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UX Belfast at Belfast Design Week 2019

As a Belfast Design Week fringe event, a collaboration with Ladies that UX Belfast, with a notable guest author and great local content, it’s no surprise that this week’s UX Belfast meetup was the largest to date.

Charlotte Tracey got the talks going with insights into the power of data and immersed us in the world of qual and quant data.

Our guest author Jonathan Shariat was nothing less than gracious and generous, in spite of an AV glitch leading to 20 minutes of dead air. Jonathan brought to life the background and content of ‘Tragic Design’, the O’Reilly Media book he has co-authored with Cynthia Savard Saucier. All agreed that the book is required reading for designers wanting to create positive change in the world. A donation was made to Jonathan’s nominated charity, AbilityNet, to thank him for his time.

Ioana Enea closed out the evening with an entertaining talk on her experience of improv and how it has enriched her work as a designer.

Thanks to Jonathan, Ladies That UX Belfast, Puppet for hosting, and to co-host & former colleague Marie-therese McCann for the original idea.

This is my seventh year of running the UX Belfast meetup. It continues to gain momentum and draw new faces, as the design community in Belfast surges. Particular thanks are due to Belfast Design Week for demonstrating what a broad and diverse design community it is. I’m proud to be a small part of it.

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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

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UX Belfast, October 2018

October’s UX Belfast saw the mesmerising Jorge Arango take questions and talk us through his new book ‘Living in Information’ – a compelling mix of practical advice and thoughtful reflection on the responsibility of designers to create what Jorge terms ‘generative’ online environments.

To thank Jorge for his time, the meetup made a donation to his selected charity, The Long Now Foundation. For more information visit http://longnow.org

Puppet Belfast once again provided food and drink in what was our largest meetup to date.

Plans are afoot to evolve UX Belfast to better serve and represent the UX community in Belfast, offering talks and insights into the work of local professionals while keeping one eye firmly on books, learning, and professional development.

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UX Scotland 2018

One of the UK’s premier UX conferences once again delivered the goods in 2018, with an impressive roster of speakers and talks. As ever with conferences put together by the team at Software Acumen, the scope and remit of the schedule pushed the boundaries of the subject matter over three days.
I was reprising my role as a speaker, with a session outlining some of my work at Puppet on day one of the conference. From then on, I was able to relax and take in some fantastic education and information from the assorted collection of practitioners.
Highlights were difficult to pinpont, and in many ways it seems unfair to do so. That said, with up to 3 concurrent tracks, the number of talks to take in was limited, so here’s what I managed.
Soren Engelbrecht
How to create a user-centered ‘digital ecosystem’ across devices
Adrian Howard
The User Experience of Management
Gregg Bernstein
Be more certain: a practical approach to research practice
Llara Geddes
Leveraging customer service expertise to improve UX
(no slides available)
Jessica Cameron
Statistics for UX professionals
Honorable mention: Chris Taylor
We need to talk about data
So those were my talk highlights. Delightfully, my talk managed to make others’ shortlist of highlights, and I’m going to blow my own trumpet here and link to them.
Gavin Anderson of the University of Edinburgh included my session in his top 3 and offered an extremely gratifying summary of my talk. Thank you, Gavin! https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/website-communications/ux-scotland-2018-write-up/
I also managed to sneak into Cole AD‘s shortlist of highlights http://cole-ad.co.uk/ux-scotland-conference/
Something else I was happy to be able to do this year was set up a series of shared Google docs to crowdsources notes. While the uptake on these was low (very low…), I was happy to do it, having benefitted from Vicky Teinaki‘s initiative in 2016. Fwiw my notes are available from here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kMuFdzOO0FJErEIz6n-DcdlKPS7cM-fp55MKg89M5hw/edit?usp=sharing
I’ll be back at the conference. Certainly as a participant, and if I’m fortunate, as a contributor. The lineup never fails to deliver practical insights and ‘a-ha’ moments. Kudos to Software Acumen for another quality year.
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UX Belfast meetup, May 2018

The Belfast UX bookclub meetups continue, and 30 May gathering had author Sara Wachter-Boettcher taking questions and providing insights on ’Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech’.

Images from UX Belfast meetup, May 2018
Images from UX Belfast meetup, May 2018

This marked the twentieth UX Belfast meetup I’ve organised and, significantly, the best attended. A partnership with Women in Tech Belfast for the evening contributed hugely to that milestone. That said, interest in the group is rising rapidly, with over 220 members on the Meetup.com page at time of writing.

Sara’s book made Fast Company’s Top 10 Business & Leadership books of 2017, and Wired’s Top Tech books of 2017. Although a relatively short read, Sara has managed to gather a shocking number of case studies and examples where technology might be successfully delivering ‘engagement’ with users but letting humans, even society, down in the process.

Further information on the book, as well as Sara’s work as an independent content and UX consultant, can be found at her website http://www.sarawb.com.

Huge thanks to partners for the evening, Women in Tech BFS. Thanks also to PuppetBelfast for providing the great venue and refreshments, Slice app for the copious amounts of pizza and to WW Norton UK for discounts and copies of the book to give away.

To thank Sara for her time, a donation has been made to local charity, WomensTec. For more information visit http://www.womenstec.org