XD Immersive Previous Conference Speakers & Schedule


Our past XD Immersive program is listed below. Select a speaker's name to see a short bio, or select a workshop or presentation title to view it's abstract. XD Immersive was single track and carefully curated, to ensure that attendees didn’t miss a thing.

October 25: Half-Day Workshops

9 - 12:30

Morning Workshops

Natural language conversational interfaces are emerging as a powerful new way for people to interact with digital services. In order to design a natural user interface, we need to apply a human-centered design approach.

In this hands on design sprint you will learn how to design and prototype a conversational experience using new Google Design Sprint methodologies. We’ll start from the theory and principles of social interaction, and then start crafting the personality and dialog of your conversational agent. You’ll also learn the investigative rehearsal methodology to rapidly prototype the conversation, putting yourself in the user’s shoes to better understand their ideas, thoughts and emotions throughout the interaction and then explore how the conversation changes when it's manifested on multimodal surfaces such as mobile and wearables.

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Michael Greenberg

Michael Greenberg

Voice User Interface Designer, Google

Michael has been working on the Google Assistant for two years, and has worked on features ranging from Smart Home control, to Assistant Troubleshooters. He has a background in Linguistics and Neuroscience, and uses these skills to inform his designs.

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Madelaine Plauché

Madelaine Plauché

Voice User Interface Designer, Google

Madelaine Plauché is a UX designer on the Google Assistant. She has worked in research in speech and language technologies on and off for almost 20 years, starting with a PhD in linguistics at University of California, Berkeley. She first learned to design conversations in Southern India and South Africa where multilingualism and low-literacy rates challenged traditional User Interaction models.

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Augmented reality apps, such as Pokémon Go, let people see digital renderings in their physical reality. Apple, Facebook, and Snapchat are patenting techniques to insert digital images on top of real world objects. In Virtual Reality, on the other hand, the physical world disappears and designers are imagining all new interactions, pattern libraries, and in-app physics. Come to this workshop to get a grounding in the tech that’s available to today and how to create experiences for the future. Close
Jessica Outlaw

Jessica Outlaw

Founder, The Extended Mind

Jessica Outlaw is culture and behavior researcher in immersive tech. She uses behavioral science to help virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) companies build and test experiences. Her areas of expertise are conducting research in digital worlds, app design, and giving trainings to new and experienced designers. She is a 2017 winner of Oculus Launch Pad and you can download her app with Clorama Dorvilias called Teacher's Len's from the Oculus Store. You can also read a sample of her virtual reality avatar analysis here. She has a bachelors degree from Scripps College and a masters from UC San Diego.

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2 - 5:30

Afternoon Workshops

Chatbots are the new craze, but it takes a good understanding of dialogs and communication to design and implement a usable chatbot. We will learn the underlying principles of a chatbot in this workshop and then build one from scratch using Watson Assistant.

Part 1 will include designing your bot after a discussion on the following topics:

  • Intents: to convey purpose or goal.
  • Entities: make logical decisions based on user input and guide dialog flow.
  • Dialogs: design an interesting and natural sounding conversation.
  • Slots: collect important information to fulfill an intent.
  • Digressions and Handlers: handle unexpected conversations and interruptions.

Part 2 will include applying the above concepts to build a chatbot using IBM Watson. We will then deploy this bot to Slack and get some feedback from your friends in the class!

No coding experience is required. This workshop is very hands on. Bring your laptops!

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Upkar Lidder

Upkar Lidder

Developer Advocate, IBM

Upkar Lidder is a Full Stack Developer and Data Wrangler with strong experience in NodeJS and Python. His current passions include enjoying various kinds of cuisines, hiking, tennis and learning the magic behind ML. He is always up for a chat over good coffee.

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Augmented reality apps, such as Pokémon Go, let people see digital renderings in their physical reality. Apple, Facebook, and Snapchat are patenting techniques to insert digital images on top of real world objects. In Virtual Reality, on the other hand, the physical world disappears and designers are imagining all new interactions, pattern libraries, and in-app physics. Come to this workshop to get a grounding in the tech that’s available to today and how to create experiences for the future. Close
Jessica Outlaw

Jessica Outlaw

Founder, The Extended Mind

Jessica Outlaw is culture and behavior researcher in immersive tech. She uses behavioral science to help virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) companies build and test experiences. Her areas of expertise are conducting research in digital worlds, app design, and giving trainings to new and experienced designers. She is a 2017 winner of Oculus Launch Pad and you can download her app with Clorama Dorvilias called Teacher's Len's from the Oculus Store. You can also read a sample of her virtual reality avatar analysis here. She has a bachelors degree from Scripps College and a masters from UC San Diego.

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5:30

Happy Hour and Discussion Roundtable

October 26: Presentations

9:00
Paul Bryan

Paul Bryan

UX STRAT Organizer

Paul Bryan is a user experience strategist and researcher who started designing e-commerce web sites in 1995. He consults with large organizations on the strategy, direction, and design of their e-commerce web sites and mobile apps. Paul organizes UX STRAT Europe and USA conferences, and manages the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn. He teaches user experience to graduate business students at the University of Georgia.

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9:15
Today’s interaction designers generally operate within well-researched and documented constraints for both web and mobile applications—but not for much longer. By mixing the real and virtual worlds, new products such as Hololens, DAQRI, Meta, and Magic Leap clearly demonstrate that designers no longer have to confine user interfaces to a screen. In this presentation, Kharis O’Connell guides you through the new realm of designing interactions in mixed reality. You’ll discover the difference between designing for immersive environments rather than web or mobile screens, and examine some of the supporting tools, technologies, and techniques that will enable you to make the transition.Close
Kharis O'Connell

Kharis O'Connell

Senior Director of Product UX, Meta

Kharis is Senior Director of Product + UX at Meta, and has over 15 years of international experience in crafting thoughtful products and services. Previously he was Head of Product at Archiact in Vancouver - Canada’s largest VR/AR company, co-founded the influential immersive-tech studio - HUMAN, created SCALE - a smartphone powered MR headset, and worked at the award-winning Nokia Design studio in Berlin, Germany as Design Lead on a multitude of award-winning products.

Kharis gave the opening keynote at the 2014 Taiwan Design Week in Taipei, and recently released his book for O’Reilly Media called “Designing for Mixed Reality”

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10:00
As we move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world, we're seeing a fundamental shift from old paradigms that forced us to learn how to interact with machines toward new paradigms that necessitate teaching machines how to interact with us. This development highlights the need for everyone building apps and services to think very carefully about new interaction models that enable conversations with artificially intelligent assistants in multiple contexts and on multiple devices. In this session, we'll take a practical look at conversation design, the state of foundational assistive technologies, and key considerations for creating seamless experiences across surfaces.Close
Dan Padgett

Dan Padgett

Conversation Design Lead, Google

Daniel Padgett is a Design Lead for Google Search and Assist. He leads a group of interaction designers creating core features and connected user journeys for Assistant across surfaces. He's also on point for Google's Conversation Design discipline, spearheading internal and external programs geared toward establishing best practices, educating new practitioners, and coordinating outreach. Daniel has roughly twenty years of experience creating solutions that leverage language technologies, including speech recognition, natural language understanding, and speech synthesis. A recent transplant from Chicago, he lives in Menlo Park with his wife, 12 year old son, and their cat Juno.

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10:45

~ Coffee Break ~

11:15
In the Spring of 2017, frog teamed up with Apple to help IKEA design and build the first prototype version of their new Places ARKit app. The app allows users to shop for, and virtually place, furniture in their environment at scale. As lead developer on the project, Charles will describe the design and development process behind the rapid build of the Places app. He will also speak to the impact this new era of mobile AR will have on retail and other industries that frog is designing for, and discuss the way frog uses AR/VR in their user-centered design process.Close
Charles Yust

Charles Yust

Principal Design Technologist, frog design

Charles has over 15 years of experience implementing compelling digital experiences across a range of platforms at various scales, from mobile and web applications to spatial installations and AR/VR. At frog he conducts research, develops software in a range of languages, and builds innovative prototypes for Fortune 500 clients and startups with a focus in emerging technologies. He is also frog’s AR/VR technology capability lead and has worked on applications that have ranged from pain distraction for burn patients in VR to functional edge-computing prototypes in AR. Prior to frog he worked for two award-winning design consultancies in New York City building immersive and gestural interactive environments for leading museums and science centers throughout the United States.

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12:00
Big Data, Augmented Reality, and Voice are emerging as three disruptive technologies which will shape the future of business and society. In this session, Global Design Lead Alfredo Ruiz will talk about how these disruptive technologies can build on each other in creative, useful ways. As a concrete example, you’ll see how IBM Immersive Insights combines AR, ML, and Big Data to create new value. IBM Immersive Insights helps users explore their data and communicate findings. It brings the power of Augmented Reality (AR) visualizations to data science tools, improving the user experience, data exploration and data analysis process.Close
Alfredo Ruiz

Alfredo Ruiz

Augmented Reality Design Lead, IBM

Originally from Mexico, Alfredo Ruiz now lives in Austin, Texas where he is the Design Lead of Augmented Reality at IBM Analytics, mentoring and leading designers from IBM’s studios in Austin, California, and Stuttgart. His team works on creating the next generation of enterprise solutions, exploring the intersection of data analysis and cognitive technologies with Augmented Reality.

Alfredo’s work experience includes companies and consultancies such as IBM, Steelcase Inc. P&G, Boeing, Nike, Nokia, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, United Healthcare, LiveWell Collaborative (to name a few).

Alfredo has a Masters of Design from University of (UANL) with a B.S. in Industrial Design.Cincinnati, and graduated from Autonomous University of Nuevo León

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12:30

~ Lunch ~

2:00

Interface technology is progressing towards a moment when the convergence of mixed reality, natural user interfaces, and AI will finally enable ubiquitous, always-on processing of human intent. So far, this vision has relied heavily on voice input — people will talk to their devices, and the devices will talk back. However, we will still need to use our bodies to express ourselves. Body movement and tactile sensations are a central part of human experience — just look at the importance of body language for interpreting the intent of other people, or our need to physically touch products to accurately assess our desire for them, or even the need for physical closeness to our loved ones. Ubiquitous computing fueled by voice, AI, and AR graphics alone cannot meet these needs. We need gesture and haptics — technology that accounts for the human the body — to complete the picture.

In this 30-minute presentation, you'll learn about the theory of tactile user interface design, as well as the practical tools and methods of design for gesture interaction and haptics. We will first look at in-market use cases of gesture and haptics for VR storytelling and mobile communication and advertising. Then we'll look at emerging mobile AR use cases and point the way to good design in this new category.

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David Birnbaum

David Birnbaum

Director of User Experience Design, Immersion

David Birnbaum, Director of User Experience at Immersion Corporation, has been creating haptic experiences for over 12 years, in which time he's been named as an inventor on over 70 patents in the fields of user experience, wearables, gaming, medical devices, mobile communication, and rich interactive media. A leading expert in haptic design, he leads a team responsible for developing the tactile aesthetics of emerging technologies. David is driven by a desire to tell stories with the sense of touch and to bring emotion and realism to digital experiences. He holds a B.S. in Music Industry from USC and a M.A. in Music Technology from McGill University.

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2:30
Join Katie Hughes, product designer for Beast Pets, in discussing the design elements behind virtual reality character interactions. In this session, we will explore ways to develop bonds between between characters and game players to create emotionally compelling animal companionship in the metaverse. Participants will leave this session with new ideas on how to leverage the immersive elements of virtual reality technology to bring their characters to life.Close
Katie Hughes

Katie Hughes

Virtual Reality Product Designer, Beast

Katie Hughes is a San Francisco-based UX & Product Designer specializing in virtual reality. She loves her job at Beast Pets, where she works on creating smart magical pets for VR (who wouldn’t love their job when they basically get to play with virtual puppies all day?)

Additionally, Katie is cofounder of the Room Scale Designers meetup group where she helps organize accessible VR workshops for local Bay Area designers. Katie has been a guest speaker for organizations such as Cascade SF, General Assembly, and the University of Buckingham, and is a total VR hackathon enthusiast. When not staring at a screen, you can find her 10 feet up off the ground honing her aerial gymnastics skills.

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3:00

~ Coffee Break ~

3:30
What kind of design vocabulary can we use when we’re developing VR experiences? And how can we speak a common language when a language for VR is still in the early stages of being written? Looking at parallels with the way cinematic language originally developed, and how it borrowed from the vocabularies of previous media like theater and photography, Andrew will examine the emerging lexicon that’s defining how we conceive, design, and create immersive experiences.Close
Andrew Leitch

Andrew Leitch

Director of Streaming Experience Design, SiriusXM

Andrew Leitch is an NY-based Experience Director and Filmmaker focused on Virtual and Augmented Reality. He teaches a series of master classes in the Narrative VR program at the New York Film Academy, and is a Lab Fellow at NYU's Media and Games Network VR Lab. He has also held Creative/UX leadership roles at agencies such as Razorfish and GREY, working with a blue-chip client list that includes Nike, Sony, NBCUniversal and Ford. Andrew directed the cinematic VR experience Now Then with Academy Award-winning producer Ryan Silbert. His creative work has appeared at Sundance and SxSW and has garnered four Webbys.

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4:00
When walking through a new neighborhood, aspiring homeowners want insight into surrounding homes - and they want it immediately. Enter realtor.com's augmented reality feature Street Peek: simply scan a property with your smartphone camera and receive instant home information. Participants will explore the product journey, from ideation to execution, and learn how the team used the tools most familiar to the consumer to juxtapose existing and emerging technology and solve for a critical pain point.Close
Laurie Kahn

Laurie Kahn

Principal Product Manager, Realtor.com

Laurie Kahn is the Principal Product Manager at realtor.com, where she manages the company's core Android app. A veteran in the technology industry, Kahn brings more than 15 years of experience integrating human-centered design in fast-paced, agile development environments and a decade of mobile app experience. Her work, which focuses on creating the right market strategy and developing products that delight users, has led to product features on The Today Show, New York Times and People Magazine. Prior to realtor.com, Kahn held leadership roles in product management at 23andMe, ShopWell (acquired by HarvestMark), TheFind, Inc. (acquired by Facebook) and Oodle, Inc. (acquired by QVC).

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4:30
A kind-of-personal adventure from web and mobile design to immersive reality design. We’ll talk about what makes designing for V/AR different (and not so different), the challenges of designing for dynamic spaces, specific lessons learned from my own mistakes, and strategies for ideating and prototyping immersive products.Close
Andrew McHugh

Andrew McHugh

UX Designer for AR/VR, Samsung

Andrew uses his diverse background to expand human capability. Right now, he’s exploring new immersive realities at Samsung Research America, though you can often find him at any intersection of design, technology, philosophy, and human augmentation. Previously, Andrew received his M.A. in HCI from Carnegie Mellon University, designed at an agency and as a freelancer, co-founded a curiosity-inspired conference, and wrote a children’s book, “The Book of What If…?“. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Silicon Prairie News. In his free time, Andrew hikes with his wife, plays with his cat-child, and tinkers on side projects.

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5:15
Paul Bryan

Paul Bryan

UX STRAT Organizer

Paul Bryan is a user experience strategist and researcher who started designing e-commerce web sites in 1995. He consults with large organizations on the strategy, direction, and design of their e-commerce web sites and mobile apps. Paul organizes UX STRAT Europe and USA conferences, and manages the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn. He teaches user experience to graduate business students at the University of Georgia.

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5:30

Happy Hour




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