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Every year in November, UX enthusiasts come together for World Usability Day and shed light on the topics of user experience and usability. This year’s WUD took place on November 9th and many regional groups of the German UPA offered conferences, workshops and opportunities for exchange. This also applies to the WUD Hamburg. We took part and summarized our impressions for you.
The theme of this year's World Usability Day was "Collaboration and Cooperation". The discourse revolved around collaboration in digital product development and the ability to jointly design solutions for current and future challenges.
The WUD Hamburg, organized by eparo, took place as an online event and offered many opportunities for exchange. With 16 presentations and 9 workshops, a diverse program was put together that highlighted the importance of usability and user experience. A separate track dealt explicitly with the topic of accessibility. Various speakers shared their experiences and ideas for working in the UX sector.
The many different areas of the discipline show how broadly diversified the field of user experience has become: user research, UX writing, interaction design, service design and many more. It requires a holistic way of thinking to align product development with user needs. Nevertheless, it becomes clear in the exchange that UX often does not yet have the appropriate status in companies. Measures are needed to create a common understanding among all those involved and to integrate UX holistically.
At the WUD Hamburg, the topic was examined from various perspectives. Ideas and processes were presented that make collaboration between the various disciplines such as UX, product management and development more transparent. In an agile working environment, this could mean running a joint sprint board or sharing findings from research and testing in joint refinements. It was also about concepts that ensure that user centricity runs through all development phases. "UX/UI mentors" who accompany the implementation of the design concept could help here. The establishment of design systems that ensure a consistent appearance and make the design process more efficient was also highlighted. The use of checklists can also prove useful for quality assurance of individual process steps.
Figure 1: Factors of user-centered product development, from the presentation of Simon Hesse, ITZBund
Ideas were also presented that serve to raise general awareness of UX, such as involving colleagues from outside the field in workshops or placing personas prominently in the office. Any measure is welcome. However, one thing remains the most important tool: Communication.
Overall, the WUD Hamburg provided us with interesting impulses and showed us how much conviction, perseverance and willingness to change lies behind the ideas - qualities that are needed to establish a user-centered approach in the long term.
