Stephanie Shuster (@stephshuster)

Director of Operations, WDW Magazine

Talk: A Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow: When UX Works Like Magic in Disney Parks

Bio: As Director of Operations for CTSA LLC, Stephanie oversees the international team behind DadsGuideToWDW.com, WDW Magazine, WDW Discount Club, and The Best of WDW, sits on the expert panel for Get Down to Disness and runs the It's A FanGirl World vlog.  Stephanie holds a combined honours BA in Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, and Communication Studies from McMaster University, and has performed marketing, communications, and operational roles at Theatre Aquarius, Innovation Factory, and Kitestring Creative Branding Studio.  She's also a co-founder of Startup Weekend Hamilton and a recipient of the Hamilton/Halton 40 Under Forty award.  Whether she's writing, researching, designing, or strategizing to help others plan, experience, and remember their perfect Disney vacations, her life is all Disney magic, all the time.

Janna Cameron (@JannaCameron)

Senior UX Designer at the Manulife RED Lab

Talk: Getting the details right

“The details are not the details; they make the product” - Eames.

People with disabilities can be more sensitive to inefficiencies and inconsistency in design. Refine your design details by involving these people in your process. In this talk, Janna will introduce several questions you should ask people with disabilities about your designs - to make your designs better for all.

Bio: While Janna has spoken across North America on the topic of accessible design, she is local to Kitchener-Waterloo. Janna works as a Senior UX Designer at the Manulife RED lab, located in the Communitech Hub. She is passionate about introducing others to how they might design more inclusively, and how inclusive design thinking can trigger innovation.

Abeiene Nejar (@its_abn)

UX Consultant @ Stories & Design Consulting

Talk: Reality goes beyond numbers

Understanding Human Data to Optimize Your Product/Service

Companies are obsessed with numbers! It’s the soul of most strategic planning to forecast markets and growth. But what happens when the numbers only tell you half the story and you’re left with more questions than answers? How can we have a better understanding on how to drive growth, improve sales, and expand our markets?

Abeiene will show us how quantitative data de-contextualizes human behavior and illustrate its effects on companies. She'll also talk about things that you can start doing today to start seeing the reality behind the numbers.

Bio: Abeiene is the founder of Stories and Design, a training and consulting company. She educates social enterprises and purpose-driven companies on how to increase funding and customer reach using compelling stories based on high-impact research.

Andrew Holden 

Weever Apps, CTO/CXO

Talk: Making products worth making

A short talk on Strategyn theory and "Jobs to be Done."

Adam Waselnuk (@AWaselnuk)

Front End Developer Lead at Shopify

Talk: Prioritizing UX work: a set of lenses

UX professionals are required to build elegant digital experiences out of an enormous set of possibilities. Whether you work at a startup or a large company, you will often find that you have to make tough decisions about where to spend your time at work. In this talk, we will explore a set of lenses we can use to frame the problem of prioritization. Each lens will help us evaluate whether we are working on the right things and provide us with strategies to aim in the right direction for ourselves and our users.

Bio: Adam blends his experience in UX design, full stack web development, and teaching, into a technical leadership role that is ideal for digital product teams. As a Front End Developer Lead at Shopify, he has learned to build teams and navigate the challenges of a company that is scaling fast. On the technical side, Adam specializes in UI development on the web with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. He is interested in software design, functional programming, and creating delightful interfaces. He believes that the user experience comes first.

Tom Creighton (@tomcreighton)

Director of Design at Wealthsimple

Talk: Why Design Matters

Why is investing in good design a smart business move, and how you can differentiate your offering through design? Design can act as a significant leg up over the commoditization of tech, but how can we actually do the work of differentiating?

Bio: Tom Creighton is the Director of Design at Wealthsimple, Canada’s largest and fastest growing online investment platform. He leads the product design team and focuses on creating consistent, thoughtful experiences to make investing accessible to everyone. Prior to joining Wealthsimple, Tom worked with some other well-known Canadian startups, launched new customer-facing rebrands and initiatives for some of Canada’s largest companies, and ran his own creative studio.

Edward John

Senior Project Manager, City of Hamilton

Talk: The role in which citizen experience can shape the process of building communities. The talk will consider the opportunities and challenges within the planning process of a citizen first engagement approach, and how this may be affected by changing technology and social media.

Bio: Edward is a graduate of Geography and English from the University of Southampton and has a Masters in Development Planning from the University of Kings College London, UK. Edward has worked as a City Planner in Australia,  London, UK and for the past 12 years within Hamilton. Throughout his career, Edward has maintained a passion for housing and particular affordable housing, having been part of the strategic team delivering Inclusionary Zoning within both the UK and Australia. Currently Edward is a member of the Economic Development Urban Renewal Team, focusing on the Downtown and Community Improvement Areas and general housing matters throughout Hamilton. 

Jennifer Juste (@JennieJuste)

Program Manager, Transportation Demand Management at City of Guelph

Talk: Taking to the streets: how UX of cyclists is transforming how we design urban streets

The problem with North American road design is that it assumes only people in cars will use them. This talk will reveal some alternative approaches to how we engineer our roads, such as tactical urbanism and gamification, which integrate and improve the user experience of people on bicycles.

Bio: Jennifer has been planning cycling routes and programs in Guelph for over a decade. Her research, experience and travels have shed light on the various approaches to street design and transportation behaviours. Her role as TDM Program Manager involves the review of road and development designs, policy writing, and master planning, providing opportunities at all scales to consider how best to build cities for the end users. 

Jason Hofing (@RelayCoffee)

Owner, Relay Coffee

Talk: UX Always: Succeeding in Chaotic Times

For most of 2014, the entire street in front of RELAY’s Concession St. coffee bar was ripped up limiting access to its front door. In this talk, Jason will share his team’s story of abandoning panic and instead see it as an opportunity to engage their audience and customers with creativity, positivity, and hospitality.

Bio: Jason Hofing is the owner of RELAY Coffee Roasters, a craft coffee roaster of with two coffee bars and roasting for the best restaurants in Hamilton. Jason is the recipient of the First Ontario and Hamilton Spectator 1AWARD in 2012, the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Small Business Award in 2013 and a 40 Under 40 Award in 2014. Jason believes in a human-centric approach to taking your business to where your customers are and serving their needs. 

Panel Discussion

The User Experience Experience, with Janna Cameron, Abeiene Nejar, Adam Waselnuk and Tom Creighton.