PIA UDG AT UX CAMP HAMBURG 2024
Inspiring UX Sessions with Lively Discussions
User Experience with a Concrete Example
A wide range of UX topics, developed spontaneously or prepared in advance by the participants: With 25 sessions, the UX Barcamp Hamburg was a complete success, despite an incident that temporarily paralyzed everything after the lunch break.
For 12 years now, UX designers, developers, researchers, and interested parties from all over the world have been meeting in Hamburg to take part in an inspiring event for the user experience scene: the UX Camp Hamburg. This unique event offers a platform for exchanging ideas, making new contacts, and deepening specialist knowledge in the heart of the Hanseatic city's vibrant tech and creative scene.
By Participants for Participants
A barcamp format, also known as an unconference, thrives on participation. At this open conference with open workshops, the topics and schedule are developed by the participants themselves and shaped over the course of the conference. And since UX is UDG's core business, it was not only an honor but a matter of course for us to contribute to the success of the format as a support sponsor. We had two sessions on offer:
Data sustainability—is that a thing? Susu Koch, UX Lead
1,2 or 3 - the accessibility issue. Timo Tauchnitz, Specialist UX & Inclusive Design
After the pitch round, participants were spoiled for choice; as in previous years, a wide range of topics were proposed. We were all the more pleased with the participation in the sessions to which we contributed.
UX and Resource Consumption
At PIA UDG, we are aware of our responsibility in terms of sustainability: among other things, we contribute to a future worth living with our annual participation in "Tree Planting". Susu Koch illustrated the extent to which data sustainability can also contribute to this with her session, "Data Sustainability: Is That a Thing?"
It definitely is. For example, the fact that 1 MB of data, loaded 2048 times, already corresponds to 1 kWh of power is something that is usually given little thought in everyday UX life. Reducing unnecessary data volumes can, therefore, save huge amounts of CO2. Susu had even more impressive figures and comparisons at the ready, which ruthlessly revealed the impact of UX on the environment. An eye-opening session—and one that you might not necessarily have expected at UX Camp. All the more important that the message reached many.
Data sustainability—there's something to it! And it's about much more than just green coding: it's also about potentially dead fish in the data lake and the consumption of resources through AI. After all, if the entire digital sector will soon be fourth on the list of CO2 emitters—after China, the USA, and India—then it makes perfect sense to take a closer look at even the supposedly minor details.
Whether You Are Really Standing Correctly ...
In his session, Timo Tauchnitz not only proved his qualities as an accessibility expert, but also as a quiz master: just like in the popular TV guessing game, three teams were first allowed to discuss each accessibility-related question and then send a delegate to the 1,2 or 3 area.
For those who weren't there, here's one of the questions for you to guess - the answer follows below.
What's a Landmark?
Labels that can identify different areas, such as navigation
Visual markers that make reading easier for people with dyslexia
Points on an interactive map to make navigation easier
"You can see if you're really in the right place when the light comes on!" Exactly, landmarks provide an overview and, thus, for example, easy navigation for screen reader users. Answer 1 is, therefore, correct.
It was an entertaining game with a learning effect, and to our delight, there were more correct answers than incorrect ones. Congratulations once again to Team 3 for winning on points!
Agile Frameworks and UX: Do They Fit Together?
Of course, we also took part in sessions ourselves:
Christian Korff from UX&I, for example, wanted to discuss with the participants whether SAFe and UX go together or not, and, what can we say? It is and remains complicated. In the SAFe framework, user experience designers may not be scheduled until the second half of the Double Diamond process. This means that they may miss out on research and work in the "problem" space. This can lead to implementations being less user-centered from the outset. The discussion about this is old, but in our opinion, it is important to have it in order to discuss solutions, plan UX into Safe in good time, and thus encourage people. Christian's session made a valuable contribution to this. Chris Xu introduced us to the "Shape Up" framework, a development by Ryan Singer. According to Singer, "one of the key tensions in product management is the urgency of day-to-day implementation details versus the need for strategic planning." If this tension remains unresolved, it leads to a number of problems, such as missed deadlines, confused codebases, and low morale. "Shape Up" is designed to help identify these problems and resolve the tension.
We also attended the debate with and by Jan Kiekeben on feedback in particularly tricky situations—an interesting exchange of experiences, especially as our UDG internal organizational design team is currently thinking about how we can act professionally in such situations.
Lived User Experience
It remains to mention the incident that temporarily paralyzed everything: for no apparent reason, a fire or burglar alarm was triggered throughout the building after the lunch break. The organizers tried everything to get the problem under control, from closing doors to phoning the building management, but the rest of the sessions could only start after a 20-minute delay; the alarm stopped just as unexpectedly as it had started. But somehow it still fits in with the theme of "user experience" as "the experience a user has when using a product." Perhaps we'll invite the alarm system manufacturer to next year's UX Camp.
With this in mind, many thanks to the organizers, sponsors, and participants. See you next year!