Speaker Spotlight: Stephen Anderson (When Data Gets Up Close and Personal)

Stephen P. Anderson is an independent consultant based out of Dallas, Texas. He spends an unhealthy amount of time thinking about user experience design and intrapreneurial teams—topics he loves to speak about.

Prior to venturing out on his own, Stephen spent more than a decade growing and leading teams of information architects, interaction designers and UI developers in the creation of all types of interactive experiences, bringing value to clients such as Nokia, Frito-Lay, Sabre Travel Network, and Chesapeake Energy as well as many smaller technology startups.

In addition to consulting, Stephen is working on Mental Notes, a tool to help businesses apply principles from psychology to design better experiences.

As time permits, Stephen enjoys sharing his thoughts at poetpainter.com

Session Talk: When Data Gets Up Close and Personal

Can data change us for the better? From “games” like the the Wii Fit to home devices that monitor energy usage, the answer is yes. Tight feedback loops and a playful experience can change our behaviors.

But how do we expose data in a way that influences change? And which metrics actually improve how we perform in business, fitness, finances and relationships? (And also satisfy business goals!)

We’ll start with systems like Mint, Nike+ and others that encourage users to reflect on (and modify) their behavioral patterns. Think personal informatics, feedback loops, sentiment analysis, leaderboards and other forms of reflection available to us. You’ll learn what “works” and what’s just plain fun; what are the natural human behaviors and which of these translate to an online context. Included in this brief tour of cognition will be an examination of how the visual representation of this data influences our choices.

To roll all this together, we’ll look at how these ideas were applied to the design of a new business tool. You’ll get a behind the scenes peek at just how we identified and designed these numeric nudges into the final application (and what we’ve learned since launching).

Some Other Things About Stephen Anderson

In my humble opinion, Stephen Anderson has a gift for teaching others. Stephen has an MA in English, so he just “reads” the world in a deeper way. Also, Stephen is an avid reader who likes to digest what he reads, lets the lessons incubate, applies his reading (or research), and shares it. Check out his slidershare info (inspiring).