Auto Trader Design Talks — Design Culture

In December last year we hosted our first in-person Auto Trader Design Talks. This event brought together people from the design community in Manchester for an evening of great food, drinks, and interesting talks around design culture.

Culture and values are what set businesses aside, but how does design culture play a part? During this event we explored design culture at some of the UKs leading organisations to find out about the importance of design culture and how it impacts and empowers our people.

We were privileged to be joined by Kimberley Bottomley (On the Beach), Sian Cummins (BT) and designers Lee Jeffery & Kate Southern from Auto Trader.

Also a huge thank you to our hosts Gabbie Johnson and Demi Daniels.

For anyone who wasn’t able to join, or equally anyone who watched the talks live and would like a reminder or reference, the talks from Kim, Sian, Lee and Kate are available below.

Beyond the pixels — Creating a culture that empowers your design team

Product designers Kate Southern and Lee Jeffery share insights into life at Auto Trader and talk through the key areas which enable us to empower our designers and researchers.

Cultivating Culture: Planting seeds for success

Kimberley Bottomley, Head of Design & Research at On the Beach, will share her thoughts on growing team culture and the areas she focuses on for helping support and create harmony within her team.

Happy designers, happy users

Creating trust for users in our products means creating psychological safety for designers to work. As designers, our work aims to reduce cognitive load on users and win their comfort and trust. To do exceptional design work, we need to do the same for our designers. Sian Cummins, Content Design Manager explains how they do that at BT.

Thanks to everyone who attended the evening, it was nice to meet fellow ux professionals and was a great opportunity to chat and share experiences.

Keep an eye out for more Design Talks in 2023.