Have you tried to establish a user-centered design approach in your organization? When Kevin Wick joined Premera Blue Cross in early 2002, he did not intend to build a UX team and change the Premera culture, but that’s what he ended up doing. In this talk, you’ll hear stories and the lessons he learned from that experience and from the work he’s been doing growing the UX team at one of the largest local consulting companies, Ascentium.

About the Speaker

Kevin Wick has over 13 years of experience in website user experience design and program management. He's currently the Associate Director of the User Experience at Ascentium. He splits his time between supporting the Ascentium UX team, pursuing new business, and working with clients including Expedia, Microsoft, T-Mobile, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and others.

Before Ascentium, Kevin built and managed the Web User Experience team at Premera Blue Cross, the largest healthcare insurer in the Northwest. The team delivered information architecture, interaction design, user interface design, usability studies, analytics, and user research. At ABCNews.com, he was Technical Line Producer of the entertainment sites MrShowbiz.com, WallofSound.com, and CelebSite.com. During a stint in his native Chicago, he was the program director of teams that redesigned and maintained sites for Discover Card, Budget Rent a Car, and GE Appliances. The team's work on Discover Card is profiled in the book, WebWorks: Navigation. He has a BFA in Computer Art from Carnegie Mellon and a certificate in User-Centered Design from UW. Kevin lives in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle with his wife, two sons, and two cats Bob and Howard.

Back to talk details

Building a UX Team

This Refresh meeting is held at the Fremont Library, located near the Troll. Please RSVP if you'd like to attend.

And don’t forget that we’ll all head over to Blue Moon Burgers in Fremont for food and drinks after Refresh. Hope to see you there.