UXLx 2012: Links to notes and podcasts
Between May 16-18 I attended UXLx User Experience Lisbon 2012. It was an intensive 3 days. I took part in 4 workshops, listened to 3 lightning talks, 10 conference talks, published 14 sets of notes, and recorded 6 podcasts. Phew!
And if that wasn’t enough, I met up with dozens of really interesting and clever people and (just like last year) almost talked and thought myself to exhaustion!
Unprecedented access to speakers
One of the excellent things about UXLx is the access you get to the speakers. The workshops
give you one opportunity, but most of them also attend the evening events and stay at the main conference hotel.
During the week I chatted with Dave Gray, Derek Featherstone, Rachel Hinman, Steve Portigal, Joshua Porter, Jesse James Garrett, Andrea Resmini, and Ginny Reddish (plus some of those who held lightning talks).
Notes and Podcasts
During each session I attended I took some notes. Straight after the talk or workshop finished I published them unedited on the unofficial uxlx participants blog so that I could share them with everyone both at the event and those who couldn’t make it.
Per Axbom and I also recorded six podcasts which we recorded live and published straight away, giving you an audio-peek into the events of the week.
In this blog post I’ve gathered together links to all the notes and podcasts I published during the conference.
Tuesday 15th May
Episode 12: James and Per conquer Garageband at UXLx
Our first episode came from our hotel room at the Trip Oriente. After a bit of a fight with our new microphones and Garageband we eventually got it together and kicked-off our series of on-site podcasts.
Wednesday 16th May
Gamestorming workshop with David Gray
A proper workshop. Filled to the brim with practical, useful, go-home-and-try-them exercises. After hearing so many of last year’s presenters talk about gamestorming, it was great to complete the circle and get some hands-on coaching from Dave
Episode 13: James and Per cross channel gamestorm
In the day 1 post lunch podcast we talk about David Gray’s Gamestorming session and Peter Morville’s Cross-Channel Strategy workshop.
User Research Hacks with Gene Smith
Mental Models with Indi Young
A lecture at break-neck speed from Indi with 110 slides in the first 65 minutes. There was some excellent stuff in there, including sound advice on interview techniques. “”we are not the target audience”
Episode 14: James and Per give a lecture
A run down of the afternoon of the first day of UXLx.
Thursday 17th May
Remote Research with Nate Bolt
A practical workshop session with Nate guiding us through how you can set up remote user research. Consider how can you be graceful and flexible when your technology breaks – as it will half of the time. Nate was as cool as a cucumber when the tech did break in our session.
Episode 15: James and Per talk to Dave
After lunch on day 2 we managed to grab Dave Gray for a few minutes to talk about his workshop yesterday and planning workshops in general.
Developing and Implementing Findability Standards with Ravi Mynampaty
Accessibility for UX Designers with Derek Featherstone
A long session with Derek, but some great accessibility stuff. I think it opened the eyes of a fair few in the audience. Derek described accessibility as extreme usability. If we look at the extreme cases and build to those extremes then everyone else will be somewhere in between.
Episode 16: James and Per have done all this research
Friday 18th May
Here are my notes from 8 of the 10 talks. My notes for Rachel Hinman and Kim Goodwin weren’t really up to scratch, so they are missing from the collection.
The Architecture of Understanding with Peter Morville
Opening talk of the day. “IAs are planners, organisers and bridge builders, But they are also architects of understanding.”
Discover and act on insights about people with Steve Portigal
Microcopy with Joshua Porter
One of my favourite talks of the conference day. “If your UI designer doesn’t sweat over every single word they add to a screen, you should probably fire them!”
Refined Design: Thinking Beyond the Device with Derek “Steve” Featherstone
Derek gave a great run through of a context aware conference website. UXLx take note!
Design for Engagement with Jesse James Garrett
“UX is design of anything used by people independent of medium or across media with human experience as an explicit outcome and human engagement as an explicit goal.”
The Long Neck Versus the Long Tail with Gerry McGovern
The tiny tasks go to bed and dream of being a top tasks. They then wake up and go down to the web team and demand to be on the start page.
Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business with Jeff Gothelf
Lean UX: concept -> validate internally -> prototype -> test externally -> learn from user behaviour -> iterate.
Ubiquitous Computing and the Emerging Digital Eco-System with Bill Buxton
The closing presentation from the legend that is Bill Buxton. Difficult to take good notes when you’ve got such a professional and entertaining speaker dancing about enthusiastically in front of you (or on top of you in Gerry McGovern’s case).
Saturday 19th May
Episode 17: James and Per wrap up #UXLx 2012
The Friday was too busy to fit in the recording of a podcast, so Per and I recorded our 6th and final UX Podcast of the conference from our hotel room on the Saturday morning. We gave a quick review of our 4 top talks from the Friday, chatted to Lynsey and Celine from Paddy Power, and finally a roundup of the entire conference.