Schedule

• 10:00

  Talk Details
  

  Joe Leech

  Psychology for UX and Product Design

  Last year user experience and product management consultant Joe Leech gave one of the most popular talks at the inaugural Pixel Pioneers conference. Now he's back with a workshop that will provide you with a practical, hands-on way to understand how the human brain works and apply that knowledge to UX and product design.

  You know some things are ‘good design’ and some things are ‘bad design’ for UX but have never been quite sure why? Learn the psychological principles behind how our brain makes sense of the world and apply that to product and user interface design.

  What you'll learn

  Through a series of fun, practical exercises you’ll learn:
  

  • Psychology and interaction design. How to evaluate and design interactions such as search, navigation and ecommerce using psychology
  • Psychology and user experience. How humans build models of the world and how to build your product around those models
  • Psychology and the dark arts. Persuasive design, cognitive biases and other brain hacks. Do they really work? We’ll look how to apply them in practise and explore the ethics involved.
  • Evaluating, improving and innovating digital products based on psychology
  • Mapping and designing the details using a psychological approach
  • Loads of little psychology tidbits that will improve a design and make you a bettּer designer

  After the workshop you'll be able to:

  • Design products, apps and websites that match how people think and behave
  • Find, understand, evaluate and apply psychology theory to digital product design
  • Make better, informed design decisions and advocate to the wider team using psychology theory

  Come to the workshop and you’ll able to put psychology into practice as soon as you get back to the office.

  Lunch, snacks and tea and coffee are included.
  

• 10:00

  Talk Details
  

  Ida Aalen

  Easy and Affordable User Testing

  After this full-day workshop, you’ll be ready to user test even on small budgets and little time

  Everyone wants to make intuitive products. But you can’t really know they’re intuitive, if you haven’t tested them with actual users. So why don’t we user test more often? It might be because we think we’re lacking the time, budget, equipment or simply the knowledge to do it. But that doesn’t have to be true.

  UX consultant Ida Aalen has 10 years of experience with user testing, and after making the move to go freelance and start her own company, she’s learned how to fit user testing into any budget.

  You’ll leave this hands-on and interactive workshop ready and excited to do user testing on your own. It will give you a theoretical foundation and show you how to try out techniques in practice. All done on little time, with no need for fancy equipment or help from expensive consultants.

  What you'll learn

  • Tools and methods: Get to know 7 easy and affordable techniques to do user testing
  • Planning and prioritising: When and what should you test?
  • Tasks and moderating: How do you make sure you’re not leading users during the test?
  • Recruiting: How many people do you need to test with, and where can you find them?
  • Observation: How should you interpret what you see and take notes during a user test?
  • Analysis: How can make sure your usability findings lead to actual improvements?

  Who should attend

  This workshop is ideal for UX and UI designers, web designers, product managers or anyone else who wants to add user testing to their toolkit or improve their user testing skills.
  

  No previous knowledge is required, and even if you do have experience with user testing, you’ll pick up tips on how to do it more efficiently and with limited resources.

  Lunch, snacks and tea and coffee are included.

• 17:00

  Workshops end

• 19:00

  Details

  An Evening Afloat with Shopify

  Ahead of Pixel Pioneers Bristol, Shopify invites you aboard the Grain Barge!

  We’ll kick off an evening of relaxed networking with an informal fireside chat featuring Mike Kus, Djuro Selec and Michael Flarup about their top tips for work / life balance in the creative and tech industries, and how we keep ourselves motivated, accountable and on track.

  For the rest of the night, meet new friends and enjoy a drink or two against the beautiful backdrop of the Bristol harbourside.

  Cost: Free! But space is limited, so please register to reserve your spot.

  Location: This event will take place at the Grain Barge:
  Mardyke Wharf, Hotwell Rd, Hotwells, Bristol, BS8 4RU. Also see our location guide.

  Doors: 7pm
  Panel: 8pm
  Close: 10.30pm
  

• 8:45

  Registration and Welcome

• 9:30

  Talk Details
  

  Sarah Richards

  Why Content Is User Experience

  The words we use and the tone we take are part of the user experience from the moment someone follows a link or looks at a search result. But how do we use that to help our organisations?
  
  Sarah Richards says that on digital platforms, we have 3 seconds to get someone’s attention — and 5 to keep it. So how do we do that? Through compelling content on- and offline, Sarah will take us through examples she has worked on from governments around the world and non-profits here in the UK. She’ll explain why some of the most simple things can have the biggest impact.

• 10:15

  Talk Details
  

  Heydon Pickering

  Inclusive Design: Get Your Priorities Straight

  Inclusive interface design isn't about making things work for literally everyone, but we need to stop making 'perfect' experiences for the very few. With help from Taylor Swift, Heydon will talk to us about how to reassess our priorities and do some of our least perfect and best work.

• 10:55

  Morning Break

• 11:20

  Talk Details
  

  Laurence Penney

  Variable Fonts: Possibilities++, Bandwidth--

  The font world was super-excited when Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Apple announced the OpenType 1.8 Variable Font format in September 2016. Development versions of Safari soon supported Variable Fonts via the ‘font-variation-settings’ CSS property. Yet the technology’s success depends on being embraced by typography’s new vanguard: UX designers and front-end developers.

  Using his Axis-Praxis website and other tools Laurence will explain the many benefits for the web: responsive type within responsive design, reduced webfont payload, UI animation, and tweaking font weights and widths at any point in the design process. He also explains how to deploy Variable Fonts in real projects and encourages dialogue with font makers to make sure they’re making the responsive fonts you need.

• 12:05

  Talk Details
  

  Ida Aalen

  When User Testing Drives Development

  Startups are always pressed for time and resources — but they're also under pressure to quickly develop something that works and meets their customers' needs. Early-stage startup Confrere prioritised user testing from day one. Chief product officer Ida Aalen will show you how to do user testing with limited resources, and how they got everyone from the CEO to the sound designer involved in the process.

• 12:45

  Lunch

• 14:00

  Talk Details
  

  Michael Flarup

  How I Became a Maker (and Learned the Secrets of the Universe)

  Join designer Michael Flarup for a journey through his career. An entertaining personal story, sharing everything from old work, odd jobs, great failures and the many lessons learned along the way. Learn how to make shit up, make a lot and even make better things. But above all, learn why you need to do what you think is fun and how to, despite all odds, find your way.

• 14:45

  Talk Details
  

  Inayaili de León Persson

  Keeping Your Design System Alive

  Creating a design system is not an easy feat, but making sure it's implemented, maintained, and doesn't suffer a slow, painful and quiet ending can be an even less attainable achievement. How do you make sure your design system is kept alive and healthy? How can you encourage usage and participation? Let's look at some simple and interesting ways that you can put into practice today to make your design system flourish.

• 15:25

  Afternoon Break

• 15:50

  Talk Details
  

  Stéphanie Walter

  Cheating the UX When There Is Nothing More to Optimise

  You have optimised every line of code of your site or mobile app and used all the techniques at your disposal to have the fastest loading time possible. But you don’t have Instagram or Pinterest’s budget, right? Let's talk about perceived performance and influencing the users' perception of speed!

  Stéphanie Walter will take a look at a few projects she worked on to show us how to use various design and UX techniques to improve web performance also at the level of user perception.

• 16:35

  Talk Details
  

  Simon Collison

  The Internet of Natural Things

  At a time when we’re rightly exposing the negative impact of technology, the ever-optimistic Simon Collison is exploring the benefits, particularly where digital tools reconnect us to the living world and enrich our lives.

  To begin, Simon will lift the lid on his research, challenging our idea of nature and its relevance to technology. To follow, he’ll hypothesise bold ideas for products that better fit the spaces through which we move, asking us to reimagine user experiences and consider a more meaningful future relationship with digital technology.

• 17:15

  Details

  End and Drinks!

  Join as at The Golden Guinea for a free drink on us!