UXLx Talks

In this talk we’ll look what algorithms are good for, and where they fall down. It’ll discuss what it means to design a service using algorithms and the skills you’ll need to develop and adapt if you’re to thrive in the next era of experience design.

Over the past few years there’s been a push in the product development world to “make products that people love”. A great User Experience is now essential to creating a successful product. While many companies focus on having the best design and the greatest experience, they are still missing the most important step in product development - learning about their customers.

With Agile and Lean gaining popularity in more companies, we talk about techniques to get things out to users faster. At the core of this has been the Minimum Viable Product. Unfortunately, many people still do not understand the MVP. Some see it as a way to release a product faster. Others are scared of it, viewing it as a way to put broken code on your site and ruin products.

The sole purpose of Minimum Viable Product is to learn about your customers. This step that has been so overlooked and yet it is the most essential part to creating a product your customers will love. The more information you can uncover through experimentation, the more certainty there is about building the right thing. In this talk, Melissa will go over how to design the most effective product experimentations and Minimum Viable Products. She’ll explain how to get the rest of the organization on board with this method of testing, and how to incorporate it into overall Product Strategy.

In this presentation we explore some of the fascinating and innovative services that are re-shaping the internet at the hands of consumers in emerging economies. Driven by mobile, the power of personal relationships, and the breakneck pace of globalisation, these services provide a glimpse into the business models, opportunities, and challenges, we will face when growing a truly global web.

As designers, we are lucky enough to get to interact with many different types of people during the course of our work. We observe people using technology and proposed design solutions. While working on our projects, we collaborate directly with our team, clients, and stakeholders to bring a solution to life. All of this interaction exposes us to lots of body language. The language of the body offers up many hints and insights into what people are thinking and feeling. It's been said that our bodies tell us what is really on our minds, and it’s important to know not only what others might be telling you but what you could be telling them.

It's important for designers to have a fundamental understanding of body language and what are key signs to look for when interacting with users or project teams. There are key patterns that, when observed correctly, can tell you if someone is supportive of your idea, hiding their true feelings, or simply sitting back and daydreaming the meeting away.

In this presentation, Geoloqi co-founder Amber Case will take you on a journey through the history of calm technology, wearable computing, and how developers and designers can make apps “ambient” and inspire delight instead of constant interaction.

This talk will focus on trends in wearable computing starting from the 1970’s-2010’s and how mobile interfaces should take advantage of location, proximity and haptics to help improve our lives instead of get in the way.

By understanding what principles are and where they come from we can move beyond the lists of best practices and heuristics we’re all familiar with and create unique, consistent experiences.

Inconsistency is one of the most common points of breakdown and frustration in the interactions and experiences we have. Whether we’re interacting with other people, applications, our bank, our doctor, our government, anyone, we form expectations and understandings of what someone or something will do based on our previous experiences and their past behaviors. When something happens that doesn’t fit with those expectations–that seems out of character–we’re caught off guard. What do we do next? What should we expect now?

Principles act as rules that guide how we think and act. Formed by our motivations, values and beliefs, we use them as “lenses” through which we examine information in order to make decisions on what to do. And because of their persistent influence on our behavior, they influence other’s views and expectations of us. Using these same kinds of constructs throughout the design process we can design interactions and consistent behaviors that set and live up to expectations for our audiences.

Abi Jones compares human-to-human and human-computer conversation and interaction, introducing you to the conversational machines in your life and those to come. Learn what makes for great human-computer speech interaction from the first turn to the last, how computers interpret speech, and why it’s more enjoyable and addictive to talk to a 1960s chatbot than most intelligent assistants available today.

Christopher Noessel joins us to ask the question, "How do you think new things?" Seemingly simple, the answer takes us through domains as disparate as divination and entertainment, but lands us squarely in the creative process. From techniques like poetics to force-fit grids to Oulipan writing to Design as Semiosis, all share a common deep structure that he's named "Semantic Noodling" and the systems that use it "Meaning Machines."

Despite the prevalent mythology of the lone creative genius, many of the most innovative contributions spring from the creative chemistry of a group and the blending of everyone’s ideas and concepts. How can we best leverage this collective wisdom to generate creative synergy and co-create? Let’s look at the process of recognizing and removing our personal creative blocks, connecting and communicating with others, combining ideas using play, and constructing a collaborative environment to discover effective methods for tapping into a group’s creative brilliance. Through these steps, you’ll learn to capitalize on the super- linearity of creativity to embrace and leverage diversity to create better together.

What if this thing was magic? The web is touching everyday objects now, and designing for the internet of things means blessing everyday objects, places, even people with extraordinary abilities—requiring designers, too, to break with the ordinary. Designing for this new medium is less a challenge of technology than imagination. Sharing a rich trove of examples, designer and author Josh Clark explores the new experiences that are possible when ANYTHING can be an interface.

The digital manipulation of physical objects (and vice versa) effectively turns all of us into wizards. Sling content between devices, bring objects to life from a distance, weave "spells" by combining speech and gesture. But magic doesn't have to be otherworldly; the UX of connected devices should build on the natural physical interactions we have everyday with the world around us. This new UX must bend technology to the way we live our lives, not the reverse. Explore the values and design principles that amplify our humanity, not just our superpowers.