In the rough and tumble engineering environment at many software and web development companies the user experience professional often finds it difficult to make a difference. Designers are often trumped by developers and business folks who seem to hold more sway than those of us who "just make the pretty pictures". It can be frustrating watching great designs get broken while our pleas to "think of the user" are ignored.

But we don't have to be relegated to covering up flaws imposed on us by others. Design is as much a science as an art. We should be following some of the same basic methods that our more technical counterparts use, including math. By doing a little magic with numbers, we can move from being the shiny polish on the surface to becoming the most important component of a software project.

(No math is required to attend this talk)

Ben Arnette is currently the User Experience Architect for the Attenex Corporation, a software company in Seattle that specializes in advanced visualization techniques. He is responsible for championing the best practices and standards of usability and interaction design within the company. He leads a team of designers and researchers focused on maximizing customer satisfaction through improving the customer experience.

Before joining Attenex, Ben was the User Experience Architect for Drugstore.com, the Design Lead for Getty Images on their Editorial images platform redesign, and did a brief stint as a researcher at the Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory. Ben has also worked as a Program Manager for Microsoft building the MSN online games platform and numerous games.

Ben holds an M.S. in Information Design and Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as an M.A. in English Literature and a B.A. in American Studies from George Mason University.

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