********
Heidi McKee
Assistant Professor
Hi, Everyone,

Please share this information with students--might be particularly helpful for those getting ready to go on the job market.

Heidi

The technical & scientific communication program of English Department cordially invites you to attend this guest speaker event:

*The Substance of Practice: Bridging Industry and Academe*

Who: Kellie Rae Carter, Ph.D., User Experience Specialist
When: April 7 (Wednesday) 4-5 pm
Where: Bachelor Reading Room (Refreshments and soft drinks provided)

“We need two kinds of theories in design. We need instrumental theory on how to do design… We also need substantial theory about the phenomenon of design, about e.g. what kind of social, historical, scientific, artistic, and technical activity design is. Especially, we need approaches that integrate instrumental and substantial theories.” (Pelle Ehn, Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts)

Ehn, one of the key proponents of Participatory Design, articulated not only a method for designing user experiences in computer-mediated spaces, but also a model for practitioners in the field that integrated the practical knowledge of ‘how-to’ and the theoretical understanding of ‘to what purpose.’ Kellie will discuss her experience in the field of User Experience Design and how a broad theoretical background in rhetoric, cultural theory, and anthropology helped position her for practice in the field. Specifically, she will discuss how to leverage classroom skills and theories in this growing field and steps job-seekers can take to position themselves for a job as a user researcher or as an information architect.

About the Speaker: Kellie Rae Carter received her PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Rhetoric and Communication in 2005. After teaching in the Department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern for two years, she began working in industry as a User Experience Designer/Usability Consultant, primarily in the finance and insurance industries.