Global usability organisation embraces design

In December last year, the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) organised its first European conference in Turin, Italy, with a focus on the connection between usability and design.

The very successful conference, which was chaired by the UPA Europe president Silvia Zimmerman (who has meanwhile become president of UPA Global) and UPA-Italy chair Michele Visciola (who is also the president of Experientia), has clearly had some impact on UPA’s global thinking, as exemplified by its upcoming international conference in Portland, OR, USA.

Not only is the look and feel of the global conference’s website remarkably similar to the European one, but three of the invited speakers are actually designers — Dan Saffer (Kicker Studio), Nathan Shedroff (California College of the Arts) and Raphael Grignani (Nokia Design) — with a specific focus on interaction design and experience design.

Obviously we are excited about this embrace of design within the usability community and look forward to hearing more about this conference.