Lauren Liss
Lauren Liss coordinates the Interaction Design major and the User Experience and Web Development minors in the Interactive Arts and Media (IAM) Department at Columbia College Chicago and has been a faculty member in this program since 2006. She teaches interface design, interaction theory, user experience and usability, and collaborative development.
Lauren also runs an interaction design company, Goodspark, which focuses on content management systems and usability analysis for small businesses, with a specialization in women-owned businesses and creative firms. She received her Masters in Education, Learning Design and Leadership, New Learning, from the University of Illinois, where she studied knowledge acquisition and educational theory through the lens of usability and technology.
Presentations
UX Camp Fall 2020
Consent & Ethics in Experience Design
As we rapidly approach “The Uncanny Valley” of experience design, what obligation do technology creators have in maintaining an environment of informed consent and ethics with their audience? This session will explore the realities and impact that persuasive design techniques (both intentional and not) play into how participants engage with technology.
We will look at examples of efficient, devious, deceptive design, as well as well-intentioned design choices that may have unintended consequences. We will discuss the idea of consent as it relates to the people that interact with our interface, and how we can morally augment their experiences for the greater good without leaving them in the dark.
UX Camp 2017
The Benefits of Iterative Failure
As design thinkers, we must focus on the process and not just the end goal. This presentation will address the benefits of creating environments that allow teams to take risks and fail; through this failure, they become more resilient, more realistic, and more accountable. In turn, their future work is more thoughtful and they have a greater ability to be nimble, collaborate, and pivot away from ineffective ideas.
UX Camp 2016
Fostering Empathy in Collaborative Development
Your team is a slick machine that has no problem shipping, but how do you create a team with shared empathetic vision? From brainstorming to scenarios, sketching, and personas; we’ll take a look at ways to help your team become more aligned in how they think about participant-centered design.
UX Camp 2013: Sketch Camp
Rapid Paper Prototyping
Paper prototyping is an excellent tool for iterating through ideas and getting them in front of an audience for testing as quickly as possible. Using paper and pencil as a medium, paper prototyping can be done efficiently and with minimal budgeting. This talk with cover best practices for ideation, paper prototyping, prepping these prototypes for testing using a mobile app like POP (Prototypes on Paper), and then showing them to an audience for guerrilla usability testing.