Nerd Stalker

Amazing in depth talk by Designer Al Abut at a recent IXDA San Francisco meetup. The topic is Product Manager vs. Designer, what is more important in a startup? Al presents from the Designers perspective followed by a Q&A of both sides. Al Abut is an interaction and visual designer specializing in building applications and websites for technology startups, with an emphasis on usability and collaborative team prototyping. He brings a unique understanding of how to bridge the gap between design and development and is currently exploring the intersection between agile programming and user-centered design on small teams with short timelines. More info at http://alabut.com .

Part 1 Part 2 While product managers and designers usually have well-defined roles at established companies and agencies, roles at startups are less defined, requiring each employee to wear many hats. The average early-stage startup is made up of one or two engineers; many also have a product manager, but few have a full-time designer. These observations raise several questions: - Why are there more product managers than designers at early-stage startups? - How can product managers and designers work with small engineering-focused teams to create engaging and usable products? - Can a research-centric UX process work in the high pressure environment of light speed release cycles? - At the end of the day, what are the key differences in what a product manager and a designer bring to the table at a startup? Designer Al Abut and product manager Dan Olsen will be debating these points and more. Al Abut is an interaction and visual designer specializing in building applications and websit...

Nerd Stalker interview with YourVersion CEO, Dan Olsen at the 2009 FailCon conference in San Francisco. YourVersion continuously discovers new and personally relevant web content based on your interests, and lets you easily bookmark and share your discoveries with friends. The web is growing bigger every day. The rate at which new websites and content are being added is accelerating and overwhelming web users with a sea of information. At the same time, people are increasingly busy and have less time to find new and relevant content on the web. They designed YourVersion to solve this problem by giving people an efficient way to continuously discover new and relevant web content based specifically on their interests.