Speaker Spotlight: Paul Sherman (Changing Minds and Removing Barriers)

Paul Sherman is founder and principal consultant at ShermanUX. He has worked in the field of usability and user-centered design for the past 12 years. He was most recently Senior Director of User-Centered Design at Sage Software in Atlanta, Georgia, where he led efforts to redesign the UI and improve the overall customer experience of the Peachtree Accounting desktop application and ePeachtree web-based app. While at Sage he also designed and implemented a customer-centric contextual innovation program that sought to identify new product and service opportunities by observing small businesses “in the wild”. He also led efforts to modernize and make consistent Sage North America’s product user interfaces. In the 1990’s he was a Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies in New Jersey, where he led efforts to develop cross-product user interface standards for several telecommunications management applications. As a consultant he has conducted usability testing and interface design for banking, accounting and tax preparation applications, Web-based financial planning and portfolio management applications, and ecommerce Web sites. Paul received his Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focused on how pilots’ use of computers and automated systems on the flight deck affects their individual and team performance. Paul is Past President of the Usability Professionals’ Association, was the founding President of the UPA Dallas/Fort Worth chapter, and serves on the UPA’s Board of Directors and Executive Committe. He is also contributor and editor of the Gower book Usability Success Stories: How Organizations Improve by Making Easier-to-Use Software and Web Sites, published in October 2006. He writes a regular column for the online user experience magazine UXmatters and has presented at conferences around North America as well as Asia, Europe, and South America. Email Paul at paulATshermanux.com.

Session Talk: Changing Minds and Removing Barriers

Let’s face facts: usability testing does not equal a good user experience! Strategic user experience planning can yield a unified and consistent user experience. And strategic design leads to great user experiences. This presentation will explore the differences between tactical usability and strategic user experience, and provide attendees with guidance and motivation to pursue strategic user experience as a goal.

Some Other Things About Paul Sherman

Paul has got a PhD. He started the HCI program at UTD. He created an Accesibility program with Sharron Rush. He was President of UPA National. He started the DFW-UPA. Paul has written a book. Simply put, Paul has done it all. Most importantly, he is super nice with loads of smarts.