In early November we attended the excellent & long-running UX Brighton as a multidisciplinary group of designers and developers. It was a great day out of the studio to hear lessons, advice and more from a curated set of speakers centred around the theme of Creativity and Innovation.
Here are our team’s key takeaways from the day.
"Well, it felt like we were the only developers in the room! But I think that's a good thing. On the whole, the content was familiar, which I saw as a positive sign of being exposed to design/UX practices as a result of constant cross-team collaboration at ASquared.
I didn't agree with the notion of 'defining creativity' from the first talk, but the presentations on Service Design by Kate Tarling and DeveloperEx by Elizabeth Churchill were deeply inspiring. Elizabeth Churchill's talk, in particular, really spoke to my personal values, and I would go as far as saying I was moved by it. I believe that often you just get a small nugget of valuable information/inspiration from these events. I left with renewed energy and purpose. Design === Dev!"
"I enjoyed the conference. It was really interesting learning more about UX. I thought Elizabeth’s talk was the most engaging for me. I found it interesting that Google is experiencing some of the same points as we are.
I also enjoyed the talk about user research and when to stop moving forward or change the direction of a project."
"I always get a buzz out of being around people who are passionate about Creativity and Innovation. UX Brighton was no different. I've enjoyed Kate Tarling's talk on Service Design and Elizabeth Churchill's talk on Design and Dev ops.
I thought long and hard about why I pored over their slides even days after the event, and I now know it's because they've talked in-depth about a subject very close to my heart: fostering true collaboration among teams within our organisation. Not only because this enables our company to deliver good value for our clients, but mostly because it brings happiness and job satisfaction to each and every person who works at ASquared."
"I'd second Cal's response, I think it's a testament to the collaborative culture we've tried to foster at ASquared where designers and developers work together to do the best work!
The highlight for me was definitely Elizabeth's talk which both validated a lot of my own thinking and inspired me to do a lot more digging into working out the best ways we can work to deliver the best experience for ourselves at work, our clients and our users."
"As for me, my main takeaway is that conference days out are invaluable from a training, professional development and team building point of view. They allow team members to think bigger or perhaps differently about topics or themes that might not be immediately part of their daily roles, helping to expand horizons.
The day’s theme of creativity & innovation was a lofty one. We often take our creativity for granted working in digital, easily forgetting how much ability and magic we have in our collective fingertips. This was best exemplified in Stephanie Posavec’s talk where she showed how she brings together disparate pieces of data into beautiful visualisations. Innovation-wise it was great seeing my ex-colleague Chris How talking about the value in using constraints to your advantage to spur innovation, or how Tom Kerwin approached challenges in really creative and unique ways, all summarised in his Pip decks."
Every day is a school day in the world of UX and design, and UX Brighton was no different!
Let's see what we can make together.
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