Fifth Annual ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit - Breaking New Ground
27-29 February, 2004 - Austin, Texas

Managing Design Politics
Friday, Half Day Session

Lane Becker, Adaptive Path

Successful Web teams have figured out how to work within their organizations to demonstrate the value of usable design. In this workshop, you'll learn proven techniques that will:

• simplify internal politics
• increase the resources available to you
• help you deliver your best designs

Too many corporations believe that the benefits of user-centered development are intangible and far off. If your management team thinks that user-centered processes are "nice to have" but not critical, this session will teach you how to shift the corporate mindset. We'll offer practical tactics for:

• creating a user-centered organizational culture
• presenting user-focused customer experience as a vital, short-term process
• demonstrating its immediate value
• developing lasting support among stakeholders

Incorporating techniques developed in the field, this half-day tutorial will be include lecture, group exercises, and Q&A.

SPEAKER:

Lane Becker, Partner, Adaptive Path

Lane Becker is a founding partner of Adaptive Path, a premier user experience firm. Since 1995, Lane has guided companies, from startup stage to Fortune 1000, in designing Web sites that integrate user goals and business objectives. Recent clients include NPR, PBS, Intel, McGraw-Hill, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the United Nations.

Lane specializes in developing customized processes that incorporate requirements gathering, user research, information architecture, and interaction design to provide blueprints for measurably successful Web sites.

As a sought-after speaker, Lane has provided user experience training for numerous organizations, including the Bank of America, The Washington Post, Visa, and Cathay Pacific Airlines. He has presented at conferences such as O'Reilly's Open Source Conference, CMP Media's WEB2001, and South by Southwest (SXSW).

Before Adaptive Path, Lane was founder of an Austin-based startup that developed contextual intelligence technologies. He was also one of the primary architects of Deja.com's transition from a Usenet-based discussion and community site to its later incarnation as a consumer-generated product review site, since acquired by Half.com.

Lane pursued graduate studies in media theory and human/computer interaction at the University of Texas' Advanced Communications Technologies Laboratory (ACTLab).