Sorry about this being last minute - the about, with and for conference is currently taking place in Chicago (October 6-7):
"about, with & for is a collaborative forum hosted by the Institute of Design to discuss emerging topics, methods and issues in design research"
The conference includes a workshop by Michael Flanagan of Bressler Group on creating hybrid user/design research tools and a presentation by Stephen Wilcox, PhD, IDSA on pairing information graphics with ethnographic research.
