Webdagene Day 1
Disclaimer; this is a highly subjective interpretation of the confrence.
Webdagene opens with long lines in order to check the coat. I decide to carry it for the first few speaches. I get my 3 paper admittance card, with a strap around my neck that first think is about 15 cm too short. Then i discover that they put the fontsize of the program to something like 8pt, so it is actually not that hard to read, and I avoid getting a double chin every time i try to read the program. But enough about me.
Nicolas Felton
Topic: Data visualization. Personal evaluation score: 7/10
I know this guy! He’s a guru when it comes to data and visualisations. He has been in the curriculum when I was still in school. He has made a fantastic project, going on for 10 years, publishing annual reports about himself. He combines different sets of data, and makes them into a annual reports. He has some classes on skillshare if you are interesting in getting to know more about his work. The talk was very interesting, and inspiring, unfortunatly not so applicable to my day to day work.
“Data is the new wood”
Trine Falbe
Topic: The value of transparent and hones user experiences. Personal evaluation score: 6/10
This talk was about dark patterns, how organizational requirements are trumping (no pun intended) the user needs.
Key takeaway: Make sure data collection does not trump the user experience. And in order to make a great user experience, it is important to remember that:
“UX is everybody’s business!”
Leah Buley
Topic: Design your organization. Personal evaluation score: 10/10
Holy shit, this hits home! If there is one presentation that I feel is important for me and my colleagues, it is this one. This talks about how design impacts various deliverables accross the organization, and it also identifies and separates the differences between a low impact and a high impact organization.
“The companies that experience design as high value, use their designers outside traditional core design activites. They use designers within areas of strategy, research, leadership and project management.”
Erik Modig
Topic: Digital psychology. Personal evaluation score: 8/10
Given that everything changes, according to Erik, there is one thing that is not changing. In order to acheive a successful product or a service, we need to take into consideration both the emotional, pragmatic and critical functions of the brain
http://webdagene.no/foredrag/digital-psykologi
Anders Mjåset
Topic: Entrepreneur in your own company. Personal evaluation score: 6/10
Nice talk about what MESH is, and how it came to be. Good storytelling, but with a lot of anecdotes, that I did not find very usefull. How ever, Anders presented four principles if your company would like to think like a startup:
- Creativity vs efficiency — Small startups and large companies should work together in order to get the maximal benefit from both camps.
- Combine the analoge and the web generation — Even thoug norway has a rather flat hierarchy, we have a set hierachy. You have to be old to be in a board. That is a deviation from other innovative hubs around the world. A company should combine old and new knowledge and experiences.
- Experiementation vs control — Move away from facts and control, and make room for your organization to be able to take a calculated risk. Let go a little, and let emotions flow.
- Open vs Closed companies — We should no longer collect and protect our knowledge, and “sell access to that knowledge”. That is traditional business. Today business is changing. And younger employees seem more comfortable with open structures and sharing experiences and knowledge.
Rick Pastoor
Topic: Get people onboard. Personal evaluation score: 4/10
This was OK. A bit basic, but still a somewhat charming talk.
Braden Howitz
Topic: Google Design Sprint. Personal evaluation score: 8/10
Even though the topic is fantastic, the talk was more about how we did it in this project, and not so much abour how we (the listeners) could use or implement the sprint in our own day to day business.
Braden did make som excellent points though;
What bood did you read to lean how to ride a bike? None? It is the same with design. You shouldn’t and couldn’t read to learn everything. Practice!
Testing and prototyping. That is the superpower of a designer. We can make stuff seem real.
Johan Hallesby
Topic: Service Design in practice. Personal evaluation score: 8/10
What a great speaker! Johan is really impressive on stage, and has so much knowledge and experience that is overwhelming! He is the entrepreneur behind the new Oslo City Bikes.
Worth the watch!
Dag Helge Scott and Tuva Sverdstad Eikås
Topic: Let me help you! A project on how to get cancer patiences to seek help with everyday tasks earlier. Personal evaluation score: 4/10
This was sweet. A bit naive, and could seem simple. What I did like about this was the fact that it was so “small”. It was a project done by five people. They made some cards, and got some mandate to go live with the project. Very emotional, yet simple. Easy to follow, and good process.
That was it for day one. Stay tuned for day two!
