Jon Kolko
Senior Design Analyst
frog design

Jon Kolko is a Senior Design Analyst at frog design, in Austin, Texas. He has worked extensively in both the professional and academic worlds of interaction design, manipulating complicated technological constraints in order to best solve the problems of Fortune 500 clients and educating future interaction designers to do the same.

His work has extended into the worlds of supply chain management, demand planning, pricing and configuration, and customer-relationship management, and he has worked with clients such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cisco, Ford, IBM, Microsoft, Palm, and other leaders of the Global 2000. The common underlying theme of these problems and projects was the creation of a solution that was useful, usable, and desirable.

His present research investigates the process of Design, with a focus on the use of Information Architecture during the Synthesis phase of a design problem. This includes the role of visual data organization during requirement mapping and definition, as well as educational structures for acquiring these Information Architecture and Design skills.

Chris Connors, contributing author
Information Architect
Apple Computers

Chris Connors is currently employed at Apple. Prior to working at Apple, Chris worked at NASA with a focus on designing future mission support tools for planning robotic activity during surface operations on Mars. Chris also has an extensive background with Trilogy Software in Austin, Texas, where he designed enterprise software products for the Financial Services, Telecommunications, Computer, and Automotive industries.

Justin Petro, contributing author
Principal
Be/

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Justin is Principal of Be/ in Austin, Texas. Prior to this, Justin was the Director of User Experience at Design Edge. At Design Edge, Justin worked to solve strategic business problems with user-centric design solutions. Justin has worked with Dell, Trilogy, Maya, Siemens, and Merrill Lynch, and has been awarded patents in both hardware and software design.

Uday Gajendar, contributing author
Designer
Involution Studios

Uday Gajendar is an interaction designer in Silicon Valley, whose work has spanned financial software, license management systems, creative tools, and most recently new consumer concepts. Having previously worked at Oracle, Adobe, frog design, and now a private digital design studio, Uday continues to evolve his place within industry. As an active member of the design community, Uday has spoken at venues for IDSA, DMI, and the annual Information Architecture Summit, on topics such as beauty, globalization, and design strategy.

Ellen Beldner, contributing author
Interaction Designer
Google

Ellen Beldner is a Designer at Google. She has been creating Interaction Design solutions for major corporations since 2000, when she graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a focus in HCI and professional writing.