The Design Powerhouse
Dear IxDAb'ties,
The annual IxDA conference Interaction 17 went down in February with all the up and coming trends for 2017. We’ve been in New York for you, and at our next event, together with speakers and attendees of Interaction 17, we are going to share all the important learnings with you!
Our guest speaker Carina Kuhr will tell us insights from the UX Job Title Survey. She'll share their findings about the relationship between job titles, skills and the roles behind, as well as current patterns on that topic.
Sandra Griffel and Melanie Weißenborn, both Interaction 17 speakers and working as Director UX and Senior Information Architect at Denkwerk, are going to talk about The Rise of "Screenless" Interfaces. Melanie and Sandra will explain why screen based thinking has reached its limit, and will share their "Screenless Experience Canvas" with us.
As always, if you want to throw in a lightning talk, job offer or announcement, just let us know upfront. We'll be happy to have you take the stage for a minute or two.
After the event, which will be around 9:30pm, we'll be headed across the waterway to Cafe Wendel for drinks and chats. Everybody is invited to join us there, no registration required. Cafe Wendel is at Schlesische Str. 42, 10997 Berlin, and here's a map.
Join us for great conversations on 2017 design goals - see you there!
Audrey, Jay, Kathryn and Thomas
The Rise of "Screenless" Interfaces
Sandra Griffel, User Experience Design Director, denkwerk
Melanie Weißenborn, Senior Information Architect, denkwerk
Today consumers use their smartphone 5 hours a day on an average. It nearly seems like an artificial appendage. No wonder, that we – as UX designers – are trained, to find an app / mobile service to almost every problem our users are facing. But do we really solve our user’s problems or do we just force them to constantly stare at their phones? – A fast growing number of people feel that the latter is the case.
For the development of digital services, that facilitate more natural and less distracting forms of interaction with technology we created the "breakingtheglass" canvas as part of a comprehensive method for the ideation and development of screenless services and (digital) products. In our session we want to give you brief insight into the topic and our canvas.
Job Titles: The Survey Says...
Carina Kuhr, Senior UX Researcher, Zalando
Jay Kaufmann, UX Lead Talent & Community of Practice, Zalando
Job titles are a challenge for the digital product design crowd. How can UXers describe clearly what we do in as few words as possible? And how can companies improve their job ads to make the target group feel understood and attract UX talent?
It turns out, our field -- and our roles -- are difficult to pin labels onto. Whether it’s cause or effect, we inhabit a confusing and shifting terminology landscape.
Researchers, it turns out, struggle less to be understood. But designers seem to need to turn to storytelling: “Even your tea pot should be sexy. That's my job.”
We share the quotes, stories and results from the UX job title survey that we conducted last fall. Our goal was to see which word combinations bring the best clarity in our field, with its heterogenous nomenclature.
See how well Interaction Design emerges after going to head-to-head with UX, UI and Product Design. Hear the story of our own failure with job titles. Bring your own funny quotes.
About our speakers
Sandra Griffel
As user experience design director at denkwerk Sandra is responsible for the creation and delivery of innovative digital services and products. She is experienced in leading interdisciplinary teams in the delivery of sophisticated insight-led solutions that align key business drivers to user needs. Her track record includes a number of strategic projects for global brands including Condor, OBI, TUI and Deutsche Telekom.
Sandra contributes to local and international UX communities, speak at meet-ups and conferences and writes articles and whitepapers e.g. on contextual commerce and wearables.
Melanie Weißenborn
As a Senior Information Architect at denkwerk Melanie works with enthusiasm towards creating the most valuable user experience in a wide spectrum of digital projects.
Her experience ranges from developing complex e-commerce platforms to taking part in mobile app creation and enhancement. During her career, Melanie worked for global brands such as Deutsche Telekom, Condor and Zwilling J.A. Henckels.
Her current hobbyhorse is the practical use of Brad Frost’s atomic design approach as a tool to specify functionality and interaction behavior in a lean and systematic way.
Carina Kuhr
Carina built up the
Agile UX Testing framework, has spurred and supported a range of customer centricity initiatives and recently helped to grow the UX Research Team at Zalando. She screened and interviewed many UX researchers in the last 12 month and shared some resulting insights into
the UX of your CV. Her favorite UX research method is the diary study.
Jay Kaufmann
Jay hires
UX designers and leaders for Zalando, creates professional development building blocks and executes miscellaneous management minutia like blocking designers’ calendars on Wednesdays so they can work. He wrote
“How To Write Inspiring Job Descriptions For UX” for Smashing Magazine.
