UX Camp Brighton 2018
24 March 2018, The Skiff, Brighton
I always enjoy the annual UX Camp Brighton unconference, and this year’s was no exception.
With over forty sessions scheduled up in the morning’s grid scramble, obviously I only attended a small slice of the day — but here are a few takeaways from the sessions I did get to see.
Personal View of Sketching, Ayşe Kongur (@kongroove)
Ayşe gave a passionate slide-free talk about what sketching means to her — along with examples from old sketchbooks.
My take away: Ayşe talked about how the process of sketching helps her remember the time, place and people where she drew. This rang really true to me — and reminded me about how the sketches in my notebooks help me recall context.
Ethical Products Start with Us, Irina Rusakova (@irrusakova)
Irina’s session walked us through some nice examples around the topic of ethics and inclusive design.
My take away: Irina’s “You don’t need permission to think ethically” struck home. So many of my conversations around research ethics with product folk face the problem of ethics being seen as somebody else’s job. Like Papanek’s myth of the designer’s lack of control Irina reminded us that it’s our responsibility.
Stop Thinking Forms, Start Thinking Conversations! Rachel McConnell (@Minette_78)
Through some room confusion I missed the first few minutes of Rachel’s talk — which was a pity, since her stories about the importance of content and content folk were great.
My take away: The importance of getting content folk involved at all stages of the product development process. This topic came up a lot in her Q&A with people’s experiences of dealing with this in different organisations.
Create Empathy and Break Hierarchies, Charlotte Breton Schreiner (@bretonsch)
Charlotte talked us through some examples of her user research work at Trussle. Making the transition from stopping bad experiences to creating good ones by breaking up silos, and exposing the teams to the end-user’s experiences.
My take away: How useful Charlotte found having an explicit UX Coach role. Somebody in-house spending time getting non-UX folk to facilitate user research, not just participate in it as an observer / notetaker. So many companies are resistant to this sort of cross-training, so it’s nice to hear success stories.
Lunch
Lunch. Lunch was good.
Polish Your Diamond: Get Creative in Idea Generation, Zan Sum (@zansum)
Zan talked about ways to encourage discovery and creativity in your organisation. It was good to see a mention of the old Fluency, Originality, Flexibility & Elaboration scales from the 50s Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking — just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s useless.
My take away: Imagery Treks sound like they might be a fun way to get some inspiration. They’re now on my list of things to try.
Evaluative Research Using Diary Studies, Carmen Brion (@tea_monster)
Carmen’s talks are always good — and this was no exception. A neat little case study on how useful she found diary study research when evaluating the early versions of a mobile app.
My take away: Too often diary studies and customer interviews get ignored completely, or only ever used during early discovery phases in product development. This drove home how useful these practices are throughout product and service development.
Simple Speaking Simply, Rebecca Hugo (@becstex)
An excellent talk from Rebecca on semantics and the importance of the words we use — including a mention of that lovely research Elizabeth Loftus & John Palmer did in the 70s on how the questions we ask can change how people recall events.
My take away: I loved Rebecca’s “Could this be a trap?” question to challenge questionable copywriting that can make people uncertain or nervous. It’s going into my toolbox.
Managing Research In Teams, Lewis Nyman (@lewisnyman)
Lewis facilitated a great discussion on managing user research.
My take away: How different research processes and requirements can be in separate organisations. It was great to hear from people who work with much less collaborative and cross-functional teams than I normally see, and how that impacts on their work. I’m looking forward to digging into this more at the upcoming ResearchOps Workshops.
Failure Swapshop, Adrian Howard (@adrianh)
Last, and very definitely least, I ran a Failure Swap Shop session. It’s a great format created by Luke Williams that lets people talk about failure and their learnings from failure.
If you want to run your own you can find more info in the slide deck.
My take away: These wonderful learnings.
UX Quiz / After Party
As always the day ended with the now infamous UX Quiz hosted by Tim Minor. Four quick-fire multiple choice rounds, and final bodystorming round to finish things off.
(I have to admit I and a bunch of other introverts skipped the bodystorming round for pizza and conversation instead!)
And finally
A few snippets that I picked up afterwards from the sessions I couldn’t get to.
- Chris How (@chrishow) talked about time management and his time management canvas.
- Jonathan Garner (@jgarner_co_uk) explored some of the hidden costs of convenience.
- Natacha Hennocq (@nattchah) talked about getting people to agree to do good.
- Matteo Menapace (@baddeo) on what UX designers can learn from game design.
- Leo Barnes (@productoven) talked about the power of communication.
- Al Power (@alpower) on planning design & discovery workshops.
A big thank you to the organisers, all the attendees, and the sponsors for making such an excellent day possible. I’m already looking forward to next year.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest thinking on effective strategy, research, and delivery work. No spam. No fluff. No fads. Just the good stuff most people overlook. Summarised and delivered to your inbox every other week. Check out our 10+ year archive if you don’t believe us.
