UX Australia Podcast: All presentations from 2009-2014

Talk show hosts know all about uncovering deep insights – after all, that’s their bread and butter. In this talk, Kimberley from Meld Studios will share what she has learned from watching and listening to the best interviewers in TV and radio. Please note, this will be an Alan Jones-free zone.

Running a half day, or, a full day design sprint is intimidating if you have never run a design sprint before. I’ll focus on why design sprints are awesome, tips for how to include non-designers, my go-to design exercises, and provide a sample agenda to get you started.

In my usability and user research recruiting I’m worried that I’m getting too many nice people who are self-selecting to participate because they are giving and supportive people. To have a well-rounded picture, we need to talk to the jerks. How do I find the jerks?

Whether you’re drowning in data or struggling for insights the hardest thing can be getting a project out of the gate. Like Johnny Cash sang, the key is to take it “One Piece at a Time.” I’ll talk about ways to rethink starting (or re-starting) a project without getting overwhelmed.

If we think about the city as an operating system, what would the digital interfaces through which we interact with the city look like? This talk will walk through a series of experimental prototypes and discuss challenges and design lessons learned through their deployment in urban space.

Interested in responsive design? Richard and Jolanda will share their key insights in redesigning one of the most highly trafficked Victorian Government websites into a smart, engaging experience. Learn about the challenges of responsive design for large websites and how they resolved them. The VicRoads website will go live one month before the conference.

The questions we ask ourselves at the idea generation stage of design play a critical role in the nature of the ideas generated. Bold questions beget bold ideas; and incrementalism begins in the same way. In this talk we will look at how problem framing and reframing can impact the ideas teams generate, and how problem statements can be ‘tuned’ to better deliver feasible concepts within your organisation. We’ll look at some recent examples from our work at Meld Studios as well as some well-known case studies from around the world.

More designers are being tasked with designing solutions where the contexts of use. purchase, and even realized value may be completely separate. This and other factors that will be used to define the unique attributes of “The Enterprise”. I’ll then relate some stories of my 10+ years of experience specifically designing for these environments where scale, complexity, business models, and culture.

This talk reflects interests and confusions in user experience design by comparing two approaches to UX, experience as principle or as the subject, and by introducing “logic of behavior” and “aesthetics of experience” developed by Xin at Jiangnan University. It will also discuss how design may participate in the social and economic transformation of China.

The internet as we knew it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s now the one we carry in our pockets; the one users expect to provide information and to facilitate task completion. If you’re looking to create digital experiences that withstand scrutiny and support both needs, this is a talk you can’t miss.

How do you change something as endemic in Australian culture as excessive alcohol consumption? This isn’t a typical consulting job. It requires a design partnership. We’ll describe how Hello Sunday Morning and Tobias & Tobias Australia have been working together to find more effective approaches to affecting alcohol-related behaviour.

Our devices and wearables collect so much ambient information about us and use it to create great, often unnoticed and sometimes slightly creepy experiences for us. This talk looks at what this new AI can do for us and how, as UX people, we can use the power for good!

For many of us, wearables are just cool new tech. For people with disabilities, wearables can be a game changer. Heard about the smart gloves that turn sign language into speech? Come on a brief journey through how wearables can be empowering, transforming and inclusive for a different people.

Having worn at least three wearables for over 12 months, people often ask Oliver “Which is the best?”. For a bunch of black rubber bands they all convey fitness tracking in very different ways. He will talk through the key UX issues with wearables and why they haven’t gone mainstream just yet.

As with all complexity in the world today, it is inadequate to use ‘linear thinking’ in siloed disciplines. To create effective interactions between connected products, the design processes have to integrate Industrial Design and User-Interface Design from the very beginning, in order to succeed at all.

Listening is a foundation skill for all designers. We all know what great versus poor listeners do. But what if you could use a simple phrase that imbued you with the qualities of a good listener as well as making the listening experience more personally engaging for you?

The human brain is slowing down our ability to design. While neuroscience tells us how the brain’s oscillations aid creativity, little has been done to connect theory to UX. Combining neuroscientific theory with live activities, this talk will demonstrate how an understanding of our brains neural physics can enhance UX design.

Have you ever struggled to create a robust evaluation methodology for diverse and complex products? In this presentation, we describe how we have implemented an effective UX framework suited to large enterprises that acknowledges the voice of the user, while managing stakeholder expectations. Presented by pioneer consultancy U1 Group and Telstra.

In Australia it’s estimated over 200,000 people a year acquire an infection in hospital, most of these can be prevented by staff simply washing their hands. This talk provides an inside look at the unique UX driven partnership between Southern Health and Isobar, which aims to discover the reasons behind the current lack of good hand hygiene, and create a lasting behavioral change within the hospital environment.

MYOB and HeathWallace have created “Feelix”, the MYOB UX Framework – a trusted, scalable, ‘assertive’ benchmark for tactical direction, strategic thinking, and broader UX education. Hear both the agency and client perspectives as they talk through their case study and discuss how Feelix is being used right now by MYOB.

Professional factions have made it impossible for the business community to make educated decisions – or even understand what UX is. I’d like to see professional barriers broken down. We ALL bring something valuable to the table – if we’re ever allowed to sit at that table. And I’d like to share a model for UX that respects our differences, but provides an easy-to-understand framework on which businesses can build their UX strategies.

Customer Experience is tackling bigger challenges worldwide. In New Zealand, the ‘Result 10’ team is working to make it easier for people to deal with government online. How do you set out on a task like that, what do you prepare for? We’ll talk about customer-centricity in a complex environment.

Startups are peculiar and how UX fits in (if indeed, at all…) is nebulous. Hilary will share her insights and approaches, failures and successes when working in this strange frontier.

Visualization is the method to represent abstract data or idea as graphics that can aid in understanding the meaning of such data or idea. A number of practical methodologies can be used in represent data, ideas, information in easy-to-understand visual formats in daily work and life. For example, presentation slides, infographics, and UI design all make communication significantly efficient.

If Customer Experience is one of the most important aspects of contemporary corporate strategy and increasingly necessary for survival, why is it also one of the most misunderstood? And if innovation is recognised as the best way to create market leadership and generate long-term value, why do complex organisations struggle to attain it?

Steve will introduce the War Stories project, an archive of stories about contextual user research and the inevitable mishaps that ensue. He will highlight some of the patterns these stories reveal and suggest some takeaways that this treasure trove of bizarre, comic and tragic experiences point to.

Financial services innovation is exploding in London however; there is the emergence of a two-speed innovation culture where banks and start-ups work together and against each other in an uneasy and sometimes volatile partnership. This talk shares the most exciting directions from the big smoke but also looks at the huge opportunities for the experience design skills of idea connection, cross-disciplinary action and collaboration. Find out how what you know is more valuable than you think…

Based on our recent project Booksy – booking local services on mobile – I’ll share our experiences with designing the local business onboarding process, done in a mobile first approach.

Uncertainty plagues user experience, and constantly in the world of deep research emerging as technology solutions for real world problems. While I don’t have any definitive answers on how to capture and represent uncertainty, I have the start of a framework for reference and a couple of examples.

Executive commitment to improving customer experience is an essential ingredient for success, but is often the greatest challenge for CX teams. We’ll share how 15 minutes and an iPad can be the key to send Executives through a ‘one-way door’ to lock-in their support for CX once and for all.

In a world of touch screen this and mobile that, why aren’t we as user experience practitioners rocking minority report style software for our research and design activities? This short talk aims to cover off some of the solid reasons why we use old-school techniques but also challenge us as a profession moving forwards in this digital age.

I have used this talk to take my team mates (comprising of Testers, Business Analysts, Developers and Managers) through various scenarios involving a door. It has helped me bring home to them the process of user centred design thinking in a fun and easy way. I talk everyone draws.

Various styles of sketching are used in UX and these will be demonstrated. I’m no artist, but I can sketch. They are funny or odd and are definitely not fine works of art. While my sketches are ‘bad’, they are good because anyone can do them and they serve to communicate what’s needed in the design process.

Stories create engagement. I’ve been in positions where a story needs to be told, or a story needs to emerge. I’ve also had to tell this story knowing nothing, or knowing everything. In this talk, I’ll share my insights around what to think about when telling your own story.

How brand storytelling can create value and loyalty from a user experience.

In a world where the perceived value associated with delightful experiences can help set a product apart, how can designers stay on top of our game? What is this intangible ‘delight’ thing anyway, and is it possible to create it? In this talk, Ben ‘squared’ will explore what makes an experience delightful, and whether the systems and processes that we love and rely on are still relevant in an ever-changing landscape.

Currently, there is a big focus on the ‘how’ ‘what’ and ‘why’ of user experience design; the method, the tool and the value proposition. What’s commonly overlooked is the one aspect that affects all of these things – mindset. Uncovering two influential mindsets greatly affects our approach to methods, tools, and ultimately the quality and trajectory of our work.

Today’s digital experiences are splintered between devices, channels, contexts and need-states along a customer journey. These experiences are not fluid and continuous however. They are discrete events that unfold over time and happen with a certain cadence and intensity. This talk is about how to deliver experiences in the right cadence across the right channels and devices.

This talk is for anyone who designs mobile apps and wants to better engage and onboard new users. You’ll get an overview of best practices, patterns and antipatterns for designing first time user experiences, with suggestions for taking the next steps.

Organisations are turning to people with design sensibilities to inform and lead significant changes within their businesses. UX practitioners have the necessary design sensibilities, but few are applying themselves to these new challenges. In this presentation Iain shares his experiences with non-digital design, describes the challenges and opportunities, and provides guidance to help you get started on a similar journey.

In a world obsessed with the success and importance of the ‘individual’ it’s not surprising that we focus our user-experience work on the performance outcomes of a single person, our ‘user’. This talk will look into the emerging practice of Neuroanthropology and how brain science coupled with more pluralistic anthropological thinking; can tell us a few things about what it means to be human and how we can begin to reconcile the cult of the ‘individual’ with the real world of ‘us’.

Discover the power of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and how it applies to strategy design. This technique helps to build participatory practices within organisations through visual and physical co-creation. The method can be applied to design thinking, decision making, team building and organisational strategy.

We developed a target customer experience at NAB, and it looked great. We started using it and it didn’t work well, so we redesigned it. It worked better, but we thought of new ways to use it and redesigned it again. It seems like every month we’ve got something to change or add to it, and that’s just the way it should be.

This presentation provides practical tips for creating a customer-led vision, strategy and roadmap within a large organisation. We will describe how Westpac uses customer centred design (CCD) techniques to write compelling stories for the future and get buy-in from stakeholders across the business. We will also talk about how we deliver on the visions we set.

Many consultants and designers are starting to be faced with the job of helping a client to connect via a variety of touch points and create a true multi-channel experience strategy. It’s a great opportunity – knowing that your design ideas in one channel can be translated far and beyond. You can give your clients confidence in realising their goals and also help customers know that the brand is ready for ‘on my time. Through trial and error, tears and laughter, we have discovered a range of ways to help clients start the journey to defining a consistent, manageable and own-able customer experience.

The idea of the ‘user experience’ is infiltrating the class room, the board room…and even the cabinet office. Everywhere, small green shoots of design thinking are rising when we need them most. But while the method has transcended the studio, is the rise of design thinking in Australia missing those it needs most – designers? In this presentation Tim offers a short taxonomy of hope, with a skim across work in three states that may just put design back into thinking, including case studies in South Australia, and emerging work in Queensland and NSW.

Thematic analysis is a widely used qualitative method in design research. We will discuss the difference between data driven and theory driven approaches and explore how thematic analysis can be used strategically to generate different insights at various points in the design cycle.

In order for organisations to truly become experience-centric, it is critical for IT to shift its role as well. IT has impact on all aspects of how an organisation operates, and this in turn has direct impact on how well the business can deliver value to itself and to customers. Customer and staff experience are at the heart of this shift, as experience is often the only differentiator in an increasingly commodified product and service environment. We’ll explore what an experience-enabling IT function looks like, within shaping experience strategy down to supporting and maintaining the experience-led environment of today. This is a critical (and often-overlooked) part of any organisation becoming, and staying, experience-led.

Recently, I worked on two experience strategy projects: one – the UX strategy for our own company DiUS, and the other – working with my client to put together a Customer Experience Strategy for her organsiation. This talk summarises the 11 things I found to be important when defining an experience strategy.

In this hands-on activity, Mike Biggs will introduce you to the power of the Empathy Map; a quick and simple workshop tool that draws on the knowledge of the team in the room to tease out those key differences between your customers. In less than the time it takes to conduct one in-depth interview, you can paint a picture of your audience, prioritise them, and have your stakeholders walk out of the room in clear agreement about who your strategy is targeting; allowing you to head out and start learning more about them.