Last night we ran our first ever UX event in Bournemouth. Our aim was to bring the UX community on the south coast together, and watching everyone chatting at the bar and enjoying a few drinks together it looks like we’ve made a good start!
So a big thank you to everyone who came along and supported the event. We hope you found it as useful, fun and thought provoking as we did.
Our three speakers – Jason Buck, Damian Rees and Nick Fine – gave us plenty to think and talk about, including what personality type Han Solo has, why the Telegraph found user testing with drunk people so enlightening, and why some people think we’re heading for a UX recession.
In case you missed out and are wondering what on earth we’re talking about, we’ve summarised the key themes from each talk below.
Stakeholder-Centred Design by Jason Buck
Jason kicked the evening off by telling us a story about stakeholder-centric design. It was fascinating to take a step back and look at the UX process from a stakeholder’s perspective. Don’t misunderstand, he wasn’t advocating doing exactly what stakeholders ask for and ignoring users – he very articulately explained the value of engaging stakeholders in the UX process, as well as highlighting the need for clear communication with the stakeholders in any project so that they understand what you’re doing and why it matters to their business.
Stakeholder-Centred Design by @jasonbuck
8 Steps to Great UX by Damian Rees
Then followed our very own Damian, who provided us with insights about how to become a better UXer. He distilled it down into eight key points (many taken from his UX Insider interview series), which included asking more questions (including the ‘stupid’ ones), the need for humility, and the value of performing user testing in real-world environments with people who are fully engaged in the process.
8 steps to great UX by @damianrees
The State of UX in the UK by Nick Fine
We rounded things off with a charismatic and colourful look at the state of the UX industry from Nick Fine. He was very clear that everything he said was based on his own opinion, delving into areas that are fundamental to our profession, including pinning down a definition of UX, looking at how UX roles and responsibilities have changed (not always for the better) and why we can all learn something from psychologists.
The State of UX in the UK by @doctorfine
The presentation slides from all our speakers are available to download here, whether you’d like a refresher of what you heard last night, or want to see what you missed.If you weren’t able to join us last night, don’t worry as we plan to host more UX meetups. Let us know if you’d like us to keep you in the loop about what’s coming up, or if you’d like to be a speaker at one of our future events.
