UXalliance promotes a full day of sharing international UX experiences

On March 15th, a total of 84 attendees from over 11 countries arrived at the SkyCity Convention Center in Auckland, New Zealand for a full day of international user experience presentations.

Eight UX and design professionals from France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, UK and the United States, came together in one place to speak about their knowledge, expertise and predictions in the field of user experience and user research.

Beginning with a presentation by host company Optimal Usability, the team awed the crowd by showing the innovative work they’ve done for their client, Air New Zealand. Thanks to their modern user research approach and understanding of what traveling customers desire, the SkyCouch design will be implemented in the airplanes’ economy class sections beginning in April 2011. Read more about SkyCouchhere.

Attendees were then asked to choose 4 out of the 7 one-hour-long topical sessions, which included these speakers:

1.  Florian Egger (Telono/Switzerland) spoke about how creating online trust and credibility fits into UX.  He defined the concept of trust, explained design guidelines and what affects online trust, and ended with a discussion surrounding Web 2.0 implications for trust.

2.  Frederic Gaillard (Axance/France) & Birte Koerber (SirValUse/Germany) presented their multi-cultural views on agile user research. They provided answers to these 3 questions: 1) Why is a lot of user research not very useful? 2) How can faster and cheaper research be more effective?  3) How can research be run effectively for an international project?

3.  Gavin Lew (UserCentric/USA) spoke about eye tracking and user experience research. He discussed quantitative analysis, the theory of “ceiling and floors” in design, and presented case studies on Bing v. Google and package design using eye tracking.

4.  Javier Darriba (Xperience Consulting/Spain) explained how automated remote usability testing tools work and the proper uses for them. He presented an example of how remote testing has helped Monster, followed by his top 10 must-dos with UX benchmarking.

5.  Robert Schumacher (User Centric/USA) shared his experience on how to create and grow a great UX team. He closed with these 3 main thoughts: 1) Hire slow and hire right 2) Develop the Culture 3) Keep the group healthy.

6.  Simon Herd (ExperienceLab/UK) shared some best practice about improving the user experience for government portals. He noted that although countries are different, they’re all going in similar directions. This idea was explored through the 10 areas which he sees as making a difference.

7.  Tjeerd de Boer (User Intelligence/Netherlands) discussed combining methods of user testing and web analytics to get even more insights. Through practical examples of this combination, Tjeerd showed that basic Web Analytics is not that difficult: “just do it!”

Closing the class with a question and answer session by a board of international speakers, the audience was challenged to “stump the panel” with difficult questions, followed by a raffle for copies of new Handbook of Global User Research book, in which many of the speakers contributed to. For more information about this book and other global research discussions, please visit <www.globaluserresearch.com>. 

Participants were asked to rate this event, and these are just a few of the recieved responses:

• “Fantastic, engaging speakers! When are you going to do it again?”
• “Great insights into key requirements & values; will definitely help me in my role”
• “Some great cultural learning’s and some excellent food for thought”
• “What an awesome day.  I feel grateful to be part of such a well organised event with much depth from all the presenters.” 
• “Another brilliantly organised, wonderfully knowledgeable Optimal event.  The calibre of all the speakers was very high!"

See photos from the event here.

The next User eXperience Masterclass will be held in Montréal, Canada in September 2010. Please sign up for our newsletter to stay informed on important dates, details and information.