thought of as the first desktop with icons. One of his most profound comments was that IBM recognized early on that the user interface is the most valuable touch-point between a user (customer) and the product.
At one point he talked about contracting with PizzaHut to overhaul their back-office system that instructed employees on how to build a pizza. This was extended to ensuring that when an order is taken, it's taken correctly. Although he didn't touch on it, this new UI was so simple that PizzaHut used it when they developed a web-service for ordering a pizza on-line. I know because I did that very thing not 3 days before the show. I remember thinking at the time, "This is a great setup they have here!"
Take-away points from his speech:
1. Beware the limitations of titles.
2. Be a 'jack of many (ui) titles, master of some"
3. Elevate and think strategically
4. Take advantage of opportunities.
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