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TorCHI

Slings and Arrows: The Outrageous Fortunes of UX Management

  • 25 Sep 2013
  • 7:00 PM
  • Bahen Centre, 40 St. George Street, Room 1180 (main floor)
Cost: Free for students. If you like these presentations, join now for $20/year membership. 

Presenter: Morag Johnston, Director of User Experience Design at Rogers Communications

ABSTRACT
If you think the title refers to the salary, move on. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

UX management IS outrageous. You're challenged in new ways, and you work with the best people. I love it. I can't understand why many practitioners are reluctant to try their hand at management. "Time sheet approvals," they say as they shudder and walk away.

Between timesheets and changing corporate culture lie the small victories of day-to-day management. These form the foundation on which design leadership is built. Leading user-centered design thinking across an organization and changing corporate culture are the wildly exciting part of the role, and usually why you sign up for it. Nobody spends much time explaining day-to-day UX management, and how it contributes to the bigger picture.

That's this talk. I will share what I’ve learned in nearly 20 years of UX practice, most of which was spent in management, illustrated by both highlights and low lights.

BIO

Morag started creating Web pages backed by a CMS in 1995, and has been building and managing teams since well before that as a land use economist.

Her world weary and wise, often Zen, approach to the practice of UX design is the result of career experience both client side and agency side, as an independent contractor and as a five-years plus dedicated employee at both small and large organizations. Like many senior members of the community, she was an Information Architect and Internet Business Analyst well before there was formal training for it, living the adage “fake it ‘til you make it”.

She has delivered award winning and run-of-the-mill user experiences across the financial, online training, travel, publishing, broadcast industries for marketing, media and ecommerce sites and apps; working with Thomson Carswell Publishing, TD Wealth Management, AOL, RadioShack, Royal Bank, Nissan, and most recently Rogers Media brands and Rogers Communications digital products to name a few.

In every organization she has joined, she has created a central User Experience team for the organization, sometimes bringing together professionals already on staff and sometimes starting from scratch. She lives to bring together diverse individuals to create outstanding results.
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