We hosted our first-ever one day UX Insider conference last week (16 October). It was a full day of excellent speakers interspersed with coffee and delicious treats, that got everyone talking and left us all with loads to think about.
Our UX Bournemouth events have been very popular and that’s what inspired us to create our first ever full day conference. It was great to see over 100 people with a passion for UX join us at Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth and we’re proud of the UX community we’re building regionally.
Overall, there was a wealth of incredible content in every presentation, and we’d like to thank all our speakers for taking the time to share their knowledge with us. Here’s a very brief roundup of the content to refresh your memory – or show you what you missed.
Jonny Rae-Evans (Big Lottery Fund) – The Death of Intent
We kicked off the day with a vibrant presentation from Jonny Rae-Evans, Head of Product Innovation at the Big Lottery Fund. His thought-provoking talk about design ethics asked us to consider the intent behind designs as well as the impact they have, both good and bad. It was a great topic to start with and one that framed the rest of the day.
Rob Johnson – How Does User Research Work For Video Games: An Insight Into Testing At Sony Interactive Entertainment
Next on the stage was Rob Johnson, Manager of the User Research Team for Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. He offered us a fascinating insight into user research for video games, taking us on a virtual tour of their user testing facility and explaining how they measure the highly subjective concept of fun.
Damian Rees (Experience UX) – Understanding human behaviour to improve user adoption
Experience UX’s Co-founder and Director Damian Rees delivered an insightful talk about human behaviour and its impact on the adoption of services and products. A key takeaway from his presentation was to think about technology as an enabler rather than a starting point.
Anna Dahlström (UX Fika) – The role of narrative structure in experience design
UX Consultant Anna Dahlström explored the role of narrative structure in experience design. She revealed that every page or service has a story, and as UX designers it’s our role to find that story and tell it effectively to our users. Anna also shared some tips on how to apply cinematography principles to UX design.
[slides coming soon!]Paul Boag – How to Spark a User Experience Revolution
Paul Boag, a leader in the field of digital transformation, rounded off the day with a lively presentation on how to start a user experience revolution in your organisation. He talked about the challenge of bringing about change in organisations established in the pre-digital age, but gave us hope that it is possible if you play the long game. And he offered us ten(ish) quickfire suggestions on how to do just that.
Please note that the following speakers are unable to share their slides due to company policy:
James Lang (Google) – Research Smarter, not harder
James Lang is Lead Researcher for Google’s publisher products and is co-author of Researching UX: User Research . He shared his years of experience about what works for him when getting a wider organisation to buy into and embrace user research. He stressed the importance of building relationships, earning trust and balancing idealism with pragmatism in the world of user research. He also got us all talking about what works for us.
David Harding (The Home Office)- How we use Research Ops to help good research happen and get heard at the Home Office
David Harding is Research Ops Lead at the Home Office and he talked us through the creation of the Home Office’s research repository. He stressed that getting your files in order is just one part of the picture. Analysing that data to find insights and ensuring these land at the right level in the organisation is where the real value in this tool lies.
Brooke Baldwin (Facebook)- Research in Emerging Markets – an insider’s view
Brooke Baldwin, UX Researcher for Emerging Markets at Facebook gave us a fascinating insight into the incredible level of prep required to conduct research in emerging markets and offered practical tips from her 18 years as a researcher on how to make things run as smoothly as possible.
UX Insider Chosen Charities
In a departure from offering the usual conference goodie bags, we instead decided we’d make a charity donation of £500. Throughout the day we showed videos about projects being run by three charities using technology for good and asked all attendees to vote on which cause they’d like the donation to go to.
The choices were: TIP: helping parents feel confident and capable in the first 1,000 days; Addaction: growing our online support service; and The Children’s Society: VR With You. Each cause will receive a share of the donation based on the number of votes it received. The top choice was The Children’s Society (49%) followed by TIP (31%) and finally Addaction (20%).
What’s next?
We hope that you were all inspired by our speakers and look forward to hearing how you’ll continue to bring your passion for UX to your work. Don’t forget to share your thoughts and see what the UX community thought of our UX Insider conference (#uxinsider2018) on Twitter.
We’ll be back in the new year with our next UX Bournemouth event – keep an eye on our blog for details and to find out when tickets go on sale. We’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to speak at one of our future events, so please get in touch if you’d like to share your knowledge with the wider UX community. Email the team here: uxinsider@experienceux.co.uk
