UX Week 16: Top three talks

What do you get when you cross an empathy-driven design crowd with a fancy hotel in downtown San Francisco? UX Week 16! An annual UX Design conference by Adaptive Path (sponsored by Capital One) and hosted by industry heavies like Jesse James Garrett and Alan Cooper. It’s a bubbling, melting pot of ideas and beers, visions, and decisions about the future of the human experience of technology.

The conference impressively brought together a cohort of professionals from a wide array of fields. If there were a theme I would have put it as — ‘Improving things for everyone, from every industry, through design’. The speakers ranged from author and journalist Steve Silberman from Wired eloquently outlined how the future of improving the lives of people with autism through neurodiversity will radiate benefits out through society. To game designer Matt Leacock of Pandemic fame (a collaborative save-the-world board game) detailing their user research approach to creating a ‘Legacy’ game version where through progressive disclosure players are engaged in a modulating range of emotions over multiple sessions. Gwendolyn Graff from Wrigley gave us a live lesson in sensory design with a bag of goodies/science experiments to taste and come to understand how flavour is ‘food perfume’ and is experienced uniquely by different people.

Three talks that caught my attention:

1. Irene Au — Design and the self

How do we define our ‘self’ through design? It’s a lofty question. How is every designed thing an expression of the self that made it? Bam an even loftier question!

Through many a good and bad example, Irene narrows in on what every designer strives for: to make the world a better place. And in no uncertain terms why we sometimes miss the mark. Highlighting how over-complicated design is the outcome of miscommunication, greed, a lack of empathy and focus. How we design is imbued with our own understanding of the human experience. And what we design is the culmination of our intentions, values, and principles manifesting in a tangible form. We pass on these things to other people through what we create.

Watch Irene’s talk

Here Irene is twigging on a certain sore spot for designers. That at times, despite all the planets being aligned and yoga positions assumed, the business drivers and constraints surrounding the design of something can undermine any good intentions. It’s not purely the designer’s good or bad self that determines the final result — there’s a fair bit more to it. Though, as she points out, businesses are maturing in their vision of what design can bring to their industry as competitive advantage. Encouragingly, businesses are seeing that the money saved upfront by curtailing the design process brings long-term negative impacts down the track.

In a human centered world we let go of greed, attachment, and fear to make products that improve people’s lives. Ego-based afflictions only manifest as complexity and clutter. This is the crux of good UX design. To look at our surroundings and grab the plentiful opportunities to introduce delight and joy into people’s lives through the products and things we make. This struck a chord with me — a kind of zen approach to the design process. We’re often focused on being empathetic with our users, but this takes it a step further to removing our own internal chatter from the equation to have full mindfulness towards solving problems. This is the power of design — to shape how we think and feel, and that of others.

In Irene’s words — “What we become, so we make. What we make and consume, is what we become.”

For more read Irene’s post on Medium here.

2. Dave Gray — How to Navigate Complexity with Liminal Thinking.

Mr Gray is a stalwart of the design industry, and in fact that of the wider evolution of business itself. Author of the seminal book ‘Game Storming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rule-breakers, and Changemakers’ which became a game changer (couldn’t help myself..) in many businesses around the world, his style of presenting is always entertaining and engaging. Partly through his humorous sharing of personal anecdotes to bring his points to life and partly because live sketchnoting your own talk is always a crowd pleaser.

Watch Dave’s talk

Dave’s latest book ‘Liminal Thinking: Create the change you want by changing the way you think’ wants to help you recognise the bubble you live your life in, get you outside of it, then burst it completely. It’s the art of creating change by understanding, shaping, and reframing your beliefs. Our beliefs are at the core of each of us. Forming the basis for what we say, think, and do on a daily basis. So when people change their beliefs, they change their behaviours — which changes their lives. And to that end, Dave so eagerly encourages you to ask ‘What beliefs are stopping you right now?’

But it’s not only your bubble Dave is looking to burst. The one your company operates in is also in the firing line. It’s hard enough to lead change when you’re the CEO, but as a regular employee you must often do it without formal authority or even budget. So how then? Fear not, there is a way. It’s called liminal thinking. Steering through organisational complexity by escaping our own belief cycles, test things that don’t make sense to you, and present varied realities to our companies to which they normally operate. Then propagate that thought leadership throughout the organisation. This is the essence of a culture shift, and all started by bursting your reality bubble.

For more on liminal thinking check out Dave’s book here.

3. Amber Case — Designing Calm Technology

Burgeoning technology sneaking into every corner of our lives. Alerts and beeps and buzzing at all times during the day. An overwhelming sense of never being on top of the ever expanding message pings and emails. Amber Case says keep calm! And design for being human.

Watch Amber’s talk

Through a set of 8 key principles, she outlines how we can rethink product design to focus on the necessary rather than just the possible. Not to simply build a feature because it’s technically possible, or to set arbitrary notifications without thought to the human’s experience on the other end — but to expand our focus on not just the product itself but the design of how it communicates. Amber shows us that there’s more to a product than just the placement of UI components and the usability aspects. But to deeply consider how a product makes a user feel during all interactions? Will to have an overall calming effect or will it be a disruption in their lives.

Amber’s work is the foundation to which the calm tech movement is being built upon. It’s about enhancing people’s experience of being human. It’s about adding to their lives through technology rather than detracting from it. It’s also keyed into the more tangible business perspective where these enjoyable experiences are then seen as a point of differentiation over a competitors product. Something as subtle as a washing machine that makes a calming melodic tune when it’s finished swishing your clothes about and can communicate a range of things in this way is a more attractive purchase than an obnoxious loud beeping machine void of character or emotion.

As the calm movement expands through product design people’s primary task when interacting with technology won’t be computing anymore, but being human.

More on calm tech here.

Bonus Talk! — Alan Cooper: Ranch Stories

It’s hard to put this into a list of top talks because it really sits on it’s own. Alan Cooper succinctly and powerfully aligns the negative impact big corporate interests have made on the agricultural industry with how big tech interests are shaping the world for their own benefit. Alan is a captivating speaker with a message for all — act now, or be damned! It’s an inspirational must watch keynote from one of the tech industry’s greatest advocates.

See Alan Cooper’s full keynote (and many others from UX Week 16) here.