Elizabeth Bacon
Interaction Design

My Interaction Design (IxD) career began at Cooper, the design consultancy that helped define the field. During my three years with Cooper I honed my design abilities, learned IxD best practices and also helped to formalize the persona creation process. Cooper projects use ethnographic research and persona modeling to understand the domain and users' needs. I applied the powerful Goal-Directed methodology to create innovative products and IxD frameworks.

Interaction Design for medical systems is a special interest of mine, and I wrote a white paper on the topic. After Cooper I joined the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of St. Jude Medical, a Fortune 100 company. For more than five years I performed customer research and helped design implantable medical devices. I closely supported requirements definition across multiple generations of products, to ensure that the system met users' goals. It's rewarding to know that the innovative & friendly user experiences which I designed at St. Jude are improving clinicians' ability to provide good patient care.

In mid-2007, I started my own consulting company, Devise. My co-founder Mike McAulay and I provide digital product design and development services. I continue to love the practice of Interaction Design, operating closely with software development teams to ensure products will satisfy and delight. I'm especially focused on how Agile development processes need to be integrated with IxD methods. Additionally, I am today a Director of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and am deeply engaged in collaborative efforts to further the practice of IxD as a vital profession.