IEEE Computer Society, GBC/ACM and BostonCHI

7:00 PM, Thursday, January 15, 2015

pizza and networking at 6:30

Constant Contact, Reservoir Place, Waltham, MA

[Admission is free, but you must register at http://jaredspooljan2015.eventbrite.com]

Is Design Metrically Opposed?

Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering

The world of metrics and analytics has always been at odds with how designers work. Design is a process where we finely tune our gut intuition to create a great user experience. Yet, sometimes, the measures we take indicate a different outcome. Which do we believe? Our gut or what the computers are collecting? jaredspool

In this presentation, Jared will explore the world of measures, metrics, and KPIs. He'll share the techniques behind Amazon and Netflix's success. He'll show how some practices, like the growth hacking approach to increasing Monthly Average Users (MAUs) have hurt the online experience of Instagram and LinkedIn. Plus, you'll see some alternatives to satisfaction and net promoter score that give insight into the design process and can help designers better tune their gut intuition.

Jared will explore:

What do easily-collected analytics like bounce rate and time-on-page actually tells us about our users experiences?
How do we construct true Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can predict the future patterns of users?
Why advanced techniques, like a money-left-on-the-table analysis and the CE11, show us how much more powerful metrics can be in design?
Jared M. Spool is the founder of User Interface Engineering and a co-founder of Center Centre.

If you've ever seen Jared speak about user experience design, you know that he's probably the most effective and knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. He's been working in the field of usability and experience design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers.

Jared spends his time working with the research teams at User Interface Engineering, 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.

With Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, he is starting a new school in Chattanooga, TN to create the next generation of industry-ready UX Designers. Earlier this year, the school, under the nickname of the Unicorn Institute, launched a Kickstarter project that successfully raised more that 600% of its initial goal.

He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the annual UI Conference and UX Immersion Conference, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time. He is author of the book, Web Usability: A Designer's Guide and co-author of Web Anatomy: Interaction Design Frameworks that Work. You can find his writing at uie.com and follow his adventures on the twitters at @jmspool.

Constant Contact is part of Reservoir Place, which is nominally on Tracer Lane and at 1601 Trapelo Rd. This is just west of exit 28 of Route 128. Free Parking is available in front of the silver building. After turning off Trapelo Road, follow Tracer Lane to the right. Enter the building's main entrance, walk straight down the hall, and take the elevator to the 3rd floor. You can see the Reservoir Place building on a map here. Constant Contact requires us to provide a list of attendees in advance, so if you want to come, you need to register at http://jaredspooljan2015.eventbrite.com, but admission is free.

We will be taking Jared to dinner at the Green Papaya after the talk at about 9pm.