Are you planning to start a live video show? Want to know which tools you’ll need to broadcast live? To explore the best live video apps and software to produce your own live show, I interview Ian Anderson Gray. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
We’re back to August, one of our favourite months of the year. Why, you ask? August means UX Australia!
Each year, UX Australia brings together user experience professionals from across Australia, and around the globe, for a learning and networking conference extravaganza.
All the action is happening in central Sydney this year, beginning with a series of full and half day workshops from next Tuesday, followed by the main event on Thursday and Friday. Emerging technologies, evolving niches and adapting methods will be covered, from mixed reality, chat bots and writing for UX, along with plenty of insightful design topics.
Emerging technologies, evolving niches and adapting methods will be covered, from mixed reality, chat bots and writing for UX, along with plenty of insightful design topics.
As is UX Mastery tradition, we’ll be there with bells on, and we’re pretty excited. Here’s why.
Conferences like UX Australia are always inspirational—mixing with so many people, of calibre or conviction or composure, in quick succession creates a hyper-stimulation that keeps me going for the rest of the year. Meeting new people, seeing fresh ideas and combinations explained, all adds a renewed energy and direction to my work.
Of course, learning is a big part of that – whether it’s from the talks or through the workshops. The keynote speakers are chosen specifically for the power of their thinking, but often it’s the lesser known speakers who surprise you with their experience and insights.
If you really want to build your UX skills, the workshops have a reputation for being colourful, practical and eye-opening. Shameless plug alert: we’ve been asked to run our popular Introduction to User Experience Design workshop again on Tuesday 8 August. More on that below.
Other workshops will help you brush up on research skills, plan your career trajectory, or learn how to use mixed reality in your work. You can even spend the whole day with Mike Monteiro for a workshop based on his famous book: Design is a job—a masterclass in making a living as a designer, and upping your game when working with clients. Take a look at all the workshops.
You never know who you might meet at a conference like this. The duty of “networking” is replaced by a delight in discovery — the UX Australia conference is one of the friendliest in the world, so you’ll be happy in a sea of fellow UX nerds and have plenty in common with other attendees. Plus, the UX community is full of introverts (here’s some proof) expert in creating positive experiences, so there are plenty of opportunities to take time out, re-charge or mix with smaller and quieter groups.
Striking up a cold conversation can sometimes feel awkward, so check out these handy conversation starters. My favourite networking tip is to approach people already standing in a group of two. Discount any fears that you might be interrupting them; people in pairs often either already know each other (and know they should be mingling), or they just met and are already on the cusp of looking for a new conversation topic. Either way you’ll be welcome. Plus, who attends a conference to avoid meeting people? And if, ultimately, things don’t click it’s much easier to back out of a pair than to leave someone on their own.
If you prefer to chat over a glass of vino (hands up!), head along to the pre- and post-conference drinks on the Wednesday and Friday nights. These spaces are where the some of the most valuable conversations happen.
The speaker program this year is a mix of friends and more famous faces. As with previous years, there arree two stages, so the only real struggle will be choosing which sessions to attend and bustling through the crowds to nab a seat in the other auditorium. Here are a few picks that caught our eye:
Catching up with friends and fans is how we feel at home during conferences. It’s a chance to step outside of the usual internet bubble and connect with people face-to-face, including our interstate and international friends.
So, if you spot one of us before we spot you, please come and say hi! We love chatting with the UX Mastery community.
Back by popular demand, we are once again running UX Mastery’s flagship workshop — Introduction to User Experience Design — on Tuesday 8 August. This time I’m privileged to be co-facilitating with Donna Spencer herself. It’s going to be great fun!
We’ll cover the essentials of human-centred design for anyone who wants to understand more about the practical side of creating experiences. This workshop will help graphic designers, developers, business analysts, or entrepreneurs—you don’t need any background UX knowledge to attend. You’ll go home with a day of solid experience, a brain full of ideas and your notes and worksheets created throughout the day. There are only one or two tickets left, and we’d love to see you there. See the details and book on the UX Australia site.
Are you as excited as we are? It’s not too late to get a ticket, but be quick: http://ift.tt/2o02Chq
Already coming to UX Australia? What are you looking forward to the most?
PS You might not know that UX Australia publishes copies of all presentations online with audio for free. Take a look: http://ift.tt/2wbPjzG
The post 5 Reasons to Get Excited About UX Australia appeared first on UX Mastery.
As a full-stack/generalist product designer, I’ve watched the industry's obsession with titles for many years. Sure, we can keep being snarky about it, and continue throwing around funny tweets, but when did this help anyone? Just like “Should designers code?”, “UX vs UI” question turned into an inside joke.
I label increasingly nonsensical images with ‘UI’ and ‘UX’ and hope they get used in serious presentations http://pic.twitter.com/tDJgRp6CO5
— Sebastiaan de With (@sdw) March 15, 2016
I got your shit projected 30 feet high at #kikk16. Felt appropriate. http://pic.twitter.com/S5jZT7IKb3
— Jules Ehrhardt (@ezyjules) November 11, 2016
On one hand, this trend might help a more seasoned designer vent. In fact, there's a Tumblr entirely dedicated to it.
However, there is a danger that it makes the industry look frustrating and inaccessible to a beginner. And that’s a shame because the barrier to entry for a new designer has never been so low (and I mean this in a completely positive way).
UI stands for User Interface. It's what users interact with directly, everything they see, touch and hear within a piece of software or a website. It's the outermost layer of an app – the controls.
In its current state – due to the types of devices we are using – UI design is mostly a visual discipline, although voice and written word are gaining more and more traction thanks to voice assistants and conversational interfaces.
UX stands for User eXperience. It's a holistic term encapsulating each and every different kind of touchpoint a user has with a product.
In the context of a digital product, this includes not only the software's front-end itself, but the whole technical stack, customer service, branding, public image of the company, availability, pricing, and communication, and that's certainly not all.
UI is a subset of UX. Both terms have different meanings and, whenever possible, should not be used interchangeably. The title “UX/UI designer” makes little sense in terms of semantics. Every UI designer is a UX designer by definition, and being a UX designer without a more specific field of work is quite rare. Talking about “UX” without specifics can quickly render any conversation meaningless.
As I see it, there are three major issues:
In a nutshell, a user interface is the layer where human-computer interaction happens. Although an important one, it’s just one layer of the whole user experience stack, which encapsulates multiple disciplines.
Let's use a real-world example: watching TV.
The UX of watching TV includes the content quality, specifications of the TV set, location, furniture, your current state of mind and a lot more. On the other hand, the UI of watching TV is just a small part of that: the design and build quality of the remote and the on-screen menus.
Continue reading %UI vs UX: What is the Difference?%
