UX Camp Summer 2021

UX Camp Summer 2021

UX Camp Summer 2021 is a 1-day mini-conference that delivers great UX content at a price that lets anyone attend, from where you are.

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 10AM CT, from where ever you are—we’re serving up 2 awesome keynotes that bookend really great presentations!

Interested in getting on a virtual stage? Submit your presentation idea!

We continue to provide a stage with inclusive continuing education that is great for our community. Don’t miss out–join us and expand your User Experience horizons–and don’t worry: we record the sessions so you can revisit them later.

And we’ve got swag! We’ve partnered with Nerditees (again) to bring you some cool UX-themed gear. We’ve got stylish Next Level Human-Centered t-shirts that come in blue with yellow or black with white.

Each swag item purchased adds to our pool of “Need 1, Take 1” passes that are available to anyone who has a need–no questions asked.

Event Details
Speakers
Derek Featherstone
Derek Featherstone
Chief Experience Officer
Level Access
Derek Featherstone is an internationally known speaker, practitioner, and authority on accessibility and inclusive design. He has been working on the web since 1999, when he left his career as a high school teacher to start his own web design company.
Ashleigh Axios
Ashleigh Axios
Chief Experience Officer
Coforma
Ashleigh Axios is a speaker, strategic creative, and an advocate for design’s ability to break barriers and create positive social change. She is Chief Experience Officer and a Partner at Coforma, a digital consultancy and design firm that crafts creative solutions and builds technology products that support communities.
Adam Polansky
Adam Polansky
Principal Experience Architect
Bottle Rocket
Adam Polansky is not a new face in the UX Community having been a regular fixture at events and meet-ups around the world for a long time.
Amy Jiménez Márquez
Amy Jiménez Márquez
VP of Experience Design
Zillow
Amy Jiménez Márquez is the owner and Publisher of Boxes and Arrows, devoted to the practice, innovation, and discussion of design—including graphic design, interaction design, information architecture, and the design of business.
Natalie Kurz
Natalie Kurz
Director of User Experience
Flexion
Natalie Kurz has spent the last 20 years helping elevate digital experiences from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Her unique skill set bridges the gap between strategy and execution, manager and designer, analytical and creative thinker.
Jason Cranford Teague
Jason Cranford Teague
Founder / Advisor
CranfordTeague / University of Richmond's Customer Experience Program
Jason is a creative strategist, writer, and speaker who has written numerous books and articles about digital design and creative development. His books include the best selling CSS Visual Quickstart Guide and Final Cut Pro and the Art of Filmmaking.
Jess McPheron
Jess McPheron
Senior Product Manager
Vibes
A tinkerer at heart, Jess McPheron is an ideating and problem-solving enthusiast. Curiosity and a passion for creating led him into the world of product management seven years ago when building his own ecommerce concept.
Ana Peralta
Ana Peralta
Senior User Experience & Product Designer
Dell Technologies
Ana V Peralta is a User Experience Designer, CSPO and User Experience Strategist based in Austin, Texas. Ana is known for her work with the Dell IT Support site, Facebook’s Transparency reports and Disney’s Corporate Retreat e-brochure website where you can build magical itineraries with your colleagues.
Jessi Shakarian
Jessi Shakarian
UX Designer & Accessibility Lead
Dia Design
Jessi Shakarian got her start in tech as a developer, but found that she loved everything that happens before it’s time to code. She works as a freelance UX and accessibility consultant, and is currently the accessibility lead at DIA Design Guild.
Justin Dauer
Justin Dauer
Vice President of Design
BSwift
Justin is a multi-faceted, multi-pierced, multi-tattooed designer, author, and speaker. He wrote the celebrated book “Creative Culture,” speaks internationally on culture and design, and is the Vice President of Design at bswift, a CVS Health company.
Lisa Dance
Lisa Dance
User Experience Designer
ServiceEase
Lisa D. Dance is a UX Designer/Founder at ServiceEase, a consultancy that helps businesses and non-profit organizations “be easy to do business with” by using user centered research and design.
Low-cost, high-quality events for the User Experience community.
Chicago Camps
Event Producer
Chicago Camps
Chicago Camps, LLC was formed and founded with the intention of bringing high-value, low-cost events to the User Experience community.
Schedule

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!

We've told ourselves and each other for years that we should be happy with small victories—we worked with our teams to make the world a little more accessible. And yes, knowing that we made a difference is both motivating and professionally satisfying. But what happens when that isn&8217;t enough? How can we measure our work? How do we know we are getting better at practicing our craft? The answer lies in how we actually do the work, because how we do the work actually matters.

15 minute break.

“The long game is built on relationships.” — Russell Nohelty

There is strength in community. The careers within UX all require a degree of empathy which requires patience and care. It’s for this reason, a strong personal network doesn’t take shape overnight. It’s a long game and in 2021, there are new dynamics to consider both where you work and across the industry internationally.

During this visit, you’ll learn some different ways to think about networking. NOT in terms of what you’ll get from it but instead, what you put into it Find out what deliberate presence, kindness, and generosity as a foundation for building relationships will do what you can’t by collecting connections in LinkedIn.

This session won’t all be about theory or philosophy either. We’ll cover very specific do’s and don’ts and insights unique to UX that will more closely align you with others in the field. Whether you’re fresh out of school, transitioning-in from a different career, or you just want to extend yourself into the broader UX community, you will take away something you can use tomorrow to build a strong and fruitful matrix of interrelated people that will endure for decades… if you look after it.

The short game may earn some reward. The long game, if you play it well, is its own reward and it won’t be what you think.

…it’ll be even better.

15 minute break.

As a hiring manager at Amazon, I’ve seen a gazillion resumes and portfolios. I've also been part of review panels for portfolio presentations from intern level to management roles. I’ve seen the patterns in what works, what doesn’t work, and what sets a candidate apart from the rest. In this talk, I’ll walk you through what you need to make a solid portfolio, no matter how much of your design work you’re allowed to show.

If you’ve ever applied for a design job, you’ve probably had to make a portfolio. From all levels—entry to senior leadership—hiring managers are asking to see portfolios. What if you have nothing you’re allowed to show because of IP restrictions? What if you’re a voice designer or information architect? Or, heaven forbid, a design manager being asked to present a portfolio? Relax, I can tell you exactly what you need to do.

30 minute break.

When modernizing a legacy system, it’s easy to just recreate what exists—only a little better. This is an especially dangerous trap when the users equate what they need with what they already have. But what happens when your users don’t understand why they’re doing things a certain way? When their behavior is so ingrained that they can’t differentiate the what from the why?

When trying to understand current processes and uncover user needs for the new system, we encountered a wall of dogma separating our research team from the real problems users were trying to solve or the tasks they really needed to accomplish. It was nearly impossible for users to articulate why they were doing things — other than saying that was the way they had always done it. So how do you break habitual behaviors and get buy in from your users for changes that challenge their beliefs?

In this talk, we’ll share our experience uncovering user needs that are buried under layers of habit and complacencies. Participants will learn how to keep asking why until you get to the root of the need by using an outcomes-first approach to help users understand the difference between what they do (and why!) and what they truly need.

15 minuted break.

Although generally thought of as something only important to the “disabled”, considering accessibility for digital products improves everyones experience. This is true regardless of their particular abilities. Instead of treating accessibility as a checklist or afterthought, it’s important to build it into every decision being made in a technology project. Like many requirements that are commonly thought of as something included for a niche audience, accessibility is something that not only addresses the needs of the deaf or blind, it broadens the scope of how well all users interact with your product.

Accessibility is far more than just accommodating to a small audience of users with “special needs”. At its core, accessibility is about making sure that as wide an audience as possible can use the products you have worked so hard to create.

Although by no means the only myths that have built up around the limitations of making digital products accessible, these seven crop up most regularly. In this session, Jason will examine each myth individually, expose why they are not true, and talk about how to dispel them.

Myth: Accessibility only helps the “disabled”
Myth: Accessibility is just about the visual and auditory
Myth: If we are 508 Compliant, we are accessible
Myth: Accessibility compliance is a checklist
Myth: Accessibility is the designer’s job
Myth: Accessibility takes too much time & costs more
Myth: Making a product accessible limits design possibilities

15 minute break.

Join Ashleigh Axios for an insightful and information-packed talk on the big and small lessons of a designer who works to make positive social change during times when the world seems to be perpetually set on fire. Learn about some of the biggest global issues of our day and the various ways creatives, and anyone with heart, can adapt their thinking and practices to help enable change.

Regardless if you’re building a net new product from the ground up or iterating something that is a little more established, there are two critical inputs that often get overlooked by product managers; customer feedback and establishing healthy collaboration with the design team.

Neglecting these inputs can have two different areas of impact. On one hand, you are building blind based on instinct which will march the team in circles. On the other hand, you are siloing functions that are critical to success, and treating design more like a service. If you ignore the two simultaneously, you’re likely to have a fractured product team that lacks vision, and buy-in amongst the team.

This talk will cover why you should talk to your customers throughout various stages of the product life cycle, what questions to ask when, why the inputs are sometimes ignored and when that’s okay. We will talk about the fluid relationship between the two inputs, who should lead what, and how prioritizing even the smallest wins can keep you marching towards your North Star. Combining these will keep the team organized, aligned, and energized, leading to a more inclusive & energized product team.

15 minute break.

Do you work distributed/remotely? Does anyone on your team work distributed/remotely? Now, is your team spread out across different countries, continents and time zones? Welcome to my (career) life! In this talk, I will share tools, resources, methods and epic fail stories of ways I’ve attempted to run kick off design sprint meetings with multidisciplinary teams and how I manage to organize my work day in order to get it all done.

With a set of prep work of templated documentation, team exercises and distribution of roles done in advance coupled with remote screen-sharing tools, anyone will able to keep the engagement, participation and morale levels high and efficient in their workshop running as if you were in all back in a meeting room.

30 minute break.

​What does an old game like chess have to do with user experience? It’s a great example of long standing user experience and design—it transcends time and languages, and moved across empires. A player in the 1600s would be able to play the same we play today. In this post-Queen’s Gambit world, chess is even more popular than ever online, in part due to the pandemic.

UX continues to evolve as technology quickly develops, but there are still mental models that users expect online. Similar to chess—we all know what the pieces look like, the ways the pieces move, but how a player gets to their goal is up to an individual player. We’ll examine the history of this great game and explore the many attempts to modify and customize the game over centuries as popularity grew, but there is always a return to its original form—and what user experience designers can learn from this and apply to our work today.

15 minute break.

Humility is essential to doing our best work. Why? Effective visual communication and intuitive UX are not subjective; every objective design decision we make carries weight, and is bigger than us. We must understand the privilege, and the responsibility, that are inherent in our craft.

And, in communicating. In connecting with people through design.

When there are clear project goals to be reached and problems to be solved, having a willingness to listen, learn, understand, grow, evolve, and connect will fuel you–and your design’s–evolution.

If we are always students of our craft, we are always making ourselves available to evolve. “Experience” does not equal “expert”, despite having a monogrammed portfolio or a blue checkbox next to your Twitter handle.

Through the lens of vulnerability of a career’s journey inclusive of early success, and the resulting effects on his design and personal growth, join Justin Dauer as he talks through how the human connection must always lead in evolving ourselves as designers, our work, and our career’s journey. We can’t settle for anything less: you, your work, and those on the receiving end of what you create, deserve nothing less.

Flawed Products are products, services, and technologies developed without considering, including, and understanding the needs of the underserved consumers expected to buy and use them. Are you making flawed products?

Learn about the “3Q Do No Harm Framework,” a three question framework that empowers researchers, designers, developers, product teams, etc. to proactively identify, avoid, and mitigate harm before they release a product, service or technology.

Speakers & Session Details

Speakers & Session Details

Sessions Coming Soon!

Event Details
Sponsors
March 2024
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