UXLx Talks

Design is increasingly gaining influence in the companies we work in and the world at large, which means our actions as designers have an increasing influence on shaping the world around us. All of our individual choices, collectively form our manufactured world. Do you know where the choices you are making are leading, not just on the scale of your project, but on a larger scale? Are you making choices that matter or choices that lead to desirable outcomes? Are you designing mindfully for our larger collective futures or are you just “checking a box” or blindly chasing the latest design craze or “silver bullet” process? The success of good design isn’t new and relies on a core set of first principles that if followed lead to better outcomes, but it is up to all of us to make it happen. Join Erik as he discusses these first principles of good design as we collectively shape our future.

“Thud” is the sound a bowling ball makes when dropped onto damp earth. But it’s also the sound that most of our software makes when it hits the market. We’re great at celebrating our wild successes, and finding people to blame for catastrophic failures. This talk is about how we spend most of our work trying to figure out which we have on our hands: a success or a failure. Jeff will share stories of how we use discovery work to identify when we’ve got a “thud” on our hands. And, how the hardest thing to do is recognize and let go of our thuds.

Technology is inundating us with access to more information than ever before. We face decision fatigue on a daily basis and we have to consider, how is all this information benefiting our lives. 
To deal with this overwhelm, we see a lot of products giving users more control. Users are given all the information and can filter and sort it to suit them best. However, this creates a lot of work for users. To minimize this burden on users, we’re seeing more products try and anticipate what users want to see and sometimes automatically make decisions on their behalf. 
Anticipation and automation are becoming critical components of creating a great user experience. When used correctly they can help people find what they’re looking for and accomplish tasks with ease. However, there are draw backs to anticipation and automation — draw backs that impact not only how people gauge your product experience, but also, the quality of their lives and those around them.

Experience designers, product makers and marketers could be blamed for being master manipulators. After all, the digital products they create are so much part of our lives they often end up going to bed with us at night and are the first things we wake up with. In this talk, we'll explore how your biology predicts which products will be successful at engaging us and why we should avoid the dark arts of making our work addictive. By the end of the talk you'll know how and why your physiology interacts with digital products and what how you can use this in positive ways to improve your UX and design work.

Every designer has had to justify their designs to a non-designer, yet most lack the ability to convince people they’re right. The ability to effectively articulate your decisions is critical to the success of a project, because the most articulate person usually wins.
In this session, you’ll learn practical tips for talking about your designs to executives, managers, developers, and other designers with the goal of winning them over and creating the best user experience.

As designers, we optimize for the happy path. The applicant gets the job. The girl gets the boy.  The service works flawlessly. But of course in many product experiences, the typical path is not necessarily a happy one: bad things happen. We are left-swiped. We fail to get off the couch. We send cover letters and applications into the silent void. These moments can leave us with unhappy users who may choose not to stick around for more frustration and rejection.

As product leaders, Facebook's Katy Mogal and dscout’s Michael Winnick both influence product experiences that risk leaving users feeling rejected or demotivated ­— even when the overall intent of the service or product is to deliver positive outcomes. As researchers, they decided to work together to see what might be done to create a better, bad experience. They will share a set of principles and stories drawn from their own experiences, primary research conducted on this topic, and interviews with designers in relevant fields from dating to venture capital.  They'll uncover the reality of less-than-ideal product experiences, and identify ways to make them less painful and more useful.

The concept of jobs to be done provides a lens for understanding value creation. It’s straightforward principle: people “hire” products to fulfill a need. 

For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good at a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends. You could also hire a chocolate bar to relieve stress. 

Viewing customers in this way – as goal-driven actors in a given context – shifts focus from the psycho-demographic aspects to needs and motivations. Although the theory of JTBD is rich and has a long history, practical approaches to applying the approach are largely missing. 

In this presentation, I will highlight concrete ways to apply the jobs to be done in your work. This will not only help you design better solutions, but also enable you to contribute to broader strategic conversations.

Among the first principles of UX design, the most sacred tenet can be stated as follows: you are not your user. 

User-centricity is a fat thumb on the scale of “doing it right” in our field. To such an extent, that other measures of value and virtue are either subordinated, or precluded from consideration altogether.  

The Danish physicist Nils Bohr is reported to have said that while the opposite of a fact is plainly falsehood, the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. In this talk, based on research he conducted in Japan, England and the United States, Dan Klyn will make the case – based in the work of Christopher Alexander –  for an opposite truth: wherein the human self of the maker provides the primary basis for all deciding in the process of making.

Have you ever dreamed of being a superhero and having superpowers? When Jody was a kid, she wanted the Jedi mind trick. And then to be like Jean Grey from the X-men. Where she would spend hours upon hours just focusing on objects, trying to move them with her mind. With many of the newest technologies just like VR we’re able to do that. In her talk Jody shares mind blowing insights of what the future holds for us. What is your superpower?

Five years ago, I sold my suburban home in Silicon Valley and moved to an old farm deep in agricultural country. Everything was new to me, but I was most surprised to discover how the new lessons of farming paralleled the important lessons of interaction design. This talk will give you some useful insight into your work by reflecting on the farmer’s job.