A little more detail

Scott Thomas is constantly seeking the simplest answer to complex problems. Scott began his design pursuits studying architecture before bouncing to graphic design and web development.

Prior to moving to Chicago, where he set his sights on user-experience design, Scott called London's Shoreditch home. From products to websites, Scott works to simplify the experience of use.

In 2006, he and five other creative types began a design collective, lovingly known as The Post Family. The group is devoted to supporting “family” member’s design habits—from silkscreen to letterpress, from illustration to blogging—in an effort to "get back to the hand."

In 2007, Scott's career took a dramatic leap when he was invited to join the New Media team at Obama for America. The chance encounter led Scott to becoming the Design Director of the historic Obama Presidential campaign. He is currently writing a book that explains how an obscure senator rose to the highest office in the land and celebrity status with the aid of branding and design.

Scott plans to continue designing for social causes that might just someday change the world.

As the Director of Search Services for Ascentium, Marianne Sweeny is able to combine her passions for search and information architecture. A deep passion for technology, accompanied by a complete ineptitude at programming, brought her to information retrieval systems and search engine optimization. Prior to joining Ascentium, Marianne was a Web producer at Microsoft for over 7 years where she also founded the Microsoft Information Architects, a 300 member world-wide, cross-discipline community devoted to the discussion and promotion of information architecture for Microsoft online properties. Marianne is a frequent presenter at national conferences on search engine optimization and search configuration.

Jonathan Arnowitz is currently User experience Strategist for Stroomt Information Management, a design firm in the Netherlands. Jonathan was a Senior User Experience Architect at leading software companies such as Google, SAP and PeopleSoft. Jonathan has over 20 years experience in designing user experiences, and is also the co-author of the book, Effective Prototyping for Software Makers. Jonathan is also a volunteer for ACM/SIGCHI where among other things he was the co-founder of the DUX conference (Designing for User Experiences), former co-editor in chief of Interactions Magazine and most recently the Design Community co-chair for CHI2008.

Belén Barros Pena is an interaction designer at iQ Content. Her job is
about creating design solutions that meet both business and user
requirements.

She is particularly interested on prototyping techniques, and how they
can be applied to improve user research and to increase the number of
design iterations within projects.

Colin is a user experience designer at iQ Content. He has been
involved on a number of large information architecture redesigns, from
initial conception through testing and final project implementation.

Having had relatively little formal experience in the area of
Information Architecture, Colin used his interaction design background
to develop some innovative IA goal based testing techniques. These are
now used in all iQ Content IA projects, expanding the user testing
tool kit beyond the more traditional IA testing methods.

Prior to iQ, Colin was a business analyst for a dental software
company, designing health systems to support dental practitioners
during patient care.

Peter Boersma is senior interaction designer at Info.nl. Peter has a formal and continuously updated training in Human Computer Interaction that is combined with 12 years of experience with the planning, analysis, information architecture, functional design, UI design, and evaluation of (mostly online) interactive applications.
He also has several years of experience with project management, department management, and consulting each. Peter is an active member of local and international IA/UX/HCI networks and has co-organized conferences in the field.
Info.nl is one of the oldest internet agencies in the Netherlands, specialized in the creation of online services.

Filip Borloo has been active in the internet industry since the mid nineties.

During the dot com boom he was working for one of the earliest entrants in the content management market, Mediasurface. Filip was one of the first non-technical employees and was involved in all aspects of growing the business. As International Business Development Manager he was responsible for setting up offices in San Francisco, New York, Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm and Amsterdam for Mediasurface.In 2002 Filip returned to Belgium and worked as an Information Architect and Strategy Consultant for large government projects. He also helps start ups bringing products to the European markets.
Currently he is starting a new business, Contabay, bringing content from the net to the ofline world trough interactive digital posters.

Reinoud Bosman has been working as an IA since 1999 going from e-education to e-government to e-commerce. Projects he worked on include the UK online Tax Return while working at EzGov and applications for the mobile internet at his current employer MediaCatalyst. He discovered he was doing Information Architecture while working in Sydney where he heard of the term first and now tries to negotiate puzzled faces of family, friends and recruiters by helping to organise a conference on the topic. He holds a degree in Biology which only adds to the confusion.

Cennydd Bowles works as a user experience designer for Clearleft in Brighton, England. After an M.Sc. in Information Technology, he leapt into the mysterious world of user experience design seven years ago and hasn't shut up about it since.

He is an active mentor, an erstwhile manager and regularly writes and rants about user experience, design and technology. He blogs at Ineffable and his clients include Gumtree, JustGiving, UpMyStreet, Business Link and the WWF.

Adam Cox is a Web Analyst at User Intelligence, Amsterdam. Originally from the UK, with a background in Computing and Business Administration, Adam began his career in the Rail industry. After a few years as an IA for an agency in Belgium, he now works on applying web analytics to improve the User Experience of websites.

At User Intelligence he began exploring ways to combine and integrate methods together with Martijn Klompenhouwer. They found ways to leverage the power of quantitative Web Analytics data and qualitative User Research methods effectively. Combining methods provides more powerful and convincing results which can easily be presented in one single deliverable.

Sylvie is an Information Architect, she has been working at Duke, a Razorfish company, for 2 years. She is involved in European-scaled digital projects, taking care of the overall user experience according to a holistic approach and dealing with content strategy, user’s journeys, interaction as well as business issues. Sylvie gives also UCD courses at Sorbonne (Celsa) and Sciences Po Paris.

Margaret Hanley is the Head of Consultancy at Web Technology Group in the UK. She has worked as a User Experience lead and manager over the last eight years in companies ranging from Yellow Pages in Australia and Argus Associates in the US; to Information Architecture Team Leader and Executive Producer at the BBC in the UK and Head of User Experience of DNA, a division of Avenue A| Razorfish. Throughout her time as a manager she has managed teams as large as 50 and as small as three. Her credo is to learn from as many situations as possible especially from your mistakes.

Jason Hobbs lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He runs a user experience design agency and has been practising IA since 1997.

Jason has been published in various online and print publications (including boxesandarrows.com and the ASIST Bulletin), and has presented at three IA Summits (2006, 2007 and 2008) on the topic of designing for developing contexts. He has been an advisor to the Board of IA Institute for two terms, is a local ambassador for UXnet and created the SAUX Forum. Jason was awarded an IA Institute Progress Grants for research in IA in 2006/7.

Gregor Hochmuth studied computer science and design at Stanford. In 2006 returned to his home city Berlin, where he joined Hasso Plattner Ventures as chief analyst and helped startups bootstrap their user experience efforts. During this time, he founded the company zoo-m.com and launched a number of web applications, which continue grow internationally today. In 2008, Gregor returned to San Francisco and joined Google as a product manager. His current personal projects focus on photography and data visualization as digital art -- for contact information, see www.dotgrex.com.

Paul Kahn is managing director of Kahn+Associates, a company devoted to information architecture consulting services located in Paris, France. His previous activities in the United States included director of the Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) at Brown University, co-founder and president of Dynamic Diagrams, as well as holding management positions at Cadmus Communications and ingenta plc. He taught interactive design at Rhode Island School of Design from 1994-2001, and since moving to France has taught at Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts; École nationale supérieure des Télécommunications; Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; Institute HyperWerk, University of Applied Sciences, Northwestern Switzerland, Academy of Art and Design, Basel (Switzerland); and at Media Lab, University of Art and Design, Helsinki (Finland). Since 2005 he has been editor of the annual NEW Magazine, International Visual and Verbal Communication.

James Kalbach holds a degree in library and information science from Rutgers University, as well as a master’s in music theory and composition. He is currently an Experience Consultant with LexisNexis and previously served as head of information architecture with Razorfish Germany. James is an active speaker and author on information architecture and usability in Germany, where he has cofounded an IA community.

James is the author of Designing Web Navigation (O'Reilly, 2007) and he blogs at www.experiencinginformation.com.

Martijn Klompenhouwer studied Cognitive Psychology and works for User Intelligence since 2002. As a User Experience Consultant Martijn is responsible for a broad range of activities. Besides designing and improving interfaces, he is primarily involved in the evaluation of websites and applications (e.g. User testing and Expert reviews).

At User Intelligence he began exploring ways to combine and integrate methods together with Adam Cox. They found ways to leverage the power of quantitative Web Analytics data and qualitative User Research methods effectively. Combining methods provides more powerful and convincing results which can easily be presented in one single deliverable.

Joe Lamantia has used design to improve business and technology since 1996.

Joe has fourteen years of success in user experience, business strategy, process and service design, and technology management, with clients of all sizes, in a wide variety of industries, and across a broad range of needs.

In addition to digital experiences of all types, Joe has built successful business models, customer insight programs, user research tools, strategy and design methodologies, project and execution teams, analysis and design frameworks, and thought leadership practices within organizations of all shapes and sizes.

A recognized thought leader in the international experience design community, he has also been an entrepreneur, consultant, architect, team leader, evangelist, manager, author, and teacher.

With a background in Indian philosophy, Cristina has been a qualified librarian in Rome for several years. Currently she is information architect and content manager at Invitalia a government agency for inward investment and enterprise development.

She believes deeply in the value of user-centred design and uses a multichannel approaches on her projects. She loves technology but she thinks that direct communication, pencil, sticky notes and much coloured paper help to find new solutions.

Cristina is an experienced speaker who has taught full-day workshops and presented sessions at national and international conferences, on the topics of information architecture, content management and web marketing.
She spends her remaining spare time writing articles and studies, cooking and playing with her two little princesses.

Sabrina Mach is a Partner at FeraLabs, a firm specializing in remote usability testing, where she helped build Webnographer, an online tool for remote usability testing.

Her research interests are on the impact of technology on culture, and how culture impacts the use of new products and ideas.

She has a degree in Human-Computer Interaction, as well as Photography and Cultural Studies, bringing together her love for technology, art, and philosophy.

Sabrina has over 5 years experience in market research, design and Human-Computer Interaction.

Julia Moisand is an information and interaction designer. She studied literature and graduated from the ESAD Strasbourg in information design. Her professional practice is guided by a people-centered approach to communication and visual representation. She worked during four years as an independent designer for a wide range of communication agencies, working in publishing, newspapers and magazines and interactive media.

Søren Muus began his career in advertising in the late eighties. Following some years as Art Director in various agencies, including Ted Bates, Søren became a graphic designer working with visual identity and communication.

In the mid-nineties Søren went online, specializing in the making of visual design for user interfaces and the strategy behind. And from the pioneering days and onwards, he worked for leading companies in Denmark.

In the summer 2006, Søren co-founded FatDUX along with Thomas Snitker and old friend Eric Reiss, now working entirely with user experience design, development and deployment, for clients in Europe and North-America.

After studying Information Technology, Jacco started work as a front-end programmer. He discovered a strong preference for design and working with users and moved towards more User Experience-based roles. In 2002 he landed his first real UX job.

In 2005, Jacco joined User Intelligence – a User Experience consultancy company in Amsterdam, NL. There he works as a senior UX consultant for a broad range of clients. He works on online transactional applications, government & company websites and commercial campaign websites – creating anything from highlevel concepts to detailed wireframes and interactive prototypes.

Jacco presented at several IA Summits and EuroIA conferences and created swipr.

James Page is Partner at FeraLabs, a firm specializing in remote usability testing, where he helped to built Webnographer, an online tool for remote user research.

He is passionate about making software less frustrating. He believes that we need more ways to discover how people behave using computers, and then communicate that back to the designers and programmers. This is why he built Webnographer-- to help the designers and programmers understand how people use the software that they have created.

Before co-founding FeraLabs, James had gained more than 20 years of experience in IT. He started of as a programmer, but soon realised that, to see what he has created was becoming a reality, he would have to be an entrepreneur as well. James has been involved in a number of start ups, including Eidos (who went on to launch Tomb Raider), and Deckchair.com with Bob Geldof.

After studying Psychology and Language in the UK, Chris worked for seven years developing interactive systems and UX processes within the UK government. Chris always had an interest in communication and ‘what helped people understand each other’ and soon saw the need for effective and inspiring communication methods in all areas of the UX Design process.

Chris moved to Amsterdam in 2007 and started working as a Senior UX Consultant with User Intelligence, a User Experience firm based in Amsterdam. A significant part of Chris’s role continues to involve producing, documenting and communicating design solutions for a variety of online products and services.

Leisa is a London-based freelance User Experience Consultant who works with companies large and small to gather insight from users and apply findings to design. With a background in Information Architecture she eventually decided that being user centred was more than just thinking about users whilst designing, and now incorporates design research into almost every project for a diverse portfolio of clients ranging from large scale public sector to some of the UKs most recent startups.

Leisa is a regular conference speaker and blogs at Disambiguity.com and her regular soap box topics include Agile UX, Collaboration, Ambient Intimacy and Ambient Sociability, and Designing with Communities.

Eric Reiss has been actively involved in the creation of multimedia and web projects for over 30 years. Eric is Chairman of the EuroIA Summit, serves on advisory boards of both the Copenhagen Business School and Kent State University, is a professor of usability and design at IE Business School in Madrid, and is a former two-term president of the Information Architecture Insitute. But don’t hold any of this against him.

Following a long career as a senior copywriter for one of Europe’s leading business-to-business advertising agencies, he is now CEO of the FatDUX Group, a user-experience consultancy headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, with affiliates in Cracow, Hamburg, London, Los Angeles, and Zagreb.

Andrea Resmini is an information architect with FatDUX, Copenhagen.

An ICT professional since 1989, Andrea holds a MA in Architecture and Industrial Design, has been practicing information architecture since 1999, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Legal Informatics specializing in IA and UX for accessing large complex online historical and juridical collections.

Andrea is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Information Architecture Institute, chairs the Italian IA Summit, is a founding member of the European IA Network, coordinates REG-iA, the Research & Education Group in IA, and founded the Journal of Information Architecture.

Olga holds a Degree in Journalism; Master in Multimedia & Internet; and Graduate in Ergonomics. She works as a UX senior consultant at France Telecom in Spain, testing new products. She is an active member of the Cadius community, the main group of professional usability practitioners and information architect in Spain, organizing events and courses. Meanwhile she’s researching on her PhD. in Multimedia Engineering at the Polytechnics Univesity of Cataluña. You can follow her thoughts at itakora.com (HCI focused blog) and at oneguidelineaday.com (WCAG2 focused site).

Luca is a free lance Information Architect and assistant professor in Informatics for Humanistic Science (i.e. Information Architecture and Human Computer Interaction) at University for Foreigners of Perugia (Università per Stranieri di Perugia), in Italy. Luca is co-author of the book "Organizing Knowledge: From Lybraries to Information Architecture for the Web" (Milan, 2006) and author of the book "Information Architecture: From Everyday things to the Web" (Milan, 2007). He supports a holistic approach to IA, and the application of IA to everyday environments. His website is http://lucarosati.it.

Stanislaw is a director of Main Library at Pedagogical University of Cracow, as well as a university lecturer and researcher in information science. He received his PhD in library and information science in 2004. Stanislaw is also a freelance information architect and web designer. He teaches students and librarians how to design usable web pages, information searching strategies and information architectures. Stanislaw is currently researching the usability of libraries, OPAC’s web pages, and users’ search strategy. He also initiated the first postgraduate study programme in information architecture in Poland.

Iskander Smit works as strategy director at Info.nl, one of the oldest internet agencies in the Netherlands. Info.nl is specialized in the creation and realization of online services. Inspired on our models Virtual Warmth and Exploding Website.
Iskander is educated as Industrial Design Engineer and works since 1994 in digital media as interaction designer, concept developer and strategist.
Enthusiastic about the added value of interactive media and the social power of connected media he advises clients how to transform their services into online services. Iskander is one of the founding fathers of the vision models of Info.nl.

Reynhardt Uys is currently the manager of Usability Engineering for the Retail Banking division of Standard Bank South Africa. He is responsible for ensuring the usability and user experience of a large variety of self-service and human intermediated bank channels, servicing around 9 million customers in South Africa.

Reynhardt started his usability-engineering career in 2002 at Aqua Online, a leading South African usability firm. He has managed Customer Experience for Standard Bank Self-Service Channels and is currently leading a usability institutionalisation effort in Retail Banking.