alumni

Four UX industry leaders came to SI tonight to talk about 'What makes an effective UX professional;' the event was put on by Michigan UPA (MUPA), the Michigan/Ohio chapter of CHI (MOCHI), the Student Organization for Computer-Human Interaction at the School of Information (SOCHI), and the School of Information Career Development Office. Each panelist gave an introduction and some tips, and then the panelists took questions from the audience. Following are some liveblogged notes from each panelist's individual talk as well as a summary of the panel discussion.

This week Lena Mamykina a PhD candidate at the Human Centered Computing program of the Georgia Institute of Technology spoke about her work creating ubiquitous computing applications for diabetes management. While most research on healthcare monitoring focuses solely on data capture, Mamykina's applications allow individuals to reflect on the data and learn from their experiences, increasing the patient's feelings of self-efficacy.

Alum Noor Ali-Hasan competed in the Student Design Competition several years ago as part of the first SI team to ever to go to CHI. After her experience she wrote up a blog post with some advice for future teams:

Source: Flickr

This week Michigan Usability Professionals’ Association and the University of Michigan student chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society hosted an event at the Veterans Administration National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS). There were many SI alums on hand including Michael Beasley, MIUPA President and User Experiologist at Pure Visibility, and the night's main speaker Linda Williams from NCPS.

This Friday, SI Career Services hosted a "Speed Networking" event for SI students and alumni. The goal of this event was to gather career information from professionals in the field, such as what skills are necessary for their jobs, and what they look for in potential hires. After attending this event, I can say I came away with a lot of knowledge, and even some interesting, unexpected advice.