Dorothy Danforth

Founder and Principal , Danforth Media

Biography

Dorothy Danforth

Dorothy is founder and principal of Danforth Media, a Philadelphia-based software user experience consultancy. She has fourteen years experience in software design, usability research, and systems development for Fortune 500 and emerging technology companies.  A partial client roster includes; Pfizer, Wharton, Comcast, Palm, and Toys’R’Us.

Dorothy has made a career out of working with startups and developing new product concepts. She has spearheaded usability processes and standards, and led numerous R&D efforts for venture funding.  An experienced speaker and UX evangelist, Dorothy is author of “A Guide to User Experience Research: Stories from the Field”, a ReadyNote available through the IEEE Computer Society Press.

Presentation

The Politics of the Artichoke: Selling your ideas in a large organization, one stakeholder at a time

Online strategy, Conference Day #1, Wednesday May 5th, 4.00 pm - 5.00 pm

In many organizations, there are network drives filled with old presentations, reports and design mockups containing ”good ideas” that were never explored or saw the light of day. While not all ideas will make it past full due diligence, most never even get a shot. Coming up with a good idea or strategy is just the beginning. Success lies in your group’s ability to evangelize a plan, socialize it throughout an organization, evolve the plan, and allow others take the ownership needed to see it to fruition.

The politics of the artichoke (or ”lapolitica delcarciofo”) is an Italian expression referring to a savvy strategy that deals with your opponents one at a time. In this case study I’ll discuss how—as aconsultant to Comcast working with a small internal team—our group was able tos uccessfully give our interactive design ideas a broad reaching life of their own. The presentation will take a look at how we got the green light to do a comprehensive exploratory study (the first of its kind); how we pitched the research results to a range of stakeholders, and some considerations on why the results were picked up by other design groups and leveraged into present day development efforts.

See slides online

Roundtable discussion

How can a company’s brand promise be realized through user experience design?

Conference Day #2, Thursday May 6th, 2.30 pm - 3.30 pm

What do you get when usability, interaction models, and visual design connect through your brand? You get a unique, confident, and compelling experience. This roundtable is intended to generate thought and discussion on how to develop “on brand” user experiences across multiple platforms and how UXD as a practice can promote better brand alignment through its methodologies.