Cross-Functional Relationship Design
As designers, we all know that the majority of our time is spent on people, not on designing. Nearly every designer has experienced some kind of “people problem” at work – such as a cross-functional partner that won’t collaborate. In this talk, Alla will offer an introduction to relationships – what they are, how they work, and how designers can create relationship interfaces so they can be 10 times more effective at work.
Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?
You should not be doing research for the sake of doing research. Research takes time and needs to be well throughout. More importantly, you need to determine if your findings are actually meaningful to the organization. In this session we will look at the idea of statistical significance and meaningfulness when reporting research findings.
Multipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing (Videoconference)
Despite our clear value in informing product and advocating for our customers, UX Research (UXR) tends to have a lot to prove within most companies. Whether it’s our value, knowledge, or definition, there are information-holes about UXR that need to be filled. Not only that, but we have a lot to share with the rest of our company. We want to be sure that our insights are heard. With zero marketing experience, I (alongside our Centralized Research Team) took a stab at rebranding and marketing our UX Research (UXR) team with sincere intention. Collecting lessons and dodging roadblocks along the way, we tested and evolved different methods set out to evangelize UX Research insights, share findings between teams, define and demystify UX Research and prove value for UXR throughout the company. What does that even look like? Molly will tell you.
UX Lessons from running more than 1,200 A/B Tests (Videoconference)
Knowing how to solve the right problem is only one small part of the product-success equation. And nailing the execution is harder than most people think. As Erin says in this talk, “There are far more ways to fail than there are to succeed” when it comes to experimentation. To help you learn, Erin shares some of the silly mistakes she made while A/B testing her designs. That way you can avoid those pitfalls as you work to make your digital product better—not just different.
Harry Max on Managing Priorities
Harry Max is an executive coach, consultant, and hands-on product design and development leader. He’s also the author of the forthcoming Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions.
For individuals, teams, and organizations, from managing things, people, places, rules, activities, and projects, Harry’s new book Managing Priorities gets to the heart of how we prioritize and make and implement decisions, whether one-off or events that happen on a regular basis.
Harry uses DEGAP, a design-thinking framework that he says he didn’t invent but discovered, to explain how successful organizations and leaders set, implement, and execute priorities. DEGAP closes the gap between a current state and a desired state:
D – decide
E – Engage (commit to the process)
G – gather (collect information and items to prioritize)
A – arrange (sort and create frameworks)
P – prioritize
Harry and Lou also discuss the importance of flexible thinking (a superpower of designers) when it comes to prioritization, communication, and implementation.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
– How Harry went from technical writer to designer to executive coach to SXSW speaker to author
– What DEGAP is, why it makes a difference when dealing with prioritization, and how Harry discovered it
– Why DEGAP is like a design-thinking framework
– The unique prioritization challenges designers face
– The unique gifts designers bring to addressing prioritization
Quick Reference Guide
[0:00:26] Introduction of Harry
[0:01:59] A discussion on prioritization
[0:04:27] Orders of prioritization
[0:07:39] Distinguishing priorities of the individual, team, and organization – DEGAP
[0:12:26] More about DEGAP at the individual and organizational levels
[0:15:39] Advancing Research 2024, March 25-27
[0:17:13] Review of Harry’s career path
[0:23:47] Unique prioritization challenges for designers
[0:26:25] Harry’s gift for the listeners
Unleashing Swarm Creativity to Solve Enterprise Challenges
Enterprises, even those with mature design practices, find it difficult to tap into the creativity of all of its workforce. Yet unleashing that broad creativity is now needed more than ever as success of teams depends on having the nimbleness of an ant farm to adapt and find their way around obstacles. Enterprise design processes, systems and ops are often tied to old top-down command/control organizational models. Design Swarms is an approach that has been used and adopted by teams within companies like Amazon, Amgen, Autodesk, Callison, Deutsche Bank, Lilly, T-Mobile, Microsoft, and REI to unleash swarm creativity at scale.
What emerging methods are advancing UX research [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series] (Videoconference)
Four of your research colleagues discussed and defended their respective positions on what emerging methods are advancing UX research. Participants engaged with them in a discussion and Q&A, facilitated by Victor Udoewa.
“Thanks to online culture, we have all become savvy content creators, alert to meanings. But while the user can tell you what they like, semiotics unlocks the system of imagery, narratives and environments that makes them think that way, showing brands how to be distinctive and credible.”
– Soma Ghosh & Rob Thomas
“Using AI for the “science” of user research (data collection, analysis) leaves you with more time to devote to the “art” of it—drawing connections only you could draw, telling stories that resonate in a way only you can.”
– Savina Hawkins
“The value of User Research is easily missed (dismissed) if our colleagues don’t come out from behind their computers or down from their 47th-floor office, and join us in talking to the people using their products or experiencing their services. There is no such thing as second-hand empathy.”
– Dave Hoffer
The Business Model Canvas – The Human-Centered Way
The business model canvas is a classic tool for organizing the various aspects of your product or solution. We want to share how we use this tool in a human-centered way at Nationwide to generate research plans that lead us to creating delightful solutions for our users.
2022: The Year UX Demonstrates its Business Impact
UX professionals have seen the demand for research rise in the last year, but demonstrating the business value of UX remains a challenge because organizations aren’t using the right success metrics.
In this session, we’ll reveal how the mindset around measuring UX has evolved, how innovative UX teams solve the challenge, and what you can do to evolve your own measurement strategy.
AI as Infrastructure
Dan Hill is the director of the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne, and author of Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary and Designing Missions. And he’s the opening speaker at the inaugural Designing with AI 2024 conference, where he’ll be presenting “Designing for the Infrastructures of Everyday Life”.
Like it or not, AI is a growing part of our infrastructure—not just the infrastructure of our phones, our computers, and the internet—but that of our physical world. It’s increasingly used to support the very fundamental systems that maintain our cities, hospitals, utilities, and educational systems. On some levels, this is cause for concern. After all, we’ve seen other implementations of AI (think riding-sharing services) that have not lived up to their promise but have instead aggravated some of the problems they sought to address.
Dan is a big-picture guy with an ability to draw principles from history and other sectors. He understands that utilizing AI is inevitable. The challenge is recognizing the interconnectedness of our various systems and working together to build infrastructures that truly create better life experiences for all.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- The many facets of infrastructures
- How AI is currently being used and how it might be used in the future to support our infrastructures
- Why ride-sharing is not exactly an AI model worth repeating
- Why the Japanese and Finnish models work well in those environments but aren’t necessarily transferable to more diverse cultures
- Why quality of life will only improve with a more holistic, integrated design approach
Quick Reference Guide
0:37 – Introduction of Dan
3:49 – AI as infrastructure
8:30 – How AI might be used to further support infrastructure systems
12:09 – Will the impact of AI actually make life better?
18:59 – Plug for Managing Priorities by Harry Max. Get 15% off!
20:15 – The metaphor of designing looking through a lens and technology’s impact on the material world
26:16 – Helpful models – the Japanese and Finnish cultures
31:52 – Dan’s gift to the audience
