Ux Australia Audio (from 2015)

Significantly increase engagement in your UX workshops by applying Self Determination Theory We’ve all been there. Finally, the decision-makers are on board and in the room to participate in a high-powered workshop. Energetically, you explain the agenda, go over general housekeeping, and move onto the first activity. Instead of enthusiasm, you’re met with blank stares and a room full of folded arms. Tumbleweeds blow and crickets chirp. One of the biggest challenges with running UX workshops getting attendees to participate in design activities. How do we motivate people to buckle down and contribute during our small amount of time together? What drives us to participate? What intrinsically pushes us to want to engage in a task? For over forty years, Dr. Edward Deci and Dr. Richard Ryan have worked with hundreds of psychologists and behavioural specialists to develop Self Determination Theory, the theory of human motivation. Motivation is described by Deci as, “Doing an activity with a sense of interest, e

In recent years, as technology engineering production and release cycles have sped up, user experience (UX) research practices have correspondingly become more Lean to best match those cycles. On top of that, the increasing interest in incorporating user feedback into product development keeps pushing the limit of resources that UX research teams can allocate. Is this seemingly unstoppable appetite for customer insights sustainable? How can UX researchers properly support their product teams’ growing needs? We argue that, to be successful at scaling up Lean UX research, product teams need to become active actors in the process, while researchers need to use their expertise to provide guidance and training as required. As an example of this approach, we describe our experience organizing “Developer Day”, a yearly event aimed at scaling up the Lean UX research practices of Microsoft’s Developer Division. Developer Day has also extended the reach of the division’s UX Research team for impacting decisions about t

We're told that making assumptions is dangerous, yet in UX we make them every day. Who our users are, what they want, how they do things. With so many projects vying for our time it’s inevitable we’ll make assumptions, so how do we minimise the risks? In this session we’ll: see how a group of 19th-century philosophers promoted the use of assumptions to make fast decisions take lessons from mountaineering accidents in the UK so you can make safer assumptions learn how to implement processes to check just how risky your subconscious biases really are

Every design decision has the potential to include or exclude customers. Global Research emphasizes the contribution that understanding user diversity makes to informing these decisions, and thus to including as many people as possible. User diversity covers variation in capabilities, needs and aspirations. I will discuss how we use Global Research to prioritize what product teams really need to build well and understand if their designs have relative ease of use that translates well to non-US users. Global Research priorities addresses some of the most challenging problems facing our global users today.

Narratives for Change: How Effective Stories Help us Build New Systems

In UX interviews, it can be hard to get good-quality, unbiased insights (without acting like a heartless robot). With most FMCG and entertainment products, this isn’t too hard – but what if your product is related to health and personal issues? How do you remain objective and get valuable data from a user, while still being sensitive to the issues they’re going through – which you’re currently interrogating them about? The typical user story of asking participants to 'imagine' they have a cancer diagnosis just won't work for some projects. This talk will cover tools and tips for running UX interviews to ensure vulnerable users are treated with dignity, respect, and empathy – while still being a source of valuable insights.

Our challenge: transform mission-critical emergency services alerting infrastructure to a more contemporary approach that works for 55,000 career and volunteer emergency services personnel across three agencies. Creating a user-centric application isn’t about applying a UX tool or process here and there, but deliberately focusing on what the users need, and employing the right tools and techniques at the right times. Hear about the challenges we faced when designing one app for three emergency services in Victoria, the tools and processes used and how we created positive change

Think of 8 people that you know. That's the number of people that die by suicide every day in Australia. This is a statistic that needs to change and it is our duty as designers and architects of experiences to address this problem. During this talk, I want to take the opportunity to: Present my story to the design community on how I have battled, and continue to work hard to manage my anxiety and depression; Explain what it feels like to deal with anxiety and depression and how I used creativity to produce a beautifully illustrated short story, offering hope and help to all my readers; How working with a multidisciplinary team allowed me to create and craft a product that used human-centred design to create an effective, helpful and informative tool; Present my learnings and proven strategies that anyone can try, learn and practice to improve their mental health.

I had no idea what CLV meant when I got into my first design role. Or ARPU. Or CAC. In my presentation, I'm not going to discuss every acronym I’ve learnt recently. Instead I’ll cover how I came to learn what all those terms mean and why knowing what they mean, makes me better at what I do. If you're working in an environment where you'd like to convince 'the boss' to hire more designers, to have a dedicated design systems team or maybe even hire your first UI writer, then I hear you. In fact, maybe you just want to convince a product manager that the thing you want to work on really is the most important thing for your team right now. I'm going to talk about how to embrace your inner businessperson (it's in there!) and put your design skills to use where they are needed the most. It all starts with being able to understand and communicate with the decision makers in your business.

The world of user experience is confusing and messed up. When you are trying to deal with a UX challenge in your organization, you might as well spin a wheel to see if the answer lies in a mindset, methodology, tool, strategy, community of practice, field of study, or industry. What is “user experience,” really? It is the feeling people get when they interact with your organization through a digital system. Other “spins” on user experience represent some of the ways people are talking about UX. In your organization, does “UX” represent a design process, separate team, certified profession, ubiquitous skill, agent of change, or meaningless buzzword? Or is UX all of these at the same time? Get an introduction to the Spins on User Experience so you can consider which to ignore and which are useful to advance UX in your organization

Mobile Accessibility: Testing native apps and mobile sites for accessibility Unfortunately, when developing WCAG2, the Working Group did not envision the current world where mobile is almost ubiquitous. For example, on a mobile device there is no continual access to a keyboard (unless someone is using it as an add-on to the device – or using a Blackberry Classic). WCAG2 requires that all content be accessible to the keyboard interface, but it does not require that all content be accessible to a mouse or to a touchscreen user – which is essential on a mobile device. WCAG2.1 does include some mobile accessibility requirements, but doesn’t go far enough. Gian Wild chaired the Mobile Site Sub-Committee to develop a set of Mobile Site Testing Guidelines that are available under Creative Commons. These guidelines are meant to be used in conjunction with WCAG2 (and WCAG2.1) to ensure that sites are accessible to people with disabilities using mobile and tablet devices. Accessibility is important to all – not every

UXAUS 2020 DAY 2 Dan Brown - Questions: The Most Essential UX Tool by UX Australia

UXAUS 2020 DAY 2 Catherine Hills -It’s more than designing shmick features to achieve kaching! by UX Australia

As designers and creatives, we are pretty mindful about everything… except ourselves. In an age where burnout and hustle culture are part of the everyday vernacular, we often click past our warning message in the hopes of discovering the "greener" grass of greatness only to land up in the swamp of struggle. In our quest to save the world, how can we better use our own design superpowers to help future and fellow designers get out of and recover from burnout? In this talk, we will explore the cyclical nature of burnout, backed by science and personal stories, putting forth various methods to design our own best conditions and our own "normal". Research, anecdotes, and advice included. Therapy sold separately

Design systems create an umbrella to to define the future of our design work. But design systems are not the biggest umbrella, so to speak—they exist under broader social, political, and infrastructural systems that affect the parameters, limitations, and variables of our system. Investigating design systems across many verticals, we'll look to see how design systems are impacted by the systems they live within. And beyond the verticals, we'll look to see how broader systems of power and oppression influence the design systems, and ultimately, the users who use the products defined by them. We'll look to see how to assess where our design systems live in broader ecosystems, the challenges inherent, and how to lean into the good, and resist the bad, to ensure we're serving all humans in an equitable and ethical way, maintaining safety and trust.

What incentivises us to behave in a certain way and what acts as a deterrent? Through a myriad of experiments in his 1930s Harvard Laboratory, B.F Skinner centred his research on tackling this very question. By way of artful manipulations of the environment, Skinner observed and recorded his theory of Behaviourism - documenting how different variables impact behaviour formation and extinction. The stage in which the experiment took place - famously coined the Skinner box - told the worldfirst story of a rat psychologically hooked on food pellets. Fast forward nearly a century later, and the protagonist amidst a tale of behavioural experimentation is no longer a mere rodent. Carrying Skinner-esque devices in our pockets, the everyday user has become victim to all sorts of covert behavioural manipulation they are not privy to. Despite being heralded as tools with emancipatory potential, software products have graduated with the times - now augmenting old tricks to design new behaviours. As the custodians o

What about us?: Marginalization, Privilege, Power, and Inclusion Today. I will be speaking to you about the role that privilege plays in our work in the field of UX, its effects on the products, and of course the people who end up using these products. We will also be touching on the idea of decolonizing design especially from the lens of post-colonial Southeast Asia and how we can create better products by reframing our understanding of empathy with an understanding of privilege and marginalization. As the world of tech now shifts its focus on Asia it’s important that these heavy topics around ethics and inclusion be talked about especially in the diverse landscape. As the world continues to look at the emerging markets of Southeast Asia it’s imperative that we not forget about designing even for the most marginalized communities in our region so we can create a more inclusive and progressive tech and design culture. The goal for this session is for attendees to understand the role of privilege and how an

Have you ever wondered how you might codesign for a whole industry? Meld Studios team up with the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) in New South Wales, and Thrive Homes to share how they collaborated with each other across all levels of the building industry, in order to encourage industry change towards more sustainable building. Seated within this, is an exploration of the role Design can play in facilitating this industry-change, and thus how you can utilise your skills to do so as well.

What designers must learn from journalists When reporting with integrity, journalists have a plethora of unique research techniques and checks and balances to ensure stories are corroborated, unbiased, facts are being reported on and sources are evaluated, just as designers should always carefully evaluate research and data and be conscious of how information might be swayed by biases or blind spots. Journalists must maintain good relationships and often work together in order to craft a story, and for advocate journalists to create stories that increase knowledge of an issue and effect positive change. Designers can learn a lot from journalism as advocacy, as Buckminster Fuller says, ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality, to change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete’. Journalists have an uncanny ability to simplify the complex - something that designers need to do every day. They’ve had to learn and adapt fast to survive the digital revolution, and d

Today Steve is joined by Gian in sunny Queensland, to discuss her upcoming UX Australia 2020 presentation Mobility Accessibility. Gian takes the virtual stage on Day 2 of the conference to discuss her work on mobile site & native app testing guidlines. Find the guidelines at Accesibilityoz.com https://www.accessibilityoz.com/resources/mobile-testing/ Tickets to the conference are available now https://events.humanitix.com/ux-australia-2020