Auto Trader’s Content Design team goes on tour: Running a workshop at UX Copenhagen
By Demi Daniels and Rachael Edwards
We may be a tiny, team of two (for now), but the humble Auto Trader Content Design team has always had big ambition. Let us walk you through our experience of applying for and presenting at an international conference.
Spoiler alert: It was easier than you might think!
It all started with a simple tweet
Demi here!
Let me set the scene; it was a late night in August 2022. It had been a few months since Rachael and I did our first talk at ATCon (AKA Auto Trader’s internal conference) where we spoke all about all things Content Design to about 200 of our colleagues.
Now, I’m not normally one to scroll through Twitter much, in fact the only tweets I typically send are to get in touch with airlines when something goes wrong with a flight. But one random night I found myself scrolling, when I came across this tweet from Helle Martens, calling out for speakers.
Flashback to the days right after ATCon. We had sent out a feedback form and we already started chatting about what we would do differently and how we could expand it. When I saw this tweet, the first thing I thought was a slack message we got from a developer who attended our conference. We worked with him every day, seeing him in stand ups, around the office and for kick-offs and retros and he was surprised to actually learn what our roles were.
If we worked with him every day and he was surprised by what we did, surely there are more developers, designers and UX folks out there who would find it interesting as well?
I figured I had nothing to lose, so I sent Helle (who I would later find out is the fantastic, talented organiser of UX Copenhagen) a message on LinkedIn. I introduced myself and really just put it all out there; we’re really interested in speaking at the conference.
I told Helle we wanted to iterate on our original talk and expand it, and that we could talk about:
- What UX Content Design is
- How we work with UX/Product Designers
- Bringing accessibility to the forefront of what we do (reading age, etc.)
- A case study focusing on designing a finance journey and application
- All with tips and tools attendees could use straight away
I sent the message and didn’t think much more of it. I had sent a few talk proposals in the past, and never heard back. In fact, I didn’t even let Rach know. Better to get someone excited when we know a little more, right?
Five days later, a lovely little notification popped up in my LinkedIn inbox, Helle responded! She wanted to chat about the conference in November and she thought we might be a great fit for her conference in Copenhagen in March.
YAY! Now was the time to let Rachael know what I’ve been up to.
A few slack messages later and we were both equally excited. Could we actually do an external, international conference? Luckily, we had each other to help push our imposter syndrome down.
We met with Helle a few weeks later and had a lovely conversation about expectations on both sides. It seemed a little too soon for the November conference, but Helle was very keen for us to adapt our talk into a workshop for UX Copenhagen.
Next up was convincing our line managers to give us the time and support to go to Copenhagen and deliver a workshop. Full of nerves, we jotted down a bullet point list of talking points to describe the benefits for both the business and us as individuals…and it turns out, it wasn’t really needed.
We ran through our pitch with Lee and Chris and their smiles said it all, they were really happy for us and would do anything they could to support us. Chris needed to take it a little further up the chain to our CTO to get the sign off, which happened just a few days later.
Copenhagen, here we come!
The run-up: Building, rehearsing, and rehearsing some more
Landing the gig was one thing.
Building a whole new workshop almost from scratch was a whole other challenge.
We were determined on three things: Our workshop was going to be fun, educational, and full of tips that people could take away and actually use. We kept coming back to those three ‘essentials’ throughout our planning process, just to make sure they were there.
We already had the foundations to build on: The conference’s theme of ‘Invisibility’, our passion for accessibility, and the rough idea that we wanted to talk about how content design can make experiences more inclusive.
The next step was to build a structure for the workshop itself. And to decide what the interactive ‘workshop’ elements would be.
So we called upon our trusty planning friend, Miro, to begin the build.
First, we designed the workshop
With the help of Miro we were able to create a rough structure and block out chunks of time for each task. From there, we could plan the tasks themselves and start designing the fun resource bits (with the invaluable help of our design guardian angel, Lauren Digby).
These resources included a fake website called ‘Auto Deal’ (which we deliberately designed to be a complete tram smash), a checklist for creating inclusive content, plus an imaginary French friend called Tom the Baker (yes, really).
Next was the tasks themselves.
We designed them to have plenty of variety, including conversational pair work, a real-time whole group writing task, then a bit of individual working for the important stuff.
Our aim here was to keep the audience engaged and invested, while encouraging a social, team-like atmosphere amongst the group that would mimic the sense of community we enjoy here in our design team at Auto Trader.
Did it work? You’ll find out later.
Then we rehearsed … a lot
We love a good rehearsal here in Content Design. We did several run-throughs ahead of our 2022 debut on stage at our annual Auto Trader Conference, and it turned out to be invaluable.
This time around we were blessed to have access to even better rehearsal opportunities. Firstly, we had our external Content Design mentor who we could present our plans to and get some useful feedback on content, ordering and general quality. This meant we could make some essential tweaks before the next step …
… which was running full practice-runs of the workshop itself in the Auto Trader office. We invited a group of 15 colleagues from across the UX and marketing teams — we wanted a mix of people who would be interested in UX and content — and ran the workshop as if it was the real deal.
And the team really came through for us! They all got stuck in, engaged with the activities and gave us some incredible feedback that we could use to improve the workshop. From there, we made lots of tweaks and went back in for round two with a fresh batch of colleagues. This meant we could test out the new and improved version, fine-tune it, and gather last-minute feedback once again, before the big day.
And just like that, we were ready to go!
The big day arrives
Fast forward to the 22nd of March and we’re huddled together in the hotel lobby bar, bleary-eyed and exhausted after a bumpy flight (and a touch of food poisoning…). We’re having one final run-through before the big day, and it’s starting to feel very real indeed. At last we shut our laptops and agree that what will be, will be. We’re ready, let’s do it.
How it went
The morning of the 23rd of March arrives and we head over to the venue — a huge new eco-friendly cinema called Big Bio on the outskirts of the city of Copenhagen.
And what do we see?
Our faces smiling back at us from the digital movie posters outside the cinema! It was like being famous for a day.
We also can’t ignore the fact that Demi was accidentally made an honorary Dane, thanks to an amusing typo on her name badge.
Our workshop was set for immediately after lunch (so we didn’t eat much, thanks nerves!). But this did give us plenty of time to get set up, and it was quite a setup! As the venue was a cinema, we were running our workshop in a huge movie theatre in front of a giant screen.
We weren’t sure what to expect attendance-wise, as people were free to make a choice between 5 different workshops that afternoon. In the end we had a relatively small group of people, but this turned out to be a great thing. Our workshop was designed to be interactive — involving conversations and group tasks — so having a smaller group seemed to create a more comfortable atmosphere for our guests, which encouraged them to join in.
As we got stuck into the workshop and people started joining in with lots of enthusiasm, the nerves slowly melted away and we found our rhythm. The tasks flowed nicely, people were asking great questions throughout (which we were thankfully able to answer!) and the hour and a half absolutely FLEW by.
The feedback
Before we knew it, it was the end of the workshop, people were applauding, and we got the opportunity to ask for feedback. Luckily, the morning session of the conference had included a fantastic talk by an author and UX lead named David de Leon (look him up, he’s great), all about the gentle art of feedback.
He gave a great tip for asking for feedback, which was to ask people to answer two simple questions:
- Name one thing you would keep
- Name one thing you would change
Easy peasy. So, we took the advice and asked our audience for this exact feedback, which turned out to be very helpful! Not to blow the proverbial trumpet, but we did get some wonderful feedback. Overall, people loved how interactive it was, they felt the tasks built upon one another nice and naturally, and the tools and resources were really helpful.
One person even said our workshop was one of the main reasons they bought a ticket to the whole conference! (We’re not crying, you’re crying).
And the things people would change? Very little, thankfully! A couple of people felt the amount of time given to complete the bigger tasks was a little too long, so we’ve already changed that.
And some people wanted to see real-world website examples of the non-inclusive language we were demonstrating, which is a great idea and something we’re definitely going to look into.
All in all, the day felt like a big success for us personally. We were exhausted, but so happy to have done it.
So, what’s next?
After all the excitement it was time to get down to a bit of socialising and networking with our fellow speakers and attendees of the conference. And, through this, it became clear that a few people had wanted to attend our workshop but weren’t able to. (We were up against LEGO and Microsoft, after all…)
But this was so encouraging to hear. And it prompted us to chat to Helle and suggest we do a re-run of the workshop online for those who had missed it.
Helle was all for it, and we’ve had 21 people sign up so far! We’ll need to make some slight adaptations to make the workshop remote-friendly (plus some tweaks we gathered from feedback on the day), but we’re super excited to run it. After that, we may open it up further to a wider audience, who knows?
What’s more, we also got chatting to another of our fellow speakers, and she has invited us to adapt our workshop into a talk for her network of UX professionals in the United States. We were honoured, quite frankly, and of course we’ll be doing it!
And we’re not stopping there. We’re looking into the possibility of adding our workshop to Auto Trader’s internal Learning Academy, so people at Auto Trader can sign up to attend future renditions of the workshop.
In other words, this conference has had an enormous impact, and we’re so excited to see what happens in the future.
Even though the conference is over, we are just getting started
We can confidently say if you’re thinking about going for something outside of your comfort zone, just do it. We were very unsure about everything when we sent that proposal, but looking back it’s one of the proudest moments of our career. If we can do it, you can do it! We thought we would leave you with some final thoughts from the both of us…
Demi:
Wow, what an experience. I was absolutely buzzing when we got home from Copenhagen. Rach and I are two career-changers, and five years ago I would have said there is no way to standing up in front of UX professionals to talk about content design and inclusive language. It feels like an absolute win.
I actually was in so much disbelief when Helle first offered us the spot, I did a ton of research into the history of the conference and a deep dive on her LinkedIn to make sure we weren’t being catfished! So imagine my surprise when it comes out at the conference that she received over 500 talk proposals!
I feel so thankful to Helle for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to speak about something we’re passionate about. I’m also very thankful that we had UX Copenhagen attendees who chose to attend our event, as that was also a big worry we had.
I feel so proud to work for Auto Trader, who sponsored us to do this. Not just our managers, but the whole design team who helped in so many different ways, we really are each other’s hype-people! I can’t wait to get stuck in and continue to iterate on the workshop and run it with the groups we’ve mentioned.
Rach:
All I can think about is what a privilege this was. To get the opportunity, supported by Auto Trader, to travel abroad and talk about our passions is something I never thought possible when I first set out as a Content Designer. The impact on my own self-esteem and career confidence has been enormous, and it’s made me realise that I’m capable of so much more.
Since the conference, I’ve been back on stage at our most recent Auto Trader Conference and have already recorded my first Auto Trader podcast episode with the Accessibility team. Two things I probably wouldn’t have agreed to do without the recent boost the UX Copenhagen experience gave me. Would you believe I’m actually a shy, nervous little thing with chronic imposter syndrome?Shout out to Demi for finding this opportunity, and for keeping me brave along the way!
And one last thing. I would encourage anyone at Auto Trader who fancies pushing themselves for a bit of a challenge to keep an eye out for speaking opportunities like this. It doesn’t have to be in another country, and it doesn’t have to be huge, and all it takes is one conversation with your manager to get the ball rolling, and Auto Trader will support you the whole way. I simply cannot emphasise enough just how beneficial these things can be for personal and career development, so go go go!
