UX Camp Spring 2022

We'll open the doors a little early and let folks in. Sometimes, we have surprises, sometimes, we play music, sometimes it's a little quiet. Get there a little early to be ready for kick-off!

Starting the event!

Good Intentions & Bad Actors

As designers, we are able to leverage our understanding of the human condition and systems to transform technology into offerings that make millions of dollars for companies, while remaining idealistic about our goals of making people’s lives better or “changing the world.” But our process doesn’t make room to consider what things might just go sideways. I think this borders on negligence. We have a responsibility to ourselves, our profession, our customers, our colleagues, and the businesses who employ us to forecast the impact of our work at scale and work to mitigate risks. Let’s talk about how to integrate appropriate tools and the processes to do so properly.

15 minute break.

Cognitive Bias can impact the way we design and often, it happens without us recognizing what we’re doing, which in turn means that we could design and build systems that are flawed for our core users. When we recognize our biases, we can learn how to get around them, gain perspective, and make design decisions that are better suited for our users.

15 minute break.

UX Engineers are there not only to help enforce design patterns, but to be creative with coded solutions that assist in speeding up user testing in environments that add security for both the participant and interviewer. I am going to show how code methodologies and current frameworks can help communicate design decisions and drive a cohesive bond with other teams inside your organization.

The one thing every designer can agree on is that design sometimes doesn’t translate perfectly into production environments. There can be glaring alignment issues, misuse of fonts, and all sorts of weird color interpretations development teams make, simply because they make too many assumptions and rush to make deadlines. Imagine not just delivering a design file to developers—but an entire coded framework with precise css code that guarantees design fidelity. A UX Engineer is a designer’s best friend.

As UX continues to grow and evolve, the more need there is to have prototypes available to share with clients, pitch for funding and resources, and iterate patterns with design teams. UX Engineers allow designers to see and test their work in real world applications outside of design software, and create a more cohesive bond with development teams.

15 minute break.

Audits are a go-to tool for cataloging and optimizing website content, and they can also be your product team’s secret weapon. Examining key features and flows of your product through a content lens will help you systematically identify gaps, inconsistencies, and usability improvements. How can you make sure that your audit leads to concrete, meaningful product changes—not just lines on a spreadsheet? There’s no one-size-fits-all template, but there are a few frameworks, tips, and strategies for getting results—and buy-in—without getting overwhelmed.

Auditing a product is much different than auditing a website. Instead of scraping URLs, you’ll need to capture and track multiple screens and states, like errors and form fields. And you’ll need to translate your findings into a digestible story for product and engineering partners. From scoping and conducting your content audit to tracking and sizing your recommendations in an engineer-friendly format, this session will help you turn your audit findings into real product improvements.

15 minuted break.

Being a confident communicator is not just the way you act, talk, and look. It’s a habitual way of thinking and reacting.

In this talk, you will learn how to make small changes to your words, tone, and non-verbal communication to improve how you interact in high-stakes personal and professional communications.

This talk will help you develop the ability to:

Manage your nervous system when anxiety, fear and self-consciousness take over
Systematically develop rock-solid confidence you can rely on
Navigate the virtual speaking world and come across as a credible expert
Effectively communicate verbally and non-verbally for influence
Uncover what’s holding you back from being fully expressed
Even though everything has gone virtual the world still needs your presence and message. Open up to more visibility, confidence and comfort in your skin on camera and in life!

15 minute break.

Product Management for UX People

“Why is a product Manager telling me what to do?” “Plus, how is software even a product?” “What do product managers want and why are they so frustrating?” Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions? Meet product managers where they live. They make decisions all day long. They don’t get to say “it depends.” Most of the time they don’t actually make the decision—they just make sure it gets made right. They have to keep the build, measure, learn cycle. They have to cajole engineers. They have to persuade stakeholders to support a focused roadmap. Have some sympathy for the PM.

I feel your pain. It can be a struggle to influence product direction (before it’s too late). It’s not easy to coax requirements out of PM partners. Presenting design & research work can feel like speaking a different language. How product managers generally prioritize initiatives can be opaque. These pain points are widespread because UX and PM roles are still feeling out how to work well together. What can you do?

Use your UX superpowers: Bring your creative problem-solving superpower to the table through your command of art, craft, and communication. Overcome the challenged of synthesizing product research with your systems thinking. Lend your taxonomy wisdom, whether via IA or content strategy, to your product partner’s amorphous model. Contribute your contextual inquiry and qualitative research skills to get beyond the what of data to the why of understanding. Facilitate the prioritization and alignment needs of the product behind all those workshop hours with the stickies and the dot voting. But most of all, design a good friggin’ user experience for the people trying to work with you.

Wrapping up the day.