Submission Topics
This year's conference theme - Motivation - is open to a wide variety of interpretations, from "How do you motivate your clients to apply UX best practices consistently?" to "What are the ethics involved in manipulating the motivations of your end user?" to "What motivates you to practice UX?" The committee is eager to see how you'd like to explore UX and Motivation through your submission in one of the following topics:
Tools & Techniques
There are a wide variety of techniques and tools UXers use to learn things, move a project along, and motivate stakeholders. How have you used any of the following to achieve those goals?
There are a wide variety of techniques and tools UXers use to learn things, move a project along, and motivate stakeholders. How have you used any of the following to achieve those goals?
- Research tools & techniques, such as journey mapping, card sorting, and contextual inquiry
- Design tools & techniques, such as Design Studio, specific design or prototyping applications, and low-fidelity prototyping
- Development techniques & tools, such as HTML5 prototyping, extreme programming, and developing for accessibility
- Evaluation techniques & tools, such as remote user testing, 5-second testing, tree tests, A/B or multivariate testing
Design Psychology
Users want smooth experiences that support their specific needs, but the business often wants the UI to persuade them to do something else. How have you used behavioral and cognitive psychology knowledge to motivate your intended audience to act in a certain way? Has it always been for their benefit, and what are the dangers if persuasion becomes manipulation? Potential subcategories might include:
Users want smooth experiences that support their specific needs, but the business often wants the UI to persuade them to do something else. How have you used behavioral and cognitive psychology knowledge to motivate your intended audience to act in a certain way? Has it always been for their benefit, and what are the dangers if persuasion becomes manipulation? Potential subcategories might include:
- Gamification
- Inclusive Design, for people with a broad range of physical and cognitive abilities
- Immersive research/anthropology/ethnography
- Design techniques rooted in behavioral psychology
- Specific content choices (copy, video, imagery, color, typography, etc.)
Service Design
In the past few years, the practice of UX has rapidly evolved beyond just the desktop. People's interactions with brands are taking place over multiple online and offline platforms. Are you designing for multiple touchpoints? Does your organization take a holistic view of customer engagement, and are you or your team charged with optimizing a customer's entire experience with a brand? If yes, how? If not, what are the obstacles and how can we overcome them? Subtopics include:
In the past few years, the practice of UX has rapidly evolved beyond just the desktop. People's interactions with brands are taking place over multiple online and offline platforms. Are you designing for multiple touchpoints? Does your organization take a holistic view of customer engagement, and are you or your team charged with optimizing a customer's entire experience with a brand? If yes, how? If not, what are the obstacles and how can we overcome them? Subtopics include:
- Mobile/Responsive design
- Design for accessibility & diversity
- Social media integration
- Call center, kiosk, or in-store design integration
- The role data measuring and integration have in all of the above
Career Development
What's motivating you to continue developing your skills? Why do you evangelize UX as a force for change? What's the next step in your career, and how are you going to get there?
What's motivating you to continue developing your skills? Why do you evangelize UX as a force for change? What's the next step in your career, and how are you going to get there?
- Why and how do you develop your hard and soft skills?
- Why do you practice UX instead of managing a team (or vice-versa)?
- What are the differences in key skills for practitioners vs. managers?
- How does the practice of UX differ if you're working in a large company, small company, agency, or as an independent consultant? What are the advantages and challenges of each, and how does a practitioner determine which is the best environment for their own personality?
UX Strategy
Many claim the next step in the evolution of UX is becoming more strategic. How motivated are UX practitioners to get involved in the bigger decisions and longer-term direction of the business? How motivated should we be? And how motivated are we to apply that long-term vision to our own environments? How motivated are we to improve our own processes and bring greater efficacy and efficiency to our UX work? Subcategories would include:
Many claim the next step in the evolution of UX is becoming more strategic. How motivated are UX practitioners to get involved in the bigger decisions and longer-term direction of the business? How motivated should we be? And how motivated are we to apply that long-term vision to our own environments? How motivated are we to improve our own processes and bring greater efficacy and efficiency to our UX work? Subcategories would include:
- ROI - How do we overcome the gap between our ability to plan/report ROI and the clients' expectations of it?
- Getting access at the Board of Directors level. Is it necessary? If so, how do we achieve it?
- What role can Big Data and quantitative methods play in helping UX gain traction within organizations?
- How can UX help set the vision and the long-term objectives?
- Where does UX strategy sit amongst all the other strategies - business, communications, digital, content, social media, etc.?
- Agile & UCD: How do they work together? Or don't they?
- Lean UX vs. Lean Startup: What can the two movements learn from each other?