Creativity Through Play

Cengage Learning, 27500 Drake Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48331

Tuesday, September 18, 6pm

How can we engage more people in the user experience process? How can we get team members excited and engaged? How can we push the diversity of ideas created?

Using games, with a diverse group of individuals, will help to open people’s minds, facilitate fun, and most importantly encourage creativity. Agreements, discussions, and debates are encouraged and fostered in an open and inviting environment. This type of environment speeds up the idea generation and evaluation process. Focusing on great activities for the idea generation process digs up opportunities and ideas that exist within the people you work with. This set-up allows for divergent thinking to occur, which eventually builds into convergent thinking, which leads to rapid iterative prototyping and testing.

We will look at ways to plan, run, and execute brainstorming sessions in a manner that is set up for fun and function. We will review ways to use games to help cultivate an atmosphere that generates ideas and prototypes. Through images, samples, and stories, we will see how games can be put to use to produce tangible results. I have taken my experience in game design, teaching, and user experience and applied it to the people, which is at the core of creating great ideas and products!

The purpose of this talk is to show how cultivating a highly diverse group of people, with fun and games, can create productive meetings and innovative brainstorming. Design, Development, and Management members will benefit from learning new opportunities to add to their creative process.

About Our Speaker

Kimberly Callery is a User Experience Designer at United Healthcare and teaches online for the Art Institute. She also worked at Cengage Learning as a User Experience Specialist. Past experience also included Game Production Chair at the International Academy of Design & Technology, Web Designer at Mosaicmedia, and Event Planner for the Interfaces Conference in Michigan.

Kim has a BFA in Animation & Digital Media from College for Creative Studies. Also, an MA and MFA in Interactive Design & Game Development, both from Savannah College of Art & Design.
Her passion lies in designing, teaching, and trying to find creative and innovative ways to help people have fun while learning!

When

Tuesday, September 18
6:00 PM — Networking
6:45 PM — Announcements
7:00 PM — Speaker
8:30 PM — Wrap up and more networking

Location

Cengage Learning, Farmington Hills

Google Map

Cost

Current students $5
Usability Professionals’ Association members $10
All others $20

Register

Register online at Guestlist so we know who’s coming and how to plan for refreshments. We’ll also take payment (cash or check) at the door. Questions? Email events {at} michiganupa dot org.