Thursday marked the end of the four-day event Interaction13 held in Toronto, Canada. MFA Design Co-chair, Lita Talarico and Senior Systems Administrator, Ron Callahan attended the official conference of IxDA the Interaction Design Association. The organization was celebrating its 10th anniversary and its 6th annual conference with a lineup of interaction designers, user experience experts and start-up mavens.

Some of the highlights of the conference…

Jer Thorpe started off the second day by showing beautiful data visualization projects. Mr.Thorpe talked about Data & the Human Experience. The notion of data ownership, first party access and building a personal relationship with our data is intriguing. He concluded with three things to think about — data ethics, date ownership and data possibility. @blprnt

Tuesday evening was hosted by SVA’s MFA Interaction Design Department. Samples of one student’s products coastermatic were distributed, drinks were had and the MFA IxD students and Chair Liz Danzico had the chance to talk about their program to 800 attendees.

Ron Goldin from Studio Akko gave a great talk about design in the mobile start up world. He offered invaluable advice for those creating mobile apps form the perspective of someone that was consulted in developing apps like Instagram and foodspotting. @akko

Trip Odell senior interface designer for audible. Spoke about how the brain works and how to design for the brain’s limitations, including the need to understand how an app can be used more safely in the real world particularly in a moving vehicle. @tripodell

Dan Saffer’s talk focused on micro interactions. He offered up good advice about bringing important data forward, using what is often overlooked, what’s already there and most important the idea of “being human” and increasing the joy. @odannyboy

Paul Adams gave an overview of what’s going on at Facebook and how everything is about designing systems. @Padday