The Annual User ConferenceBoon or bust for UX?

Your Company’s Annual User Conference

Boon or bust for UX?

Panelists Panelist Annual User Conference Experience

Chauncey Wilson DECworld 1x Autodesk University 3x

Serena Chechile Doyle EMCWorld 9x RedHat Summit 1x RedHat Forum 1x

JoAnne Hubbard EMCWorld 10x

Mary Beth Raven IBM Lotusphere 14x SolidWorks World 1x EMCWorld 2x

● Macworld or other Apple conference● Oracle OpenWorld or other Oracle

Conference● Microsoft-related conferences (Ignite,

Sharepoint etc)● VM World● Other? (shout it out!)

Who Has Participated in Their Annual User Conference?

ChaunceyDECworld 1x

Autodesk University 3x

Conducting interviews about future needs and current problems might be more useful than usability testing of a few specific features

Gathering large amounts of data during presentations using methods like freelisting can provide large samples that could reveal trends as well as long tail ideas

Conferences can provide information about consistency across and within products

Attending specific lectures and workshops can reveal much information about the user experience - sometimes information that is more substantial than the very focused efforts at usability

The monetary method where you ask users to "purchase features/requirements" and then quickly analyze and present the data to the users can stimulate some good discussion

Chauncey’s Reflections

Serena10+ customer conferences

co/administratormain scheduler

moderator

Unified User Experience Presence

Engaging Users to Participate

Customer Surveys

Quick User Sessions

Scheduled In Depth Usability Tests

JoAnneThe Annual User Conference: Boon

for In-Depth Customer Sessionsand Design Partner Recruiting

User Experience Booth

Booth Activities

Design & Usability Sessions - S, M, L

Dedicated Design Session Room

Mary BethPart Bust, Part Boon

.

➢ UX is an afterthought; need to frame UX as a marketing activity to get traction

➢ Attendees are not usually representative

➢ From a management perspective➢Too much of my time on the horse

trading, justification statements

➢The popular products aren’t always the ones that need testing

The Annual Conference: Bust

The Annual Conference: Boon

Hanging with Your Users: Priceless