Category: Books

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Books Community UX

Back to life, back to reality

A meetup! With real people!

I had a palpable feeling of gratitude this week, hosting the first in-person UX Belfast meetup since November 2019.

Wednesday evening saw guests Michael Metts and Andy Welfle take questions on their book ‘Writing is Designing: Words and the User Experience‘. There was much to inspire any designer, product manager or writer.

Based on extensive design industry experience, Jill Spratt‘s engaging address brought theory to life through multiple examples of her work.

Thank you to Puppet in Belfast for opening their doors to the ever-growing UX design community of Belfast and beyond; to Andy and Michael for their time and insights; to Jill for an enlightening talk; and to everyone who attended in person or online.

The meetup is nothing without the contributors and an audience to engage with them. I’m grateful we had such great representations of both.

And what would a hybrid meetup be without a few technical hitches and rough edges? The in-person/online format presents many challenges, but the only option is to take them on and learn over time. Plans for 2023 meetups are underway.

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Books Community UX

Back to the books

UX Belfast March 2022 - product management for UX people

Always good to get a new UX Belfast lineup secured.

It’s getting close to 10 years since I took over the bookclub that Design By Front established as a regular fixture in the Belfast design calendar.

I remember well the great evenings with a small bunch of design friends, all needing out over the book selection that month. It was a smaller affair then.

Since that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to welcome many of my professional heroes to Belfast (virtually, of course). The pinnacle had to be hosting Susan Weinschenk last year, with over 100 attendees. It has never been about the numbers, always about the content.

I try to be timely with the theme of each meetup. It’s a particular thrill to have Christian along right when his book is being published – and much-needed it is, too.

Emma is such a great leader in the local tech community, I’m really delighted to finally have the topic for her to appear at UXB.

Hopefully the last online-only event. We’ll see.

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Books Community Teaching UX

UX Belfast, October 2021

Organising meet-ups has become a tricky business of late. After being all online for over 18 months, some are starting to get back to ‘in real life’ (IRL) events.

Not so UX Belfast! Still online-only, and hybrid events still feel a couple of months away. The generosity and knowledge of guests continue to be a joy, however.

‘How to design for everyone‘ saw New York-based designer, educator, and author Reginé Gilbert join us to talk and take questions on her accessibility work. As ever, our book club past meant that a book set the evening’s theme This time round it was Regine’´s ‘Inclusive Design for a Digital World‘.

My former Fathom_ colleague, and friend Marie-therese McCann then gave us an outline of work to bring focus to accessibility as an element of her role at ESO.

Reginé nominated America On Tech as our charity for this meetup. A donation was made to thank Reginé and MT for their time.

I had hoped this might be the last remote-only meetup before looking to a hybrid model going forward. Time will tell. Planning for 2022 events begins now. I’ll stay flexible on format and see how things stand early in the New Year.

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Books

Top 5 books 2019

A tough year to pick a top five from, but here goes.

Tragic Design

Jonathan Shariat and Cynthia Savard Saucier

Shariat and Saucier explain how poorly designed products can anger, sadden, exclude, and even kill people who use them. Through a series of historical case studies, the errors of design become woefully apparent. The designers responsible certainly didn’t intend harm, so what can we do to avoid making similar mistakes? For a taste of where the book goes, and how high the stakes for bad design can be, try Googling “ford pinto design flaw”. One of two books on the list where I was fortunate enough to interview the authors for the UX Belfast meetup during 2019.

https://www.tragicdesign.com

Tech Humanist

Kate O’Neill

Ethics and human-centredness in design have been a noticeable emerging theme in the last two years. Here, Kate O’Neill highlights the importance of meaning and purpose in tech. “The Tech Humanist proposal is to ensure that business objectives and human objectives are as aligned as possible so that as automated experiences scale, they scale human values with them, and a sense of what is meaningful to humans surrounds us.” Highly recommended for anyone seeking greater meaning in their work.

Factfulness

Hans Rosling

What a refreshing read. We can become despairing sometimes at the state of the world. And yes, a lot of what we understand in the world is wrong. However, this book by (now deceased) author Hans Rosling illustrates how much the world is improving over time. How quality of life is improving for those in the bottom tiers of society. Yes, there’s a lot wrong with the world, but this book teaches us to appreciate where and how things are getting better. And how we must bring critical thinking to our view of the world. Rosling’s children are continuing his work – see https://www.gapminder.org for more information.

Meeting Design

Kevin Hoffman

This book needed to be written, given the amount of collective time we invest in sitting in rooms together, physically or virtually. This book treats meetings as a design problem, and offers highly practical advice on agendas, facilitation and actions. Favourite quote: “Meetings are usability tests for organizations themselves”. ‘Nuff said.

Ego is the Enemy

Ryan Holiday

A great treatise on objectivity and not becoming attached to anything you feel defines you, either as an individual, or as an organization. “…at some point in time, every industry will be disrupted by some trend or innovation [which] the incumbent interest will be incapable of responding to. Why can’t businesses change or adapt? A large part of it is because they have lost the ability to learn, they stopped being students. The second this happens, your knowledge becomes fragile.” Sobering stuff, and a useful prompt to re-assess some core beliefs about oneself.

Work-related books only this time round. So much great fiction featured during the year also, but these are the books that really stuck with me.

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Books Community UX

UX Belfast 2019 is go

UX Belfast 2019 got off to a tremendous start with two prominent practitioners of human-centred design.

Kate O’Neill, author of Tech Humanist, joined us from New York, taking questions from the Belfast audience and expanding on the ideas put forward in her book.

Rebecca Walsh CEng gave us valuable insights on the discipline of service design, and the work that she and Big Motive are involved with.

Both guests highlighted how UX and CX are only subsets of the larger concern of human-centred design. As Kate has put it: “a dignified, respectful relationship with all the human stakeholders in the economy goes a long way toward creating a sustainable, successful future for us all”.

On a personal note, it’s been gratifying to watch UX Belfast grow from its bookclub roots into a regular fixture in the Belfast design calendar. Much more challenging and stimulating content is planned throughout for 2019. Sign up for updates at uxbelfast.org

Thanks to all who came along, to Kate and Rebecca, and to Puppet Belfast once again for their hospitality in such an ideal venue.

The selected charity this time was Code Your Future. Learn more and donate at codeyourfuture.io