Solving the big challenges in UX
As the studio’s Digital Designer, Spark sent me off a few weeks’ ago to attend UX Cubed, a UX event held at the ShopDirect headquarters in Liverpool.
It was a day filled with stories of collaboration and diversity in the UX industry. Filled with speakers and insight from industry leaders like the BBC, MoneySupermarket and Rental Cars, along with some unconventional UX tales from places like Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
Sam Barton, the head of UX at ShopDirect opened the day with a talk on collaboration, and the strength of the design communities in the North West. “Through industry collaboration, we can start realising the big opportunities and solving the big challenges in UX and the wider North West digital sector.”
Some of the highlights of the day came from the BBC’s Ray Mosley, who talked about how UX professionals need to be the ones to push for their seat at the table and MoneySupermarket’s Rich Clark discussing how their company uses sprints to constantly innovate.
My personal favourite talk of the day was from Iain Hennessey, who, after a long day of in depth UX discussions added an alternate take on the whole idea of UX. While, as one of the audience said, UX is often about taking a person’s habits and using it for our own gains, Iain works for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and talked at length about how everything he does goes into providing better care for the Children that are unfortunate enough to have to visit him.
As Iain said, it’s a testament to his patient’s user experience as it’s not often that you put someone through what would probably be the worst experience of their life, then receive a thank you card the next week!
While Iain’s talk is the one I remember for standing out on the day, all of the speakers had great insight and stories of the industry to share. The idea of hosting a UX event to bring the community in the North West together might not be an entirely new one, but it’s a scene that’s constantly growing and events like these from big players are essential in giving people a jumping off point into the world of UX.
