After the success of our first UX Bournemouth event back in October last year, we decided to pull together another lineup of outstanding UX speakers and treat you all to some food as well as a drink this time around. We had double the number of attendees this time too so thank you for supporting the event, and to those of you who came to the first UX Bournemouth – thank you for helping spread the word about our growing UX community. Our three speakers – Dave McRobbie, Adrian Howard and Conor Ward – took us on a journey through Donald Trump’s Twitter antics, the UX of management, and what a revolution in the luggage industry can tell us about UX.
We’ve summarised the key themes from each of the talks below, in case you missed out or simply want a refresher after one too many beers.
The Ethics of User Experience by Dave McRobbie
The Ethics of User Experience by @DaveMcRob
Dave stepped up first with the bold statement that Donald Trump is the best thing to happen to digital in 20 years (hear him out). He talked about the ethics of UX and why we need to stand up and speak out when we see things that aren’t right, even if they’re not directly in our remit. He pointed out that Donald Trump is actually galvanising the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon into doing something more exciting, and potentially more ethical, which could be positive for digital as a sector. And he firmly believes the future of digital relies on UX.
The UX of Management by Adrian Howard
The UX of Management by @adrianh
Next up was Adrian, who took us on a foray into the world of management – and how it’s a very difficult place to be if you end up there seemingly by accident. Specifically, he showed us how the UX skills you use day in, day out can translate into skills that will make you an excellent manager. One of the key takeaways from his presentation was to view your staff as the users and treat meetings as user research sessions – active listening, storytelling and reflection all have a place here.
The Future of Usability Testing by Conor Ward
We rounded off the evening with a passionate presentation from Conor, who explained why behavioural science and cognitive science are the fundamental building blocks for good UX. He stressed the importance of gathering facts through user research, and pointed out that lab testing can only tell you whether users can do something, not whether they will.
He took us on a tour of the British Gas user testing lab, walking us through all 16 iterations so far. Conor even provided us with a host of practical tips on running a usability testing session, ranging from asking stakeholders what questions they want answered before you talk to customers, to only writing one observation per post-it note, and, of course, always peeling your post-its from left to right, not top to bottom.
We’ve made the presentation slides from Dave and Adrian available to download. Unfortunately we’re not able to share Conor’s slide deck with you – but you can find out more about his exciting work at British Gas if you read our UX Insider interview with him. If you don’t want to miss out next time around, make sure you buy a ticket for our next event!
You can also see what the people from our UX community thought on the night by taking a look at Twitter (#uxbournemouth). And the winner of our awesome prize for the best Tweet goes to Anthony Story with:
The most excited anyone has ever been about Post It notes @UXMuch. Genuinely! #uxbournemouth. Pink one especially pic.twitter.com/rF4dMSit8E
— anthony story (@anthonystory) February 21, 2017
The presentation slides from Adrian and Dave, are available to download on SlideShare, 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, out next meet up will be on the 3rd July and we’re hoping for even bigger and better this time. For more information, see our Eventbrite page. Let us know if you’d like us to keep you informed of what’s coming up so you can get in on the action next time around, or get in touch if you’d like to be one of our speakers and share your UX wisdom with the world, well Bournemouth.
