Meet Our Speakers

Paul Adams

Paul is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Google. He is the lead researcher for the social web, working on company wide initiatives and with teams such as Gmail/Buzz and YouTube.

Prior to Google, Paul worked as a Senior User Experience Consultant for Flow Interactive, leading research and design projects for clients including the BBC, the Guardian, Vodafone, and UK Government. Before Flow, Paul worked as an Industrial Designer, designing electronic appliances at Dyson, automotive interiors at Faurecia, and retail interiors at Perfix.

Paul has conducted in-depth 1:1 research with more than 500 people, using a wide variety of formative and evaluative research methods, in the US, Europe, India, China and Japan. He writes a blog at www.thinkoutsidein.com.

Tantek Çelik

Tantek Çelik is a computer scientist for Microformats.org and works with numerous clients, such as Mozilla and Revision3, on open Web standards leadership and HTML5 upgrades. Previously, as Chief Technologist at Technorati, he led the design and development of new standards and technologies. Prior to Technorati, he was a veteran representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for Microsoft, where he also helped lead the development of the award-winning Internet Explorer for Macintosh. Tantek lives in San Francisco, and has bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University, as well as a strong background in human interface and user-centered design from his many years at Apple Computer. He shares his thoughts at tantek.com.

Jason Cranford Teague

Jason Cranford Teague is the Senior Design Manager for Marriott.com, overseeing the design and development of one of the largest commercial sites on the Web. He has over 15 years of experience in the online world and written numerous books, including Speaking in Styles: The Fundamentals of CSS for Web Designers and Fluid Web Typography. He has recently worked with the W3C CSS Workgroup—advising them on design issues with typography—and was previously the Director of Web Design Standards for AOL/MediaGlow. He lives with two cats and two kids, but only the one wife.

Jesse James Garrett

Jesse James Garrett has been working in the industry since 1995. He has been involved in almost every aspect of Web development, from interface design and programming to content development and high-level strategy. His experience includes work for companies such as AT&T, Boeing, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Ingram Micro. Jesse is one of the founding partners of Adaptive Path, a user experience consulting firm based in San Francisco. In the information architecture community, Jesse is recognized as a leading contributor to the development of this rapidly evolving discipline. The tools and concepts he has developed are currently used by information architects around the world.

Robert Hoekman, Jr.

Robert Hoekman, Jr., is the founder of Miskeeto, a product development and web design consultancy focused on socially-conscious projects that improve the world. He's an interaction designer, writer, presenter, and user-experience evangelist who has worked with Seth Godin (Squidoo), Adobe, Automattic, United Airlines, DoTheRightThing.com, Go Daddy Software, and countless others to create superior user experiences for a wide range of audiences.

Robert is the author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious, Designing the Moment, and his most recent book, co-authored with Jared Spool, Web Anatomy. Learn more about Robert through his blog at rhjr.net.

Denise R. Jacobs

Since teaching herself HTML in 1996, Denise R. Jacobs has worked at creating and maintaining Web sites, Web application localization, Web project management, and teaching Web design/development. Currently, Denise is a Web Solutions Consultant in Miami, Florida, helping individuals and businesses increase their Web knowledge, and transform their Web presences by incorporating Web standards, Web 2.0 tools and social media. She is passionate about teaching novices about the Web and empowering them with tools and resources. She is part of the organizing committee of Social Media Club South Florida, and an active member of the Web Standards Project (WaSP) Education Task Force.

Denise is the author of The CSS Detective Guide: Tricks for solving tough CSS mysteries, and a co-author of InterACT with Web Standards: A holistic approach to web design.

Scott Jehl

Scott Jehl is formally trained in graphic design, but his skills comfortably span both design and development. Prior to joining Filament Group, Scott worked for such clients as New England Journal of Medicine, Footjoy Golf, and Aspen Snowmass Resorts. In his spare time, Scott runs WriteMaps.com, an ajax Web application for building visual Web site sitemaps. He is also a member of the jQuery Design Team.

Colleen Jones

Colleen is the Founder and Principal of Content Science, a content strategy firm in Atlanta, GA. Colleen believes the best way to improve our designs is to understand our content.

She has more experience than she likes to admit, with leadership positions at Spunlogic (now Engauge Digital); the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC); and Cingular Wireless (now AT&T). She also has supported strategic initiatives for international brands such as The Home Depot and InterContinental Hotels Group.

After a long day of advocating for quality content, Colleen often unwinds at a lively Irish pub. Follow Colleen on Twitter at @leenjones.

Steve Krug

Steve Krug (pronounced "kroog") is best known as the author of Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, now in its second edition with more than 200,000 copies in print. He has also recently published Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems. He has spent 20 years as a usability consultant for a wide variety of clients like Apple, Lexus.com, Bloomberg.com, Magazines.com, Move.com, NPR, Kidzui, and the International Monetary Fund.

Steve's consulting firm, Advanced Common Sense ("just me and a few well-placed mirrors") is based in Chestnut Hill, MA. He currently spends most of his time teaching and consulting.

Emily Lewis

Emily Lewis is the author of Microformats Made Simple and an independent Web designer. She has been working as a Web professional since 1998, dabbling in project management and programming until she realized her true loves (HTML and CSS) and became a front-end developer.

Emily is a Web geek of the "standardista" variety, and gets excited about things like usability, semantics, microformats, valid markup and CSS, and accessibility. In addition to loving all things Web, Emily is passionate about community building and knowledge sharing. She is the co-creator and co-manager of Webuquerque, the New Mexico Adobe User Group for Web practitioners.

Emily also writes about Web design (amongst a range of other topics) on A Blog Not Limited, as well as for industry publications including MIX Online and .net magazine. Emily speaks about Web standards, markup, CSS, accessibility and microformats for various groups and conferences, including the University of New Mexico, the New Mexico Technology Council, InterLab and Environments for Humans.

Todd Parker

Todd Parker has over a dozen years of experience creating highly functional, accessible and intuitive interfaces that make the most of the technical and interface constraints of a broad range of devices, from wireless phones and Palm devices, to touch screen tablets, kiosks and Web sites. Prior to founding Filament Group, Todd worked at ZEFER Corporation and CSC Consulting as a principal experience designer. Todd's work has been recognized by Communication Arts magazine for design excellence.

Stoyan Stefanov

Stoyan Stefanov is a front-end performance engineer at Yahoo! Search, speaker, book author (Object-Oriented JavaScript and the upcoming New Riders title, Speed Matters) and contributor (Even Faster Web Sites, High-Performance JavaScript), co-creator of the smush.it image optimizer, YSlow 2.0 architect, beach bum and guitar virtuoso wannabe (search "Give PNG a chance" on YouTube for a sample). Stoyan maintains a blog at phpied.com.

Khoi Vinh

Khoi Vinh is the Design Director for NYTimes.com, where he leads the design group in user experience innovation. He and his team are responsible for the creative design of new online features, functionality and content for the industry-leading news site.

His thoughtful advocacy of effective, forward-thinking design has led to wide industry recognition, service on the board of directors of AIGA The Professional Association for Design, contributions to many books, and a host of speaking engagements. Since 2000, Khoi has also been the author of Subtraction.com, a forum for his extensive writings on design, technology and user experience matters.

Prior to joining The New York Times, Khoi was a founding partner at the ground-breaking New York City design studio Behavior LLC. He has an extensive history in consultative design services for clients in a wide range of industries, and he holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Communications Design from Otis School of Art & Design in Los Angeles, California.

Doug Winnie

As the principal product manager for Adobe Flash Catalyst, Doug Winnie manages the feature set for the product, and he evangelizes the workflow integration of Adobe applications and technologies to customers, partners, and the media. Doug leads the company's efforts to grow and support Adobe product and technology integration, enabling seamless workflows for Web and rich Internet application development. Specifically, Doug oversees the integration of Adobe's platform and creative products, including the Adobe Flash Platform, and is responsible for multi-cycle roadmaps for product evolution.

In addition to his current work at Adobe, Doug is an instructor at San Francisco State University in the College of Extended Learning's Multimedia Studies Program. He teaches Flash, ActionScript and XML classes. He is also co-writing a book on developer workflows in Flash, and he hosts the ActionScript 1:1 and Flash Catalyst 1:1 shows on Adobe TV.