WritersUA Conference | Session Information


Tamara Adlin Bernard Aschwanden Gavin Austin John Barrow Doug Bolin Rhonda Bracey Betsy Bruce Richard Carey Dana Chisnell Mary Deaton Scott DeLoach Matthew Ellison Dave Farkas Mary Jo Foley Joe Ganci Chris Garrett Dave Gash Ragan Haggard	Mary Ann Howell Michael Hughes Char James-Tanny Rob Kimm Charlene Kingston Craig Liebendorfer David Locke Fie Min Lorente Sarah Maddox Joe Marini Mike McCallister Scott McCloud Rahul Mehrotra Tim Morris Paul Mueller Michael Ninness Pam Noreault David Novick	Thom Parker Scott Prentice Anand Raman April Reagan Lindsey Robbins Donna Safco Joe Sarnelle Brent Schlenker Tony Self Zack Sheppard Kevin Siegel Jared Spool Witold Suryn Bogo Vatovec Joe Welinske Jacob O. Wobbrock Kate Wringe Luke Wroblewski
This symbol indicates top-rated speakers from past WritersUA / WinWriters events.

Tamara Adlin - Fell Swoop, LLC: Tamara Adlin is the co-founder of Fell Swoop, a Seattle user experience strategy & design company. She ran adlin, inc., for several years, working with clients 'from Apple to Zillow,' helping their teams get laser-focused on who their customers are and how those people really think and act. She co-authored The Persona Lifecycle and currently authors the Etail Insights newsletter. Previously, Tamara was a senior customer experience specialist at Amazon.com and Amazon Services.

Bernard Aschwanden - Publishing Smarter: Bernard Aschwanden, founder and President of Publishing Smarter, is a recognized publishing technologies expert. He is a Certified Technical Trainer and the author of numerous articles on xml-based publishing and single sourcing. A dynamic and entertaining speaker, he tailors his presentations to the audience and welcomes participation. He teaches a variety of courses including XML / DITA and related technologies, best practices for structured authoring and content management as well as DITA tools such as XMetaL and FrameMaker.

Gavin Austin - Salesforce.com, Inc.: Gavin Austin is a Staff Technical Writer at salesforce.com, the worldwide leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. Gavin has worked at salesforce.com for the past four years, writing online help, release notes, tip sheets, implementation guides, API development guides and programming language reference guides. Previously, he has written, edited, and produced technical documentation for Citadon, Borland, IDG Books, and the University of California Santa Barbara.

John Barrow - McAfee: John Barrow is a tech pubs manager and writer with a deep interest in content management and documentation process. He began his career writing scripts for Time Magazine's weekly audio programs, and from there he migrated to documenting hardware and software products. He currently manages a globally dispersed technical publications team for McAfee, and holds a M.S. of Applied Information Management from the University of Oregon. John lives with his family in Sherwood Oregon.

Doug Bolin - Razorfish: Doug Bolin, a User Experience Lead for Razorfish, has over thirty years experience with content projects, including large-scale web, intranet and extranet sites, interactive webcasts, rich media, broadcast television and print. His expertise includes information architecture, content strategy, usability and strategy with a focus on user assistance and globalization. He also teaches graduate level seminars on information architecture, ePublishing, and writing for the web and new media.

Rhonda Bracey - CyberText Consulting Pty Ltd: Rhonda runs her own technical communication and consultancy business (http://www.cybertext.com.au) from her home in rural Western Australia. Since 1992, Rhonda has worked in numerous software companies. She is pedantic about 'unfriendly' user interfaces and passionate about improving them. In the past few years, that passion has seen her take on the mantle of 'user interface expert' in the small software companies where she has been the lone writer and often the only user advocate.

Betsy Bruce - Performance Factor, LLC: Betsy Bruce is a developer and consultant who specializes in creating e-Learning applications. She was lead developer at Cobalt Group in Seattle, where her team won the 2003 Macromedia Innovation in e-Learning award, and Manager of Technical Services at MediaPro, Inc., where her team won many awards for its projects. She is an Adobe-certified trainer for Dreamweaver, Contribute, Flash, Captivate, and Authorware. Betsy holds a M.A. degree in Educational Technology from San Diego State University. She is the author of eLearning with Dreamweaver® MX and Sams Teach yourself Adobe Dreamweaver® 8 in 24 Hours. Betsy lives in Seattle, and her Website is www.betsybruce.com.

Richard Carey - Microsoft: As a Senior Technical Editor at Microsoft, I've been supporting Microsoft UA writers for more than 10 years, across a variety of technologies, from documenting Data Access strategies for developers to providing IT Pro content for enterprise-level Manageability applications. For me, good technical writing is all about supporting the customer in the here-and-now, providing effective, discoverable solutions that advance the value of both your content and your product. I believe that the best technical writers and editors must bring a passion for quality to the documentation they produce. And quality, in my experience, isn't just about editorial fit-and-finish—it's also about clarity, discoverability, and relevance, delivering the right content for the right audience at the right time.

Dana Chisnell - UsabilityWorks: Dana Chisnell is a researcher and consultant running UsabilityWorks in San Francisco, California. She wrote Handbook of Usability Testing Second Edition with Jeff Rubin (Wiley, 2008). Dana is an STC Fellow who is considered an expert in design for older adults and plain language.

Mary Deaton - Deaton Interactive Design: Mary Deaton began writing online user assistance in 1989 at Microsoft, formed her own company, KNOWware, in 1994, and in 2000, returned to being a freelance consultant and trainer. Along the way, she moved from writing Help to designing and writing online tutorials, knowledge bases, workflow software applications, intranets, Web applications, and other forms of online user assistance. She holds a Masters of Science in Technical Communication with an emphasis on usability and interface design. She is a part-time instructor in the Certificate Program in Technical Communications at Bellevue Community College in Bellevue, WA, and currently serving as Manager of the STC Usability and User Experience community.

Scott DeLoach - ClickStart: Scott is the founder of ClickStart (www.clickstart.net), a user experience design, consulting, and training company. Over the last 18 years, Scott has presented over 80 papers on embedded user assistance, web-based Help, interface design, usability, and CSS at conferences across the US and Canada and around the world. He has been developing online Help systems since 1992, is a certified Flare, RoboHelp, and Captivate instructor, and is the author of CSS to the Point. Scott holds a Master's Degree in Technical and Scientific Communication from Miami University. You can email scott at scott@clickstart.net

Matthew Ellison - Matthew Ellison Consulting: Matthew has 20 years experience as a user assistance professional in the software industry. Much of this time was spent managing a team of writers and trainers at a UK-based consultancy company, before enjoying a period in the U.S. as Director of the WinWriters (now WritersUA) Conference. Matthew has been a popular speaker at WritersUA events throughout the world since 1997, and has covered a diverse range of topics from context-sensitive Help to the Spice Girls. He now runs his own independent UK-based training and consulting company that specializes in online Help design and technology. Matthew holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Bristol University in the UK. He is a certified instructor for Adobe RoboHelp, Captivate, MadCap Flare, and WebWorks ePublisher Pro. Matthew's website is www.ellisonconsulting.com.

Dave Farkas - University of Washington: Dave Farkas is a Professor in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington. He has pursued his interest in user support for more than 20 years and has published and presented widely in this area. In the spring and summer of 2007 he consulted extensively with Microsoft in the area of KB content. Dave is an STC Fellow and a recipient of the Jay R. Gould award for distinguished teaching.

Mary Jo Foley - ZDNet: Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including PC Magazine, PCWeek/eWeek, and Redmond Magazine. As a commentator on the IT and business communities, Mary Jo has appeared on CNBC, CNN, and FOX News as well as radio program for the BBC, ABC Radio, and NPT. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet. Her All About Microsoft Microsoft blog (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/) is among the top business blogs on the Web. Mary Jo's first book was recently published by Wiley-Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era.

Joe Ganci - Dazzle Technologies Corp.: Joseph Ganci is President of Dazzle Technologies Corp., a custom training and learning company located outside Washington. D.C. Since 1983, he has been involved in every aspect of multimedia and learning development. Joe holds a Computer Science degree, and is a published author, having written several books and articles about e-Learning. He is widely considered a guru, for his expertise in e-Learning development, has taught classes and seminars at leading universities, in many government facilities, commercial firms, and educational institutions, and has spoken at many industry conferences. Joe is a Captivate 3 Adobe Certified Expert. He strives to better the quality of e-Learning with practical approaches that work.

Christopher Z. Garrett - ZWorkbench, Inc.: Christopher Z. Garrett is a mobile technology expert and president of ZWorkbench, Inc. Chris was educated at Florida State University, where he received a B.S. in Biochemistry. He received an M.S. in Biochemistry from Duke University. In 1997 he left his science training behind to start a career in information technology. Since then he has worked on a wide variety of software platforms, which have provided him with a breadth of knowledge about user interface design, server side development, and mobile technologies. Since 2008 he and his team have been primarily focused on developing new software for the iPhone platform.

Dave Gash - HyperTrain dot Com: Dave Gash owns HyperTrain dot Com, a California firm specializing in training and consulting for hypertext developers. A veteran software professional with over thirty years of programming, documentation, and training experience, Dave holds degrees in Business and Computer Science, and is well known in the tech pubs community as an interesting and animated technical instructor. Dave is a frequent speaker at User Assistance seminars and conferences in the US and around the world.

Ragan Haggard - Sun Microsystems: I have been employed in the computer industry for over 30 years, working as a technical writer for 27 years.

Mary Ann Howell - Orthodyne Electronics: Mary Ann Howell is an Adobe Certified Trainer, and the author of FrameMaker Tips, published in several STC chapter newsletters. She is the supervisor of Tech Pubs at Orthodyne Electronics and on some weekends, teaches FrameMaker and Acrobat classes through local STC chapters. Mary Ann is a CTTI certified software trainer, has a AS in Electronics, a BA in Journalism, and is working on her Masters in Information Science at Drexel University.

Michael Hughes - IBM Internet Security Systems: Mike Hughes works for IBM Internet Security Systems as a User Experience Architect identifying tools, methods, and standards to integrate the content and delivery of user assistance, including documentation, help, e-learning, and training. He writes the column "User Assistance: Putting Help in Context" for UXmatters. Mike has a PhD in Instructional Technology and an MS in Technical and Professional Communication.

Char James-Tanny - JTF Associates, Inc.: Char James-Tanny is president of JTF Associates, Inc. and has more than twenty-five years of experience as a technical writer. She is well known in the Help community for her knowledge of online Help tools and concepts. Char's original Help Authoring Tool (HAT) Comparison Matrix is now available as an interactive database. Char is an Author-it Certified Consultant, a 2009 Microsoft Help MVP, and the secretary of the Society for Technical Communication.

Rob Kimm - Medtronic, Inc.: Rob Kimm is a Sr Technical Writer for Medtronic, Inc, the world's largest medical device manufacturer. Rob's past professional work has included writing online help, developing custom user assistance solutions and developing online solutions for user assistance and training. He currently works on a team using DITA to create user assistance and system documentation for a large application used in clinics and hospitals.

Charlene Kingston - Crow Information Design: Charlene Kingston is a social media evangelist with 25 years of experience supporting software users with user assistance tools. She managed enterprise user assistance departments, provided user assistance products to software companies, and consulted on large software implementation projects prior to starting her own company, Crow Information Design, in 1995. Her clients include IBM, Walt Disney Corporation, The Dial Corporation, Catholic Healthcare West, Lockheed Martin, Arizona Department of Education, and the City of Phoenix.

Craig Liebendorfer - Microsoft: Craig Liebendorfer is the technical editor, producer, and site manager of the Microsoft Script Center (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/default.mspx), which has gained a loyal following with scripters who not only love to write scripts but also have a sense of humor. Craig has been editing for almost seven years at Microsoft, reviewing content for Microsoft Learning, Microsoft Events and Webcasts, the Microsoft Download Center, Windows Server, and now the Script Center. He holds an M.A. in American literature from Northeastern University and a Certificate in Technical Writing and Editing from the University of Washington.

David Locke - WordSmith LLC: David Locke, principal consultant with WordSmith LLC, has worked with computer documentation and training since 1985, specializing in online information systems. A charter member of RoboHelp's original trainers and consultants group, David is a member of STC and ASTD, and presents regularly at local, regional, and national conferences. David has earned more degrees than he needs from Cornell and Brown Universities. He served the Peace Corps in Brazilian urban education programs, taught at several colleges and universities, and worked as a cook and a carpenter.

Fei Min Lorente - ON Semiconductor: Fei Min Lorente has been a technical writer for almost 20 years in the software, hardware and defense industries. She has savored the challenges of new technology, including producing Eclipse Help for the first time at ON Semiconductor. She has presented at the local STC chapter, the international STC conference, and the FrameMaker Chautauqua. She is currently the lone writer at the medical division of ON Semiconductor, and she considers herself a programming dilettante.

Sarah Maddox - Atlassian: Sarah Maddox is a technical writer at Atlassian, the company which develops and sells Confluence (the enterprise wiki). Sarah has worked as a technical writer for ten years, at various companies and using a variety of tools. She is now a wiki enthusiast, though also well acquainted with the challenges of using a wiki for technical documentation. She writes up some of her experiences on her blog at http://ffeathers.wordpress.com.

Rahul Mehrotra - Agilent Technologies Inc: Rahul Mehrotra has implemented a wiki that is now used to create, manage, and publish over 150,000+ pages of version-controlled online help and manuals. He has also presented papers on documentation and usability at STC and ACM conferences. His current focus is information architecture and search optimization of large documentation sites, and machine translation for multilingual authoring. He is the documentation technical lead at EEsof, a software division of Agilent Technologies in Westlake Village, California.

Joe Marini - Microsoft: Joe Marini has been active in the Web and graphics industry for more than 15 years. He was an original member of the Dreamweaver engineering team at Macromedia, and has also held prominent roles in creating products such as QuarkXPress, mFactory's mTropolis, and Extensis QX-Tools. He is a regularly featured speaker at industry conferences and has authored or co-authored several books on Web development. His book The Document Object Model is widely regarded as the definitive resource for working with the DOM.

Mike McCallister - Compuware: Michael McCallister has been making computing easier for the full spectrum of users for more than a decade. He is president of the Wisconsin chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. He has written three editions of "openSUSE Linux Unleashed." He works as a consultant for Compuware, and writes "Notes from the Metaverse," a weblog on open source technology at metaverse.wordpress.com.

Scott McCloud: Scott McCloud has been writing and drawing comics since 1984. His book Understanding Comics was a New York Times Notable book for 1994, and is available in 16 languages. McCloud has lectured on comics and digital media at MIT, Pixar, Google, Microsoft and The Smithsonian Institution. McCloud's online comics can be found at scottmccloud.com. He is currently at work on a new graphic novel.

Tim Morris - ECi OMD: I have worked for eight years as a technical writer at ECi OMD, a business software company in Jefferson City, Missouri. During the previous fourteen years, I taught college-level composition, developmental reading, and study skills classes at Missouri State University, Rollins College in Florida, and Truman State University.

Paul Mueller - UserAid: Paul is President of UserAid, which designs and implements innovative communication solutions that deliver information when and where users need it. Paul received a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Mathematics from Pennsylvania State University and has been involved in technical communication for more than 20 years. Paul has managed information development, usability, and graphic design teams across the United States, Bolivia, and India. Paul often presents conference sessions about embedded help, management topics, and technology-focused implementations.

Michael Ninness - InDesign Adobe Systems Incorporated: Michael Ninness grew up in the Redwoods of Arcata in Northern California. He moved to Seattle in 1989 to study for a Graphic Design BFA at the University of Washington and fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. He paid his way through design school by teaching designers and photographers how to use digital tools and techniques. Michael has over ten years experience as a product manager and user interface designer of software products for creative professionals. Past positions include LiveMotion Group Product Manager and Senior User Interaction Designer for the Creative Suite 3 at Adobe, and Program Manager for Expression Blend at Microsoft. Michael is a frequent and top-rated presenter at numerous industry events including Photoshop World, PhotoPlus Expo, PMA, Macworld, FlashForward, Flash on the Beach, Web Design World, the HOW Design Conference and Pacific New Media at the University of Hawaii. He is the author of several Photoshop video training titles published by Lynda.com.

Pam Noreault - Sophos Inc.: Pamela Noreault has 15 years experience in technical documentation and training. She is a Technical Documentation Manager at Sophos, Inc. and she teaches three Technical Communication Courses at Columbus State Community College. Additionally, Pamela holds a B.S. in Secondary Education from The Ohio State University and an M.A. in English Literature and Professional Writing from Wright State University.

David Novick - The University of Texas at El Paso: David Novick is the AT&T Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Acting Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at El Paso. He earned his J.D. at Harvard University in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science at the University of Oregon in 1988. His research focuses on interactive systems, including development methods for interfaces and their documentation.

Thom Parker - WindJack Solutions, Inc.: Thom is the founder of WindJack Solutions, Inc. and the main force behind www.pdfscripting.com, a training site devoted to Acrobat® scripting. Thom has over 20 years of experience developing software and now specializes in Acrobat and PDF. Thom is actively involved in the PDF community; he hosts the JavaScript Corner at Acrobatusers.com where he writes articles/tutorials on Acrobat® JavaScript, maintains a Blog, and is a regular speaker and trainer at Acrobat® and PDF events/conferences.

Scott Prentice - Leximation, Inc.: Scott Prentice is the President of Leximation, Inc. and has been working in the technical publications field since 1991. His work focuses on custom online help development, FrameMaker (plugin and structure application) development, as well as custom web application development. He has been involved with DITA for many years and created DITA-FMx, an enhanced DITA plugin for FrameMaker. Scott coined the term "AIR Help" after learning about Adobe's new AIR technology.

Anand Raman - Microsoft: Anand Raman is a Senior Group Manager within the Microsoft Developer Division. He runs the development teams that build the tools for shipping documentation for Visual Studio, .NET Framework and Windows SDK. His team is also responsible for shipping Sandcastle community project at http://www.codeplex.com/sandcastle. Anand has graduate degrees in Computational fluid mechanics and worked several years as researcher before joining Microsoft. He is an avid tennis player.

April Reagan - Microsoft: April Reagan has worked in the developer division of Microsoft for the last ten years. After working on the Visual C++ team for eight years, she changed her focus to creating a new help system for Windows. April has been leading the architecture and development process for Help 3.

Lindsey Robbins - Blackbaud Inc.: Lindsey Robbins is a Technical Writer for Blackbaud, the leading global provider of software and technology services for nonprofits. She writes user assistance content for fundraising and school solution products. She is interested in the information design of documentation authoring as well as the use of social media to bring users into the documentation process. In addition to authoring three corporate blogs, she is also involved in documentation usability, video tutorials, and social media research. Aside from technical writing, she works part-time moderating wikis for a company out of Seattle, WA. She has a B.A. in English from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Professional Communication from Clemson University.

Donna Safco - Mudpuddle Creations: Donna Safko has a BS in Visual Communications and a MS in Instructional Technology. After 20 years in Advertising and Graphic Design, Donna became intrigued by the possibilities of new technology and adapted her skills to include Web, video and mobile development. The combination of Graphic design, Instructional design and Web development gives Donna a one-stop-shop skill set. Know the audience, understand the subject matter and then find a creative way to engage the two is her motto for creating eLearning and educational marketing as owner of Mudpuddle Creations.

Joe Sarnelle - Information Builders: Joe Sarnelle has been working with online help systems for nearly 20 years, dating back to WinHelp. He has developed automated procedures to produce those systems, as well as to support 20-plus writers. His latest foray has been into XML/DITA/XSTL to implement a Content Management/Globalization system. Joe began life as a newspaper and magazine editor, specializing in electronic publishing.

Brent Schlenker - The eLearning Guild: Brent Schlenker is a Program Manager and Emerging Technologies Analyst for The eLearning Guild. His past experiences include helping companies (Intel, ST Microelectronics, and more) transition from old-school instructor-led models to e-Learning. And now he is leading our industry's transition from e-Learning to Learning 2.0 by taking advantage of Web 2.0 technologies, social community models, and interactive 3-D gaming environments. He helps learning organizations recognize the untapped value of informal conversations and collaborative learning environments. He's a passionate learner, with over 10 years experience designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating corporate learning solutions.

Tony Self - HyperWrite Pty Ltd: Tony Self has worked as a technical communicator for almost 30 years, with the last 20 of those years specifically in the areas of online help systems, computer-based training, and electronic documents. In 1993, Tony founded HyperWrite, a hypertext and technical documentation company based in Melbourne, Australia. The majority of his work involves providing online and Internet strategy advice, innovative solutions and specialised training for customers in Australia and other parts of the world. Tony also lectures in the Technical Communication program at Swinburne University in Melbourne, and holds a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning and a Graduate Diploma in Technical Communication. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (UK), a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee.

Zack Sheppard - Flickr: My degrees are in Anthropology and English Lit from UNR. I worked in Customer Service for 4 years at Yahoo! where I answered emails and phone calls, helped write FAQs and email standard replies. I then helped oversee and provide training to an outsourcing team. I started at Flickr about 1 1/2 years ago. At Flickr I write most of the email standard replies, new FAQs, and the training materials.

Kevin Siegel - IconLogic, Inc.: Kevin A. Siegel is the founder and president of IconLogic, Inc. He has written more than 100 step-by-step computer training books, including Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3, Essentials of Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Essentials of QuarkXPress 7, Accelerated QuarkXPress 6, Essentials of Adobe InDesign CS3, Essentials of Adobe PageMaker 7, Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 7 HTML, and Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 6 HTML.

Jared Spool - User Interface Engineering: If you've ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he's probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. What you probably don't know is that he has guided the research agenda and built User Interface Engineering into the largest research organization of its kind in the world. He's been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term "usability" was ever associated with computers. Jared spends his time working with the research teams at the company, helps clients understand how to solve their design problems, explains to reporters and industry analysts what the current state of design is all about, and is a top-rated speaker at more than 20 conferences every year. He is also the conference chair and keynote speaker at the twice-annual User Interface Conference, is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute, and manages to squeeze in a fair amount of writing time.

Witold Suryn - École de technologie superieure: Dr Witold Suryn is a Professor at the École de technologie supérieure, Montreal, Canada (engineering school of the Université du Québec network of institutions) where he teaches graduate and undergraduate software engineering courses and conducts research in the domain of software quality engineering, software engineering body of knowledge and software project management. Dr Suryn is also the principal researcher and the director of GELOG : IQUAL, the Software Quality Engineering Research Group at École de technologie supérieure. Dr. Suryn holds the position of ISO expert and International Secretary of ISO/IEC Subcommittee SC7 – System and Software Engineering

Bogo Vatovec - bovacon: Bogo Vatovec is an opinionated technical communicator mostly working in change management, user experience, project management, software engineering and knowledge engineering. His recent work includes user experience studies and design for mobile devices and corporate implementations of Web 2.0 practices. He is a popular speaker and presenter at conferences in Europe, the USA, Israel, England and New Zealand. Bogo is a senior member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), a recipient of the STC Distinguished Chapter Award and a manager of the STC Information Design and Architecture Special Interest Group (SIG.)

Joe Welinske - WritersUA: Joe Welinske is the president of WritersUA, formerly known as WinWriters. WritersUA is a company devoted to providing training and information for user assistance professionals. The WritersUA/WinWriters Conference draws hundreds of attendees each year from around the world to share the latest in user assistance design and implementation. The free content on the WritersUA web site attracts over 20,000 visitors each month. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. Together with Scott Boggan and David Farkas, Joe authored two editions of the popular and pioneering book Developing Online Help for Windows. He has also taught online Help courses at the University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz. Joe received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1981, and a M.S. in Adult Instructional Management from Loyola University in 1987.

Jacob O. Wobbrock - University of Washington: Jacob O. Wobbrock is an Assistant Professor in the Information School and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. His research interests are in user interface technology, human performance with computing systems, input techniques and models, accessible and universal design, and mobile user interfaces. He is currently PI or Co-PI on two National Science Foundation grants to develop accessible user interface technologies.

Kate Wringe - Sybase iAnywhere: Kate Wringe is a member of the Sybase iAnywhere documentation team. For the past 2 years she has worked on the documentation for SQL Anywhere. She has a degree in Literature and a Masters in Language and Professional Writing from the University of Waterloo.

Luke Wroblewski - Yahoo! Inc.: Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized Web thought leader who has designed or contributed to software used every day by more than 750 million people. He is currently Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. and Founder of LukeW Interface Designs, a product strategy and design consultancy.
Luke publishes Functioning Form, the leading online publication for interaction designers. He also authored a book on Web interface design principles titled Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability. Luke is consistently a top-rated speaker at various conferences and companies around the world, and is a former Board member of the Interaction Design Association.