Trent Mankelow
Trent Mankelow is the co-founder and CEO of Optimal Usability, a New Zealand-based design and research consultancy. Since 2002 Optimal Usability has observed over 5,000 people interacting with all sorts of touchpoints, including websites, paper forms, kiosks, websites and IVR systems. For their next trick, Optimal Usability are jumping the sigmoid curve to become service designers.
Trent knew he wanted to be a computer programmer when he was 11-years-old, but that’s probably because no-one had told him that there was such a thing as a usability consultant. In fact, it wasn’t until he was four years into his degree that he found his calling thanks to an introductory paper in HCI. Since then he hasn’t stopped complaining about poorly designed lifts, doors and ATMs. He’s the life of any party.
He has a love affair with South America and has visited six times.