Since we initiated our work on UX Alive ‘17, the first thing we did is analysing speakers’ feedbacks, because our priority is to create an amazing conference experience for both guests and speakers. Their thoughts are really valuable to us regarding their previous global UX Conference experiences.
Although their opinions are generally positive, we had some faults during that period. So we’d like to share our mistakes either besides the good results and ensure that no one will be experiencing these on our next conference.
Let’s dig in, shall we?
Michael Mckay
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience? How do you find UX Alive?
A: Great experience. The conference radiated start up entrepreneurship and felt like the beginning of something new. This was felt all the way from the organizers to speaker choice and participant backgrounds that I talked to.
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be improved? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: The shared activities with the speaker group was great. I liked being able to meet and talk with other Ux design thought leaders from the world. The workshop element was spot on, as with UX design it is often difficult to describe the details with words, practice and hands in is much better.
Q: What are your thoughts about other talks and workshops you attended? Any particular one you liked the most?
A: The talks were very diverse and offered a quite broad view of the UX design world today. I especially liked Vitaly’s speech because he mixed trends with practical tips in a fun and refreshing way.
Q: How about the venue and production?
A: The venue was excellent. We did have issues in my workshop room with a faulty air conditioner system that leaked but that was a rare occasion in an otherwise quite modern and nice venue.
The organization was rather chaotic and thinking about two we are, I would recommend to set up a UX Alive organizer app for every official and speaker to use to share logistic, calendar, people and location updates realtime. It would be a great addition. If not, just a more organized set of planning stand ups at the beginning and end of each day could prove quite effective in updating the logistics and execution. However the team did a great job making it work and I never felt left out or without guidance from you and your colleagues.
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: So thanks for the invite and I would be more than happy to join you again some other time.
Zoltan Kollin
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be developed? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: My overall impression was that the event was very professional. You guys did an excellent job. Both the organization and the line-up was great. Maybe one thing that wasn’t perfect is timing, that is, the programme was not quite on schedule. Also, I personally like short talks but felt that the 20 minutes is not enough to cover a subject and as I saw most speakers could barely fit into the 20 minutes. 30 mins might be better perhaps.
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience?
A: It was beyond my expectations. I felt really VIP with the taxi waiting for me at the airport, the fancy view from my hotel room, getting all the attention I needed and so on. It was incredibly great to be a speaker at UX Alive.
Q: How about the venue and production? How would you rate rooms and food?
A: The venue was awesome, I really loved the idea of staying at the same hotel, it really made things easier. At first it was hard to find the exact floor for the conference and the workshops so maybe more visual hints and directions would be useful next time. The hotel room and the catering — all amazing, I really loved it. Also, the video you’ve shared with me is of really great quality, excellent job.
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: Absolutely ;)
Sarah Horton & David Sloan
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be developed? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: The meals at this conference were exceptional. This is the first conference I’ve spoken at that followed up with questions and shared photos. All the logistics went smoothly, including the copying we needed at the last minute. We were welcome to attend other workshops, which was great! As for missing parts, nothing stands out. The UX Lausanne conference has a wonderful speaker event on the Saturday following the conference. Dave and I explored Istanbul the day after the conference ended and had a lovely time, but perhaps next time you could schedule an event with the speakers and organizers? It would be wonderful to spend some time and get to know you all better, and also the other speakers.
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience? How do you find UX Alive?
A: I would rate the speaker experience as excellent. All the travel details were worked out well in advance and went smoothly. The follow-up was good, and UX Alive provided an honorarium.
Q: What are your thoughts about other talks and workshops you attended? Any particular one you liked the most?
A: Unfortunately, I was not able to attend many sessions due to stomach illness. I did attend the workshop@night session and really enjoyed the location and the session.
Q: How about the venue and production?
A: The venue was very good. Our workshop room was perfect for the size of participants — small enough to allow us to work together, but not so small as to feel crowded. It was wonderful to have quality photos taken of the sessions. And the meals were top notch!
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: Most definitely!!
James O’Brien
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience? How did you find UX Alive ‘16? Feel free to give your toughest feedbacks so we can improve conference experience next year.
A: As a speaker the conference was excellent. Well organised, welcoming, and with a wonderful broad range of attendees and other speakers. I really have no complaints there.
This was my first simultaneously-translated conference and I wasn’t sure if my talk was too complicated or technical for the translator to keep up with. If the translator or a native Turkish speaker had been available to review the talk, and if I had some way of getting signals from the translator while I was presenting, I think it would have helped me serve the non-English speakers better.
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be developed? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: I think it would help to have more opportunities to socialise and network with people. I’m not sure how Turkish people usually approach this, but UK/US people often need an activity to act as an excuse to talk to new people — for example the IA Summit has a 5km morning run, a karaoke evening and a “first-timers” dinner to help attendees meet new people. The boat trip on the Bosphorous was a great example of this among the speakers. If you could find some way to extend that to everyone, it would be a real benefit.
Q: What are your thoughts about other talks and workshops you attended? Any particular one you liked the most?
A: I thought it was a shame that speakers only got 20 minutes to cover a topic. I really enjoyed Claire Rowland, Michael McKay and Selena Hadzibabic’s talks and would like to have heard more from them. I really liked the variety of speakers and their experiences, it was lot more diverse than a lot of other conferences I’ve attended.
Q: How about the venue and production? How would you rate rooms and food?
A: All excellent (although I was lucky that I didn’t suffer the projector bugs that poor Vitaly had to put up with!). The food was good — I’m gluten-free so it limits what I can eat, but I never had a problem finding things, and everything I ate was very good.
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: Yes, I’d love to if the opportunity is there. I’m happy to present a workshop too.
Hazjier Pourhalkhali
Q: How did you find UX Alive? Feel free to give your toughest feedbacks so we can improve conference experience next year.
A: All around I was highly impressed by the conference. The event location, quality of the set-up, the screen, the audience, the translations, all were excellent. I did notice that the language translation headsets had a lot of static noise and were unreliable. While the idea was great, in practice I ended up ignoring the translations because I could not hear clearly.
I had the privilege of presenting on the main stage at the end of the day. Unfortunately by this time the crowds had completely dwindled. I think there were only a 100 people left in the audience, at most. If the audience is not willing to stay until the end of the day, I would recommend either shortening the opening day and spreading the presentations across multiple days, or creating better incentives / motivation for people to stay late.
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be developed? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: I loved the idea of a boat trip at the conference. I really wish I could have attended. My only idea would be to tell people about the party sooner in advance.,
Q: What are your thoughts about other talks and workshops you attended? Any particular one did you like the most?
A: I was very interested in the speaker who presented before me on Uber’s optimization, fake vehicles., and
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience?
A: Excellent. High quality conference, fun workshop classroom, great stage, free accommodations. I very much enjoyed this conference.
Q: How about the venue and production? How would you rate rooms and food?
A: Venue and food were great. Rooms were quite nice.
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: I would be honored to present again next year.
Ré Dubhthaigh
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience? How do you find UX Alive?
A: Great — an action packed day with a wide range of speakers.
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be improved? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: There was a lot of talks and being on at the end of the day really felt the audience were very tired — especially if it was not their native language. A speakers dinner would have been nice — I would have been happy to pay but having it organized. The venue and catering was the best I have ever seen at any conference.
Q: How about the venue and production?
A: Excellent
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: Yes — although I think more women are needed.
Can Kılıçbay
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience? How do you find UX Alive?
A: Overall I have had positive experience. After my talk I also had the chance to conduct a workshop. I got positive feedback and also great questions on how to run design sprints, designers challenges in the industry and heard different perspectives. This is a priceless learning step for me to excel at design sprints.
Q: What are your thoughts about other talks and workshops you attended? Any particular one you liked the most?
A: Talks were overall had targeted different knowledge levels of UX so it was easy for me to pin point few talks. I am a big fan of user research and Mailchimp so naturally Laurrisa Wolfram-Hvass’ talk was my favourite.
Q: How about the venue and production?
A: Turkey has amazing culinary culture and the venue definitely delivered that. Also all the rooms were close to each other and the production was well executed. I didn’t see much hick-ups. I am sure next year will be even better.
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: Absolutely, It would be fantastic to contribute one more time to Turkey and International UX society. With that I will be able to hear new perspectives and exchange ideas with the international crowd.
Matthew Magain
Q: Generally how would you rate your UX Alive speaker experience? How did you find UX Alive ‘16?
A: Obviously my experience of getting robbed on Istiklal Caddesi on the day I arrived coloured my trip overall — including the conference. I did my best to recover, though! It was a big of an ego trip to have our faces and names presented on such a large stage! In terms of my specific talk, there were a few hiccups that it would have been nice to have avoided: I tried to get my tech setup organised before going on stage, but in the end there were still a few minutes of me plugging in before I started the talk, which was a little awkward. But basically the speaker experience gets the thumbs up — it was an honour to be asked, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. And the team were all welcoming and helpful.
Q: Comparing to other conferences what are our missing parts needed to be developed? Also did you find some good details, which you haven’t met at other conferences?
A: The biggest criticism I have is that the conference didn’t feel very cohesive. Yes, UX is a broad umbrella term, but it’s important to still have some kind of theme, or unifying thread, so that attendees feel like they’re being taken on a journey from the start of the conference to the end. That was missing for me — every talk, from the very start to the closing keynote, felt disconnected from every other talk. There were random tech tidbits and research case studies and everything in between. The challenge for the next conference should be to bring this together and do a better job of creating that journey, in my opinion.
Q: What are your thoughts about other talks and workshops you attended? Any particular one you liked the most?
A: I was a bit tired, so I confess that I didn’t attend every talk. But I really enjoyed Steve Baty’s talk. Although I may be a little biased, as I’ve seen him present before and like how his mind works.
Q: How about the venue and production? How would you rate rooms and food?
A: I thought the rooms were fine, and the food was great. I was particularly impressed that you had live translation into Turkish and into Sign Language. That can’t have been cheap, and it’s not relevant for a large chunk of the audience. But for the handful of people who benefited from it, I’m certain that they were extremely appreciative and will become loyal fans as a result.
Q: Would you like to take part at next year’s conference?
A: Yes, I’d love to come back. I’ll be more travel wary next time round!
