Sponsor a ticket

In design research, other than observing user-product interaction, we need more consideration for users’ social interaction – who do they talk to, who do they live with, who are important to them, how are they influenced by other people and by whom etc. All people are socially related - whether they are our users or not. Social interaction is a crucial part of user context and it’s helpful to understand user experience. I’d like to share my thoughts and case study to suggest more attention to be paid to human social interaction in design research.

The presentation will cover how we’ve been creating customer-centricity through research, particularly drawing on journey-led change. We will showcase a journey of our journey mapping journey at UniSuper, including the pain points, our thoughts, our feelings, the challenges and the opportunities at each step.

This year's conference includes a special treat - an opening Keynote from internationally-renowned Design Researcher, Steve Portigal. Steve has been working in the field of design research for a couple of decades and garnered a reputation as a deep thinker and very practical practitioner. He will be sharing that experience with the audience, and helping us all improve our practice.

Collaborative research can be an incredible tool to keep whole teams thinking user-centred. And the diversity of perspectives available from developers, PMs and is an incredibly important asset for designers to harness. I'll share my lessons from including whole teams in research - how to do it, and pitfalls to avoid!

How do you engage young people with mental health support if they don’t identify as someone with a mental health issue? Find out how ReachOut created a campaign which navigated around the stigma surrounding help seeking through design research with young people.

This presentation will be of interest to anyone exploring issues where people fear judgment, and will give practical tips on how to approach sensitive conversations. It is also for those interested to hear the benefits of using a mixed platform approach to design research.

Ever received push back from decision-makers when justifying conducting research to inform your design work?

Need to quantify the business benefits that customer research provides?

Ever required a more compelling rationale for research than “we need to be customer centred”?

Meld Studios has been experimenting with different ways to help design newbies conduct impactful research. In this talk we will share what we’ve been trying and how it’s been working.

This year has seen a surge in requests relating to teams of non-designers wanting to conduct their own research. In response, we’ve been experimenting with different ways to help non-designers conduct impactful research.

It's essential to know how to use different research methodologies and how the design process works to be a UX Researcher. But there are skills they don't teach you in university or General Assembly that are critical for being effective in a company setting. Learn about the 7 skills you should master to be a successful UX Researcher.

That old line about the best way to eat an elephant* being "one bite at a time" is all well and good, but who really has time for that big a meal when it comes to understanding past research? Learn about a technique that will reduce how long it takes to digest and synthesise all that research, while also getting your whole team working together and building consensus on where you need to focus your new research activities. 

*No actual elephants were harmed in the making of this talk.

What happens when you’re faced with a research question that none of your usual methods can address well enough? How might you tailor your approach to such a question, without losing out on the validity that traditional methods guarantee? This talk will present frameworks for creative thinking and method selection, and use them to explore how you can strike the delicate balance between observing rigour and breaking new grounds when it comes to design research.