The 2013 User Experience Awards were presented Tuesday, May 21, 2013, at Parson’s Tischman Auditorium in New York. The host and organizer of the ceremony was Beverly May, Founder and President of Oxford Technology Ventures. A keynote address was given by Robyn Peterson, CTO of Mashable.
Before introducing the jurors, Beverly spoke about the mission of the UX Awards, which is “not just to celebrate the winners, but to determine what great, award-winning UX is.” After messages from sponsors, the jurors were introduced.
Jurors of the 2013 UX Awards were:
- Anders Ramsay, agile UX designer & coach, UX author, leader of NYC IA Meetup and Agile Experience Design Group
- Chris Jaffe, director, product innovation at Netflix
- Cindy Jeffers, CEO and CTO at Salon.com
- Cory Lebson, principal user experience consultant at Lebsontech and director, strategic partnerships at UXPA International
- John Payne, design educator and principal at Moment Design
- Lis Hubert, UX consultant & IXDA New York local leader
- Tomer Sharon, UX author and senior user experience researcher at Google Search
The keynote speech
For the keynote speech, Robyn Peterson talked about redesigning Mashable with the help of data. For example, data showing that articles with images get eight times the clicks as articles without was the impetus for making images larger in the new design.
Robyn believes that media companies need to become more technically savvy and not rely on outside companies for technical solutions. Mashable created Velocity, an algorithm that predicts what content will go viral. The Mashable homepage is now 95% algorithmically driven, with some options given to editorial staff to kill or promote a story at their discretion.
The host and jurors discussed some of the criteria used when selecting the winners, and it was clear that some jurors were more interested in process and research, while at least one juror had a more intuitive, less analytical approach of looking at only the finished product and choosing what he believed demonstrated a great user experience.
The winners
Grand prize
- Grand prize, best everyday utility: Google: Google Now
Gold prizes
- Gold prize, best digital media transformation: Cava Interactive: Helsingin Sanomat Digital Transformation
- Gold prize, best social learning platform: Schema Design, LLC: Actively Learn
Silver prizes
- Silver prize, best accessibility innovation: Virginia Tech: Activ
- Silver prize, best consumer device: Belkin: WeMo
- Silver prize, best UX research process: Digitas: Cessna – We Have Your Jet
- Silver prize, most useful consumer health care service: ZocDoc
Bronze prizes
- Bronze prize, most persuasive use of data: EffectiveUI: Water For People – Re-Imagine Reporting Platform
- Bronze prize, best clinical health care experience: Cerner Corporation/ User Experience: PowerChart Touch
- Bronze prize, best classroom learning experience: Amplify: Amplify Tablet
Finalists
- Fi: Gannett: USAToday.com site redesign
- kbs + Spies & Assassins: PUMA Joypad Wall
- kbs + Spies & Assassins: BMW ActiveE – A Social Experiment Shaping the Future of Mobility
- Huge: American Express – Consumer Digital Acquisition Journey
- R/GA: Nike+ FuelBand
- SAP: RealSpend
Congratulations to all the winners! For more about the people involved and their winning products, including videos and descriptions, visit 2013 User Experience Awards.