Our work toward making our products and experiences more inclusive can’t just be considered at the end of the design process; it’s foundational. As designers, we’re well-positioned to push for positive change, but it’s not always easy. I’ll speak about my experience creating a non-binary persona for a Fortune 500 technology company, from initial ideation and development through high-stakes deliverables. When we build inclusive foundations, we empower ourselves and others to build inclusive experiences and products. Learning Objectives Inclusivity can’t be an afterthought, it has to come from the ground up As designers we’re well-placed to push for positive change,... Read More
The Japanese Wikipedia is the most visited language in Wikipedia after the English Wikipedia. Increasingly, it’s contributing to the rise of historical revisionism in the country. On the pages of particularly sensitive historical topics, Japanese Wikipedia tends to exclude important information inconvenient to the Japanese public and/or include inaccurate and biased information. In other words, many of the articles whitewash war crimes by spreading disinformation. A similar trend exists in other languages, such as Croatian Wikipedia. It has received attention from international media for promoting a fascist worldview and historical revisionism. Non-English Wikipedia communities such as a Japanese and Croatian... Read More
Asking “why” in design critiques invariably puts the designer into a defensive position: “Why did you do it this way?” or worse “Why _didn’t_ you do it that way?”. Rather than explaining their design, “why” questions force a designer to justify them. This can lead to tension and bruised egos, but rarely to better design. If designers are working closely with developers in an iterative Agile environment, hostile design reviews just create friction. Rather than finding the best solutions, daily scrum and/or design review sessions turn into a turf war over ideas. This workshop is a hands-on tutorial for designers... Read More
Human dignity, however you define it, should be a fundamental quality of any designer. Companies now recognize, great design involves far more than just meeting functional or business needs. It needs to engage the human experience in new, unexpected ways. We should design things so that people can use them without stress or friction. That goal is not mutually exclusive from the business goals; on the contrary, it will probably enhance them. Through this process, human dignity needs to be considered and supported. In this conversation, Branco Kuznar and DeWayne Esson will share ways on how to: Respect and advocate... Read More
Far too many of our nation’s best and brightest tech professionals work as hard as they can to advance their careers without really understanding how important it is to build their value and communicate their worth. It’s time to teach these professionals how to work smarter, not just harder, to become more effective and invaluable to the companies they work with. Lauren shares her personal story of going from zero network, zero skills, and zero job prospects to becoming a highly valued, top engineer with global connections in just two short years. You’ll come away with steps you can take... Read More
A deep understanding of your target market’s needs across all phases of the journey from non-customer to customer is the starting point for treating customers with dignity. This is also the most direct path to delivering positive business outcomes. However, current UX research focusing on product user interactions is often conducted in silos and disconnected from its business impact, which puts the value of research and the UX function at risk in the long term. Companies wanting to gain a competitive edge need high-quality insights from an integrated research plan in which market research and UX research provide different perspectives... Read More
Dan Berlin moderates a panel of authors from the O’REILLY book called 97 Things UX Practitioners Should Know. It is an Amazon bestseller in many different categories. The authors will discuss a variety of topics including user research, design, strategy, usability, design operations, and more. It is your chance to bring your burning questions to a panel of experts, who will share their experience and knowledge. The panel has worked with some of the biggest brands you can imagine.
We are more than our resumes. Each of us has a story to tell about where we started and how we got to where we are today. Our work, our friends, and our contribution tell us more about our “self” than our resumes and portfolios. Join Joe Meersman for some lessons learned in the first 20 years of a career spanning office furniture, wearables, police cars, waste disposal, artificial intelligence, insurance, IoT, and International Business Machinery. In this talk, you will learn: Common early career mistakes for practitioners to avoid Discuss mid-career patterns and anti-patterns Ways to improve our design... Read More
There are more than 60 designers at DataArt, all of them distributed between Russia, Ukraine, Argentina, and other countries. Sometimes, we staff the project with several designers, who barely know each other, or come from various locations. Often it leads to the fact that opinionated and experienced people start arguing over UX decisions. How to avoid this? What types of designers’ conflicts do we typically face? We’ll talk about this, including a few real cases, and polishing the topic with a little bit of theory on psychology and anthropology. In this talk, you will learn: Hiring talent and working in... Read More
As designers, we take pride in what we do. Creating experiences to improve the lives of many despite the constraints of budgets, technology, and the like. Designers of marginalized backgrounds design & exist in an industry that begs to be reinvented while battling the constraints of the social system we know as the workplace. So, without a title how can we facilitate change? In this talk, we will reframe challenges within our social systems, from revealing opportunities for individual growth to harnessing the courage to ask for change within your organization. In this talk, your key takeaways include: How the... Read More
When going from zero to one with a new feature, product, or service, it is crucial to find out if your solution is useful before ensuring that it is usable. Designers can increase their influence and inspire stakeholder confidence by testing out the “what” before researching the “how.” In this talk, I will walk you through a case study on concept testing, and how my team was able acquire funding by proving out a big customer need in the market. In this talk, you will learn these things: Find out if a customer problem is big enough to merit an... Read More
We’re now living in a time when the ease-of-use, or “user-friendliness,” of the feature sets that operationalize most of the interactions that transpire across our favorite apps and websites are so well-designed that most of those who use them don’t have to think too deeply about how they work, or how they do what they do so efficiently and effectively. Because these users—who are also commonly referred to by people outside design classrooms and consultancies as folks, families, populations, societies, and communities—don’t have to think too much or too deeply about how the smart technologies they use help them engage... Read More
Unless you work for a mature organization which has systematically internalized UX Research, justifying the need for research dollars is something most senior researchers have had to go through at least once in their career, if not more. It is indeed an uneasy feeling to know that I, the researcher, need to take it on myself to justify the value of a scientific profession that produces thousands of MS and PhD graduates every year. This is particularly hard when working with business stakeholders who take pride in their ‘gut’ decision making. The sparse nature of public information on research’s direct impact... Read More
Racism Untaught is focused on cultivating learning environments for people to further explore issues of race and racism, from the obvious to the invisible. Racism Untaught is a framework that was inspired by the need to incorporate design-led interventions into the design research process to assists participants in identifying racialized design and critically assess anti-racist design approaches. Developed by Lisa Elzey Mercer and Terresa Moses, this toolkit is meant for educators, students, and organizations interested in uncovering design that perpetuates elements of racism and creating artifacts, systems, and/or experiences that help re-imagine racialized design. Mercer and Moses will share how the... Read More
During last year’s conference, I spoke about getting a seat at the table through UX measurement. The title of the talk was: “Seat at the table: can’t spell executive without UX” This year I’ll present a short summary of last year’s talk and will present the wins and challenges of having and maintaining a seat at the table. I’ll share success stories along with sentiments from Adobe and Kimberly-Clark to mention a few. Kimberly-Clark, details how a single UX score was shared with stakeholders and proved how UX research can impact business outcomes. Now measuring UX is a table steak,... Read More
Ask me 5 years ago what I would be doing in 5 years and leading a design team at Intuit probably would not have been one of those options. To many UX professionals our fork in the road often consists of staying true as an individual contributor or managing a team. Many a times UX professionals faced with this juncture are overcome with uncertainty or shrouded with imposter syndrome. But our superpowers as UX professionals can help to overcome these reservations and lead you to designing a high performing UX team.
Toxicity is so widespread in our online communities, it is hard to imagine a future without it. Multiplayer gaming is no different, but our research points to a solution: gamers are designers! For the love of the game and for self-preservation, many gamers bypass existing tools, and instead stitch together the safe spaces and friendly online communities they need. Utilizing a jumble of communication tools, gamers choose when to hide or reveal layers of their personal identities based on comfort level. Gamers are already designing systems with flexible, activity-based self-representation as a route to safer online communication–as designers and researchers,... Read More
Designing for Dignity — effectively, consistently, and at scale — requires a full toolkit of experience standards, governance, and training. The problem? Developing such a toolkit consumes tons of time and energy. In practice, most teams end up putting “real work” first. Try our Adopt/Adapt method instead! Adopt existing free/open/public domain principles, methods, guides, and toolkits, then Adapt them to your organization’s needs. This flexible Adopt/Adapt strategy moves your experience practice forward by leaps and bounds — while making an immediate difference for your users and contributors. We’ll share a case study of how we’re leveraging Adopt and Adapt to... Read More
This talk will highlight the UX work of the Queer Global team to design for dignity in the specific areas of accessibility and universal design, and design ethics, strategy, and integration. In this case study, we will how a globally diverse team of people collaborating across the globe to ensure a respectful, usable experience for our customers, users, and team. Queer Global, a NY-based organization, is dedicated to helping under-represented people, both in and out of the rainbow umbrella, gain a sense of dignity, relief, and inclusivity by providing a single platform offering links to resources, surgeons, doctors, and therapists,... Read More
One of the UX Designer’s primary roles to not generate all the ideas, but to cultivate ideas from all of the various stakeholders in a project. Early on in my career, I thought I had to be the source of all the design ideas. I later learned that this was an incorrect assumption because great ideas come from everyone. In this talk, we will learn how to have a healthy perspective of our own ideas, how to make sure other’s ideas are included, and how to successfully work through disagreements over ideas. This talk will be focused on cultivating ideas... Read More
Join Robert Half’s A.J. Simon and Soowan Scheuermann for a lively discussion with a panel of experts about how to design for dignity in the modern workplace. We will hear from Trina Uzee and Kimberly Walsh about the current trends they see and discuss strategies to adapt to them. You will get the opportunity to provide your own questions, too.
We have told ourselves and each other for years that we should be happy with small victories — we worked with our teams to make the world a little more accessible. And yes, knowing that we made a difference is both motivating and professionally satisfying. But what happens when that isn’t enough? How can we measure our work? How do we know we are getting better at practicing our craft? The answer lies in how we actually do the work, because how we do the work actually matters.
Jan Ballard leads a discussion on o mentorship case study of an ongoing industry/academic program in Dallas–Fort Worth that brings professionals at Dialexa together with eager students in design, tech, business, and engineering to problem solve real-world projects in an eight-week, sprint-based experience. Students get experience, while professionals mentor young professionals. It is a way to quickly move from campus to career. Plus, companies get to identify key talent at local universities before they graduate. In this session, the discussion will include: How to leverage mid-career and seasoned professionals in a mentoring relationship with area college students to create learning... Read More
Design thinking and user research are increasingly standardized, predictable, and “deliverable” in their methodology. As designers, we reference precise Venn diagrams that show the intersection of users, organizations, and systems—we tell our clients that that sweet spot in the middle is where great products are built. Or we show them aspirational pyramids that exhibit experience-driven products at the peak—those are the products that become meaningful and pleasurable, we explain. But what happens if those neatly crafted circles are actually so fractured that the sweet spot only exists for a select few? Or if the organization’s resources are so thin that... Read More
What is more important to you? a. Designing a delightful user experience b. Self-love, intimacy, peace, and freedom If your answer is the latter, join Preet Dalal in a session that’s half opinion talk, half interactive sticky-noting workshop, in which you’ll learn how to think beyond your career to meaningfully redesign your own life with dignity and self-respect. Learning Objective Learn to use the UX design process beyond just your career, in order to meaningfully redesign your own life Equip yourself with a new lens of design to tackle personal challenge Consider a love-centric philosophy of design more relevant to... Read More