Ezra Schwartz

Ezra Schwartz helps organizations realize their strategic vision for a world-class user experience. As a principal experience architect, he holds lead positions in mission-critical projects for global corporations. An advisor to management and stakeholders, Ezra is an expert in transforming large-scale, data-driven systems into mobile-first, device/OS-agnostic UX frameworks.

Ezra enjoys solving the numerous challenges involved in complex systems, the organizations that build them, and the people who use them. He draws on his wealth of experience from projects in the financial, education, aviation, healthcare, telecom, publishing, research, manufacturing, and software industries. Ezra feels very fortunate to be practicing in a domain that affords him the opportunities to travel and associate with the exceptional cast of international experts he gets to collaborate with. He values mentoring and giving back to his professional and social communities.

Ezra is the founder and organizer of AxureWorld.org, a free community-driven international conference dedicated to UX prototyping. He talks regularly about UX at conferences and on his blog, www.artandtech.com.

Elizabeth Srail

Elizabeth Srail has been creating and leading designs since 2001, and throughout that time, she has learned that employing the lesson her parents taught her at a young age, which is to "put yourself in that person's shoes", is the key to a successful design. In an age where everyone is talking, mostly through social media, Elizabeth has been listening. She takes what she hears from the users and stakeholders, and removes or diminishes the problems these people face with designs that are thoughtful, easy-to-use, fun, and pretty. She employs that same lesson when managing others as well and believes that kindness is the greatest illustration of strength.

In addition, Elizabeth has guided large organizations by educating leaders on the nuances of the UX process and advising them on how best to implement this practice into their current delivery methodology.

Elizabeth started using Axure in 2008 and was happy that Axure allowed her to demonstrate her vision by creating interactivity without having to code and without having to use words to sell her designs; the design and experience spoke for themselves. She met Ezra in February 2009, and in the following years, they collaborated on how best to optimize Axure, often discussing and debating the evolution of the UX practice.

Elizabeth is a devoted practitioner and teacher of Ashtanga yoga. Practicing yoga has allowed her to be more creative and handle the stressors of work with poise.