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Russ Unger

Russ Unger's Bio

Russ Unger is a User Experience Director for Happy Cog, a web design firm in New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco. He is co-author of the book “A Project Guide to UX Design” for Peachpit Press (Voices That Matter) and is co-authoring a book on guerilla research methods with Todd Zaki Warfel due out in 2011.

In addition, he currently serves as president of the Information Architecture Institute and was previously the director of events and marketing of the 2,000 member global organization. He is also an active volunteer and mentor within the IA Institute.

Russ has been working on websites since 1993—when there was only Notepad to code with and Mosaic was the only browser around. That was when he found his interest in User Experience Design and Information Architecture began to flourish. Since then, he has worked with a variety of companies--from start-ups to everyday household brands--helping them infuse User Experience strategies and tactics into their designs.

In his spare time, he is an author and editor for Boxes and Arrows, a well-known online User Experience Design magazine. Russ worked as the producer for the 2008 IDEA Conference, was the chair and curator of the 2009 IDEA Conference and is co-chair of the 2010 IDEA Conference. He has been a program reviewer for a variety of conferences and is an advisor for the 2010 IA Summit, as well as a curator for the Research track. Russ is a curator of the 2010 SXSW Interactive Conference, identifying content for the Information Architecture workshop section.

In addition, Russ continues to support his book release by attending UX Book Clubs across the world--both in-person and via video / audio discussions. He has attended book clubs in Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Edmonton and Minneapolis. And just for fun, he likes to sing Hootie and the Blowfish songs when the opportunity to karaoke presents itself.

Russ speaks on User Experience Design and has given the following presentations:

IDEA 2008 Conference   Emcee / Conference Producer
South by Southwest Interactive 2009 "Friendship is Dead" Panel with David Armano
Information Architecture Summit 2009 "Heuristic Analysis for the Pitch Process" Presentation
Information Architecture Summit 2009 "Evolve or Die" Panel with Christina Wodtke, Gene Smith & Josh Porter
Voices That Matter Web Design Conference 2009 "Learning to Love Chaos, Disruption & Tension" Presentation with Carolyn Chandler
Chicago Interactive Meetup "Learning to Love Chaos, Disruption & Tension" Presentation with Carolyn Chandler
Agile 2009 Conference "Guerilla Research Methods" User Experience Design Studio Workshop with Todd Zaki Warfel
Zappos "A Presentation on UX Process" Private Presentation
IDEA 2009 Conference   Emcee / Conference Chair
Interaction 10 "The Right Way to Wireframe" Workshop with Todd Zaki Warfel, Will Evans & Fred Beecher
IxDA Austin "The Right Way to Wireframe" Presentation Presentation with Will Evans
South by Southwest Interactive 2010 "The Right Way to Wireframe" Panel in the Information Architecture Workshop Track Curator for 3-Session Information Architecture Workshop / Presentation with Todd Zaki Warfel, Will Evans & Fred Beecher
Information Architecture Summit 2010 "Career Workshop for User Experience Designers" Research Track Curator
Half-day pre-conference workshop with Mario Bourque, offered for free to all conference attendees.
Information Architecture Summit 2010 "Living Personas - Visually Displaying Brand Insights and Connections to Consumers"
Presentation with Ross McLean
Web 2.0 Expo - San Francisco "The Right Way to Wireframe" Workshop with Todd Zaki Warfel, Will Evans & Fred Beecher
Big Design Conference 2010 "Opening the Kimono: A Look Behind the Wireframe Design Process" Invited Speaker
Web 2.0 Expo - New York "Opening the Kimono: A Look Behind the Scenes of Two Designers" Presentation with Todd Zaki Warfel
UX Lisbon 2011 "Guerrilla Research Methods" Workshop
IDEA 2010 Conference "Integration" - Philadelphia, October 1st & 2nd Conference Chair

You can find Russ online in the following locations:

Russ has worked with a number of major brands, including Sharpie, Kraft, Kmart, Gatorade, Quaker and Celebrity Cruise Lines, as well as on large scale Intranet and Extranet applications for such companies as Volkswagen Credit, Audi Financial Services, Information Resources, Inc. and Marsh. He has been involved in the Information Architecture for large scale public-facing sites for such companies as Metromix, Oprah.com, United Airlines and Hewlett-Packard. He has also worked off-line, creating unique biometric applications and has worked as the Design Lead for Motorola’s Connectivity domain where he was responsible for creating user interfaces for mobile applications in Motorola's Consumer Experience Design group.