Jason Prunty: UX Design - Finding the Mental Model for Business

For centuries designers, like architects and graphic designers, have been finding and understanding mental models and using them to create objects, homes and posters. What we call User Experience, or UX, is the first design field to apply those techniques to a non-physicalized object, or abstract concept, such as a business. In the past, businesses iterated on their business models and tested them on their customers. UX doesn't change that but adds another layer. Before iterating on the business model, UX researches and iterates on the mental models of the customer, and that feeds into and informs the business model iterations. Research techniques, like interviews and card sorting, are universal, time-tested and used in many of the social sciences; but instead of using the research to increase our knowledge, designers use it to create. 
 
To be successful, UX Designers must bridge three different fields: social sciences, design, and business. We will talk about how a UX'er is continuously crossing all those bridges to achieve better usability for users, higher satisfaction for customers, and more profits for the business. Social science techniques like interviews and affinity diagrams are used by the UX Designer to create knowledge and empathy, forming the base of the users' mental model. On the design bridge, a UX'er uses the mental model to create personas and user flow diagrams, highlighting the most relevant pieces of the mental model. Business products, like software or models, will be redesigned with this deeper understanding of the user. A successful business will validate the redesigned business model; so the UX'er is back on the social science bridge researching the current mental model of the user. And so the cycle continues, iteration after iteration, redesigning businesses. When this is done well, it creates the best possible experience for users, long-lasting customers, and successful world-changing companies. 
 
About Jason Prunty
I am an experienced Product Designer with a diverse design foundation that includes working in industrial design, designing and building computers from scratch, and teaching architecture, photography, and User Experience.
 
Currently I am leading a team of designers at Sungard Availability Services, as we design the next generation of business continuity software. The UX team is successfully integrating Sungard AS's user-centered design process into an agile development framework.
 
In the past, I have focused on the enterprise space, crafting user-friendly interfaces and business models for large companies ranging from the World Bank to Johnson & Johnson. I have provided insightful digital strategy and design rationale to clients as a consultant and researcher.
 
When I am not in the office, you might find me engineering the perfect soft pretzel, renovating a corner of our 100-year-old row home, or creating a user-friendly Philly outing for my wife and daughters.

SPEAKER SOCIALS/CONTACT:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjprnty 
Twitter: @jjprnty

Agenda:
6:00 - 6:10 PM - Registration, refreshments and networking
6:10 - 6:15 PM - Welcome and introductions
6:15 - 7:55 PM – Speaker
7:55 - 8:00 PM - Wrap – up, Raffle

We will be raffling off passes to Project World Business Analyst World NYC Conference among the members in attendece at the October event! 

Register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jason-prunty-nyc-ux-design-finding-the-mental-model-for-business-tickets-28457488113 
Rgeister here for our New Hyde Park, Long Island location: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jason-prunty-li-ux-design-finding-the-mental-model-for-business-tickets-28474087763?aff=ehomecard