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!

It Really is a Series of Tubes: UX and an Archaeology of the Internet

Almost all of our networked devices rely on a series of fewer than 500 fiber optic cables at the bottom of the sea. And, like all infrastructures, they’re simultaneously mundane artifacts and wonders of human achievement. If you’ve encountered these subsea cables, it might have been as a news story about breakage, or they were represented by an abstract map of connecting lines.

What happens when we try to understand something as invisible as “data” and as sprawling as the subsea cable network—and what does that have to do with designing stuff for screens?

Join us for a talk that weaves together UX and contemporary archaeology, to expose more of the real, human (often very analog) work that goes into making digital things go, from the pixels all the way to the pipes.

You won’t get a tidy new method to try right away. You’ll get a messy-by-design picture of what it can look like to think like an archaeologist about the things all around us—using a subsea cable research project as an example—and a dose of encouragement to sit with uncertainty and chaos for a little longer than is comfortable.

Jane Ruffino

Jane is a research-driven UX content design consultant who has worked across a range of industries, including fintech, healthcare, mobility, HR tech, enterprise SaaS, travel tech, and retail, with clients across Europe, Asia, and North America. She’s been a journalist, documentary producer, and professional development educator. She is passionate about storytelling, plain language, and strong collaboration. With her one-person content studio, Character, she specializes in workshops and facilitation, but she'll also happily write the words and stories that make your software go.

Jane is also pursuing a PhD on the contemporary archaeology of the undersea fiber optic cable network, giving Character a strong foundation in infrastructure-related projects, and extremely niche information. Originally from Boston, Jane spent much of her early career in Ireland, and currently lives in the Stockholm suburbs with her partner, an epic daughter, and adorable dog, Lusse (pronounced LOOS-seh).

15 minute break.

From Ordinary to Outstanding: Delivering Quality UX With Everyday Office Tools

Who says you need specialized software to create exceptional user experiences? Often overlooked, everyday tools like spreadsheets or word processing docs can be your gateway to better collaboration, cross-functional engagement, and even innovation.

Join us to discover how simple office tools can revolutionize your design work, making complex tasks like user journey mapping, ideation, and prototyping not only possible but remarkably effective. Cut down on learning curves, and give partners like product, tech, and legal a seat at the table. Unlock a world of creativity with the software you already have.

In this session, we will:
• Challenge preconceived notions of “design tools” and embrace the extraordinary potential of everyday software
• Illustrate how a humble spreadsheet can be a powerful ally in building out user journeys, communication strategies, and aligning cross-functional teams
• Demonstrate UX concept creation and “conversation prototyping” using decks and documents
• Provide practical templates for you to adapt for your practice
• Explore strategies to use these tools to expand your influence, impact, and even advance your career

Shannon Leahy
Shannon has worked at the intersection of words, strategy, design, and people for almost 15 years. Currently, she is a senior content design manager at Adobe.

Shannon calls Richmond, Virginia home, and organizes meetups for the local content and UX communities. When she’s not exclaiming about error messages, you can find her snuggling up for movie night with her family and two dogs. Shannon’s favorite neutral is leopard print. Her superpower is asking questions…lots of questions.

15 minute break.

ChatGPT: UX Research Friend, Foe, or Both?

ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) seem like magical question answerers. So magical that they make some people wonder: why should I ask real people about my product, when I can ask ChatGPT what they think instead? Why do I need a researcher if an LLM seems to do research for me? And, if ChatGPT can do research, do we still need human UX researchers? LLMs’ vortex of questions are coming to our profession, and making some of us (me included) a tad anxious.

In this talk, I’ll show how UX researchers can see ChatGPT not as a research participant—or competitor—but as a collaborator. In particular, I’ll share:
- How LLMs actually work, and how they're more like "persona builders" than human researchers
- The real strengths of LLMs that can help you plan more creative interviews and usability tests
- The human strengths you can bring to research analysis/synthesis that LLMs can’t replicate (and probably never will)
- Two ways LLMs can inadvertently lead humans astray - and how to avoid them when you use something like ChatGPT in research

You’ll come away with concrete tactics for appropriately incorporating LLMs into your UX research process, as well as ways to explain their limitations to over-enthusiasts. And hopefully some of you, like me, will learn to worry about LLMs a little less.

Colin MacArthur
Colin MacArthur is the former Director of Digital Practice, and Head of Design Research, at the Canadian Digital Service. Now he’s an Adjunct Professor of Design and Digital Government at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. He also advises several organizations on design and research strategy. Colin was once described as a “die-hard artificial intelligence hater,” but has been teaching students to use AI to do UX reseach for several years now.

15 minute break.

Design System Fundamentals: Building Blocks for Effective Design

Design systems are critical for creating cohesive and effective user interfaces. In this session, we’ll unpack the essential components of design systems and discuss how each contributes to a stronger and more unified digital product. Participants will receive a clear, detailed breakdown of design tokens, components, patterns, documentation, and governance processes that form the backbone of any well-structured design system.

Through practical examples and discussions, attendees will learn how to assemble and maintain these components to build a design system that is both resilient and responsive to the needs of users and developers alike. Whether you’re looking to start a design system from scratch or seeking ways to refine an existing one, this session will equip you with the knowledge and best practices to do so.

Michael Carrick
Michael Carrick CEO & Co-founder of XDS | Experience Design Systems Inc.

Michael has led groups of talented user-centric UX designers, researchers and visual designers who specialize in helping their partners create beautifully connected experiences. Michael understands how to create impactful, reusable and technology-driven tools that help designers and developers to deliver experiences at the intersection of people, business and technology needs.

Michael brings two decades of expertise designing and developing digital experiences for industry leaders in Financial, Government, Retail, Insurance and Artificial Intelligence sectors.

15 minuted break.

Frame, facilitate, finish: an introverts secrets to better design collaboration

We want to collaborate to create better designs, but how do we work with all the different personalities we might encounter on our teams, with clients, and with stakeholders? Especially, for the introverts among us, how can we facilitate better conversations and collaborations with the people we work with?

In this presentation, we will look at a straightforward framework that builds trust on teams, creates safe space for good work, and creates strong, collaborative teams that learn how to work together. Together with this framework, we’ll look at specific tactics you can keep handy to get conversations going, capture competing voices, and manage distractions and side conversations.

At the end of this presentation, you will be better able to facilitate everything from formal design workshops to informal white boarding sessions, always helping your team move towards better designed experiences.

Austin Govella
Austin creates award-winning employee experiences that make work wonderful. Austin Govella has built products and services for some of the world’s largest organizations, including global industry leaders like ExxonMobil, Comcast, Verizon Wireless, Ashley Furniture, and The World Bank. His experience includes omnichannel marketing and commerce, employee experience, and product development.

As an experienced facilitator with over 15 years of experience, Austin leverages a collaborative design approach with clients and specializes in facilitating design thinking, product management, design sprints, and Agile methodologies.

15 minute break.

How New W3C Guidelines Could Impact UX Designers

Twenty years ago, the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) armed digital product teams with tools to improve how the web works for people with disabilities. In turn, these guidelines have influenced accessibility legislation in dozens of countries and measurably improved the web experience for the up to one billion people worldwide who identify as having some sort of physical or cognitive disability.

In late 2023, the first-ever Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSGs), produced by a W3C community group, aim to do the same for sustainability.

In this session, Tim Frick, co-chair of the W3C group and an editor of the WSG specification, will share how these 93 evidence-based guidelines can improve the social and environmental impacts of digital products and services we design and build.

The presentation will cover how UX designers can incorporate the WSGs into existing processes to:

Influence customer behavior to promote circularity and sustainability
Improve performance, efficiency, and accessibility
Reduce digital emissions, especially Scope 3
Prolong product lifespan and reduce e-waste
Align these efforts with existing sustainability reporting standards like GRI
We’ll also cover why these guidelines should exist under the umbrella of a web standards body like W3C and how that might influence future legislation, like the EU’s CSRD and California’s Climate Disclosure Regulations.

Our industry can’t effectively address big, wicked problems like climate change or social inequality without fundamentally changing how we design, develop, and manage digital products and services. This session will share some actionable takeaways on how UX designers can achieve this.

Tim Frick
Tim started Mightybytes in early 1998 to help nonprofits, social enterprises, and purpose-driven companies solve problems, amplify their impact, and drive measurable business and marketing results.

Tim is a Certified Sustainability Designer through Gaia Education, a United Nations global education partner, where he co-facilitated their course on Economic Design. The course is part of the Design for Sustainability program, which helps students learn regenerative design and inclusive economic practices.

Tim has written four books, which have been translated into multiple languages and are used at educational institutions around the world:

• Designing for Sustainability: A Guide to Building Greener Digital Products and Services from O’Reilly Media
• Two editions of Return on Engagement: Content Strategy and Web Design Techniques for Digital Marketing from Elsevier/Focal Press
• Managing Interactive Media Projects, an academic project management guide from Cengage Learning

In addition to authoring books, Tim has written for dozens of well-known publications, blogs, and media outlets. He recently contributed to the following projects:

• The first-ever sustainability chapter of the HTTP Archive’s annual Web Almanac, a comprehensive report on the state of the web
• A chapter in the Ecomm Manager’s Sustainable Ecommerce Handbook

Tim is also a regular contributor to B the Change, the storytelling platform for the global B Corp community.

Passionate about the growing global B Corp movement, Tim has co-founded and/or led several B Corp-related networks:

• B Local Illinois
• The B Corp Marketers Network
• The B Proud Network

In 2013, Tim started a Sustainable Web Design community group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In 2023, this group introduced the Web Sustainability Guidelines to help organizations incorporate sustainability principles into the creation and management of digital products and services.

Finally, Tim is currently a board member at the Alliance for the Great Lakes and former Board President for Climate Ride.

Wrapping up the day.