My key takeaways from UX Camp Melbourne | Naarm 2023
What a day!
Hello there! It’s been a while. It’s easy for me to lament that I missed last week’s article! Aghast! Well, sometimes life gets in the way, and for good cause. So sorry for those of you eagerly awaiting my frivolous email last week (I’m sure there are so many of you) but be at ease. We’re back, and with a vengeance. A writing vengeance. Or passion, I should say.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending UX Camp Melbourne | Naarm, a unique “un-conference”. I had no idea what an un-conference even meant until the day of the event, but now I do.
Basically, there are no formal speakers (except one very special keynote). Rather, at the start of the conference attendees can pitch their topic to the audience, who then vote on who they want to hear and, based on this, the UX Camp team quickly and efficiently (and stressfully) develop an agenda for the day.
And this concept really works for a few reasons. Firstly, you get a large variety of topics and ideas from UXers across multiple industries and experiences. And secondly, it gives such a warm sense of community, to see the person who was sitting next to you in one talk be presenting in front of everyone in the next. It makes you feel like you’re hanging out with rock stars in their dressing room, before their big show.
So that’s what an un-conference is. But what about the actual content of the talks? Well, I’ve summarised these into an SEO-friendly “5 things I learnt from UX Camp Melbourne | Naarm” for easy digestion.
1.The reports of UX’s death are greatly exaggerated
This was probably the biggest topic of the day, and particularly the focus of Amir Ansari and Miranda Maturana’s talk. With all the recent layoffs and everyone now in the rubble of the tech wreck, what is a little ol’ jobless, human-centred, creative, fun-loving individual (ie. me) to do? Despair? Change careers — again?! Is the golden era of UX, of caring about people and their experiences with digital products, now over? Are we just in the era of ship fast, think about users later?
The truth, like it often does, might lie somewhere in the middle. The often-referenced ”Designers, they’re gaslighting you” article resonates with the current dip in UX careers, painting a picture of senior leadership out of touch with what design even means, continually needing its value to be proven. And if it can’t — then it’s cut.
But there’s a second truth. Of design actually being at a point of maturity, of it being valued and understood. But economic circumstances and the boom-bust of careers during and after COVID leading to the current market overcorrection. It’s not the death of UX. Right now, it’s just bad timing.
Whatever you want to believe, it’s easy to be pessimistic. But there’s a way out of pessimism. And that’s to exploration.
A message consistent across both Miranda and Amir’s talks was: designers are the ones who deal with ambiguity the best.
We deal with ambiguity by continually questioning. By continually iterating. By looking at things from a different point of view. Now is the time to do that, but for our own careers.
I loved Miranda’s approach of, rather than overly identifying with “I want to be a designer”, identifying with your mission, your goals, what you want the impact of your work to be. Searching LinkedIn for jobs as a “designer” it’s easy to pigeonhole yourself into tech “Product Designer” or “UX/UI/CX/xxx Designer” roles, but design is so much more than that.
Design is creating things with people in mind. If you’re doing that you’re a designer (so really, everyone’s already a designer, right? Democratise design, wooo~).
And thinking about design holistically is one of the best ways to get out of this despair and get creating again. So let’s try doing that.
2. Do you wanna be in the business?
Connected to the challenge of designers proving their worth, I loved Aron Tucker’s talk about changing the narrative. His message was simple: for designers to prove their worth, you have to learn the machinations of business. Whether you like it or not.
And I earnestly believe this. As much as I love unchained creativity, design by definition is creativity with a purpose. And as much as we’d like to believe this purpose is purely for the benefit of users, it’s not. The other purpose of design is to make organisations money, the primary incentive (most) private enterprises have to create and innovate in our capitalist economy.
This can be a bitter pill to swallow for the young, idealistic designer who simply wants to make the world a better place. Even myself, who has swallowed three years of a commerce degree, semi-unlearned the cold facts of business and economics all for the cause of pivoting into design and fostering an open, user-centred mindset.
And I’m not saying that’s not important. If anything, Aron’s message was that that is your core, your beating heart as a designer.
But I also appreciate Aron’s reminder to not be ignorant. To widen your eyes to the machine of business that design fits into and learn the skills of selling and crafting the value proposition of design and importantly, your designs.
Realise the system you’re working in and do your best to make a positive difference with design despite it.
Or design a way otherwise.
3. It’s time for that AI talk
You can’t have a conference these days without a discussion on AI. And UX Camp didn’t pull any punches.
Amir’s talk gave a classic roadshow of all the technology currently out there.
If you’re anything like me, you might have already seen all of these. And if you’re anything like me, you’re tired of the constant new AI tech popping up on your LinkedIn feed that you now have to learn. It can feel like a constant battle to be on top of all the latest AI tools that are coming out. The amount of free trials I’m managing so I can dip my toes in the water with all these is killing me.
So I loved his approach of starting at the fundamentals. Just start at the basics. ChatGPT is the root of most text-based tools and some diffusion model is at the root of most image generators. Understand those first, and then seek out the specific tools that will make your job easier afterwards.
I also really appreciated the conversations around distrust of OpenAI, especially in the wake of recent board reshuffles and reports of worker exploitation in Kenya. Remembering the existence of Claude, Pi.ai and alternative LLMs is important as we navigate the ethical challenges of these tools, but the growing need to use them as part of the modern workforce.
Additionally, addressing how we, as designers, can influence the future of AI was Glenn Carmichael from Telstra Purple. Well, not really addressing. More just providing a forum for everyone to bounce their ideas around and see what sticks. I really appreciated his breakdown of AI into four categories:
Specialised productised AI tools: finite, guardrailed AI tools that perform very specific tasks. Eg. a transcriber
High interaction, general specialisation: such as AI co-pilots, that are embedding themselves in all we do.
High interaction, org., dept. or task specialisation: tailored models trained for particular business needs or tasks. For example, an image generator like Stable Diffusion, tailored to… Make images.
Automation. Low interaction, high specialisation: invisible AI tools that automate processes and don’t need any human intervention.
Some of the main points that were brought up included the challenges of worker adoption, the challenges of setting human guardrails and the role designers have, as empaths, to police bias, build ethical guidelines and be blue-sky thinkers looking ahead, not wrestling to catch up.
4. Wiring your brain for creativity (and other features)
I met the unassuming Troy King (also, best, most regal name ever?) in the line at the start of the conference. He had a great jacket. He then ended up being the end-of-day lock note speaker wowing us all with his knowledge of neuroscience and how this influences creativity. Thanks un-conference.
Creativity means different things to many people. Many might say it is a way to link disparate ideas into a new, novel idea. Others, like myself, might say it’s just ‘the spark’, that lightning strike that comes to you before you sleep and solves that problem you’ve been agonising the whole week over.
Whatever creativity is to you, there’s no doubt many of us struggle to unlock it, even if you call yourself a ‘creative’.
But Troy’s talk very kindly gave us a bunch of steps on how to unlock creativity. And made it seem so simple. It’s all about getting the brain into that restful, monk-like state, where it’s allowed to wander and pull ideas together.
Troy’s advice is:
A healthy mind needs a healthy body. Diet, exercise and rest.
Routines and habits let the mind automate certain tasks. Build these and you’re building more energy for the mind to be creative and explore the unknown.
Find that quiet time, those distraction-free moments, to immerse yourself in your flow state and give your mind room to be creative. Stop multi-tasking, please.
Creativity comes with collaboration, human connection and places of vulnerability and psychological safety. There are real benefits to getting out and interacting with people. Go to the office (every now and then) just like Tom O’Dwyer told us all to do.
I also want to give Samantha Matthews a shout-out for her half-talk, half-practical activity. The moments we are at play are the most creative moments. Giving everyone a moment to work with plasticine (!) is exactly what we need more of to find those sparks of creativity and just be more human.
5. Design includes everyone (even your grandma)
Lastly, UX Camp had a solid inclusive design representation, from Angeline Mayasari discussing her findings on intergenerational users and Scott Rippon going back to the fundamentals and talking through Kmart’s approach to accessibility.
What wasn’t presented, however, was the growing discussion around designing for neurodivergence. It came up plenty in casual conversations between sessions (thank you again, Tom and Miranda), but I’d love to see a stronger focus on this in future — especially since I, personally, feel aware but also unaware of this growing need. Nonetheless, here are some articles from Content Design London and Katrin Suetterlin that have been my starting points.
Whew! Thanks for reading this highlight reel of what I found to be an incredible UX and design community event. Thanks so much to all the hardworking volunteers and I hope to see some familiar faces next year!
“Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas. Find the most talented person in the room, and if it's not you, go stand next to them.”
—Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist