2023 schedule

Bringing local communities to a global audience

Listen in to our speakers and engage with our global community on UX topics that matter to you. Non-stop, full day, starting on May 3rd, 7am CEST. That is 10pm (May 2nd) PDT, 1am EDT, 2am BRT, 6am WEST, 10:30am IST, 1pm HKT, 3pm AEST.

May 3rd
6:30 am CEST

Welcome, Meet & Greet

The 24 Hours of UX team

Network with other UXers, visit the booths, tell us where you’re connecting from, participate in pre-conference activities, and discuss with the organizers before the conference kicks off!

May 3rd
7:00 am CEST

Kōrero: a Conversation About the Future of UX

Dana Fridman

Dana Fridman shares her research findings on the future of UX, gathered from industry practitioners across counties. She will also discuss the potential of new methodological approaches to tackle some of the concerns raised in the research and design in a way that considers elements beyond humans, such as intelligent systems, environments, and other designed things, which is becoming increasingly relevant as technology advances and climate change looms.

May 3rd
8:00 am CEST

Socially Interactive Robotic Environments as our Friends, Companions, and Partners

Yixiao Wang

What if one day, when embedded with AI and robotics, our built environments become socially intelligent and interactive? For example, environmental components may seem to have personalities and emotions, and try to be our friends, companions, caregivers, partners, etc.

How could such Socially Interactive Robotic Environments (SIREs) improve our everyday life and shape user experiences? And as UX designers, how do we design SIREs? In this presentation, SIREs are defined as “AI-embedded robotic environments or environmental components that can be perceived or interacted with as socially intelligent agents”

The presenter first lays the theoretical and empirical foundations for SIREs through multidisciplinary literature reviews and empirical study results. Then, the presenter discusses the applications of SIREs in children’s education and mental healthcare through preliminary empirical studies conducted by “AI Environment Lab”. Next, two theoretical frameworks for designing SIREs and smart machines in general are proposed by the presenter, together with their applications in UX education.

Finally, the presenter argues for the promising future of SIREs based on the coexistence of industry 4.0 & 5.0 in our era, the social isolations in a post-pandemic world, and the global issue of population aging.

The goal of this presentation is to inspire further discussions in the UX design and research communities on a future whose environments are more and more intelligent, interactive, and supportive both physically and socially.

May 3rd
8:30 am CEST

The Power of Challenging our Beliefs: Lessons from UX Research for Senior Citizens

Stephanie Wan

Stephanie Wan will share how her experience doing research with senior citizens for the first time forced her and her team to challenge the beliefs and stereotypes they had about them, leading to new ways of doing things they had never considered before. This includes how she planned their research, executed it and how the unexpected findings both changed her worldviews and invoked a curiosity to want to know more. She will link this research to a broader perspective about how constantly challenging and rethinking our beliefs benefits us as designers because it ensures we continue to adapt and stay relevant in a rapidly changing world. The speaker will also offer some practical suggestions on how we can start challenging those beliefs today.

May 3rd
9:00 am CEST

Real-Life Human Connections

Melody Renaud
Is looking at a screen all day, all night long really the future that we aspire for? Do you really want to be scared of strangers? What about being part of communities, saying hi to our neighbourhoods, and starting conversations with strangers. The speaker, Melody Renaud believes the future of UX is one where people connect through real-world experiences, and where technology can help elevate these experiences into meaningful ones. Where technology and interaction design can help connect with like-minded people and help people learn more about the world. Melody will talk about real-life experiences that use UX and technology for the better good. The speaker is a UX designer, and will be sharing a few projects they have done as a part of Blob Collective, an arts business crafting interactive public experiences.
May 3rd
9:30 am CEST

Supporting Women in UX to Become Leaders in a Post-“Lean in” Era

Kate van Niekerk

Recently the most powerful women in tech have been stepping down and are being replaced by men. While the decline in female leadership, and the influence those leaders carry, is worrying, this may just be one of many indications that we should reassess how we support and train women to become leaders. How might we build a new generation of female leaders in the absence of adequate role models, and in the context of a system that is not always welcoming? As a small NPO in South Africa aimed at empowering women un the UX & design industry, we’ve learnt a few things about the power of community in helping women thrive in the industry, and are embarking on a project through our volunteer programme to increase the level of public knowledge and understanding of gendered dynamics and experiences in the industry, so we can start to take the first steps to sustainable change.

May 3rd
10:00 am CEST

Campus Circles: Climbing the UX Career Hill in Ghana

Eric Puplampu

With the sense of belongingness and association, considering the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs steams the need for community building and connection of like-minded associates among humans. This has become critical in the building of experiences within our virtual and physical livelihood and this has triggered the need to form communities that benefits the bottom line, hence creating “Campus Circles”, that is pockets of UX/product designers/managers across the entire university space in Ghana with about 600+ members and empowering them with tools, leadership and guidance to climb up the hill in their product/ux career journey or growth circles.

May 3rd
10:30 am CEST

From Collaboration to Innovation: Creating a Thriving UX Community in Pakistan

Shoaib Khan

In summary, “From Collaboration to Innovation: Creating a Thriving UX Community in Pakistan” proposes that community building is key to advancing UX in Pakistan. By bringing together UX professionals and enthusiasts, Pakistan can create a supportive environment for collaboration, learning, and innovation, ultimately shaping the future of design in the country.

May 3rd
11:00 am CEST

Developing Accessible Digital Government Services for Citizens of Greece

Nikos Apostolidis | Giannis Tzortzopoulos

Gov.gr is the main platform where Greek citizens can find government services and information. During the first period of the COVID outburst, numerous new services were developed in a very short time. This talk outlines the work we have done in order to assess and remediate the most critical accessibility issues with a focus on the 12 most popular government services.

May 3rd
11:30 am CEST

How UX and Design Can Help with Degrowth and Systemic Change

Helle Martens

There is no planet B. It’s now that we have to start mobilizing change, and we need to do it fast! We have to look into alternative ways of living, spending, eating, and disposing, and creating solutions that benefit our communities and the world we live in. With this talk, I’d like to open a discussion about urban agriculture, climate change, consumerism, and waste, and what we as designers can do to make sustainable changes for the better.

May 3rd
12:00 pm CEST

How to Build Legit Skills and a Brand for Yourself

Ansh Mehra

Clients don’t just buy the experiences you design, they also buy the experience of working with you. You can be the best designer of the world but if you’re not visible, nobody will ever get to know. And in the future, a growing number of UXers will become aware of this. In this session, Ansh Mehra, with 200.000 followers on youtube and Instagram, will reveal all his secrets on how you can make the most of your skillsets and build a brand around your niche. You can expect to learn about how you can improve your online persona, build better connections, deliver higher quality work and earn more as a creative professional.

May 3rd
1:00 pm CEST

Sustainable UX – How UX Can (Hopefully) Save the World

Poppe Guthrie | Johanna Klaus | Paola Miani | Bavo Lodewyckx | Thorsten Jonas | Kasper Karup

The Sustainable UX Network will provide one hour around and about Sustainable UX, what it is and its different aspects from CO2 emissions, to various in-equalities or mental health (see UN’s Sustainable Development Goals) and how you can achieve it in your daily work. For the last 10minutes we will focus on the mental health aspect of Sustainability and offer a short interactive breathwork-session for you, to keep the energy for the rest of the day.

May 3rd
2:00 pm CEST

Compassion by Design

Dan Makoski

In the world of business, Design is often perceived as a tactical decorative skill at worst, or a trendy innovation method at best. But what if we reminded ourselves that the entire purpose of business is to serve society? And what if the compassion that comes from human-centered Design is actually the most strategic and untapped superpower to accelerate the true purpose (and profits) of any business? Come hear the stories, lessons and vision from someone who’s been a Chief Design Officer at 3 of the Fortune 10, and believes that we are on the brink of a revolution of Compassion by Design!

You might find the inspiration you need to resolve the misunderstood nature of Design in your own business reality, you might learn new strategies that ultimately allow you to soar in your own career, or you could even discover new ways of empowering the leaders around you to better serve the customers they claim they want to support. Whichever the case, your decision in joining means you know something needs to be done. Take that step, and you will grow to never regret it.

May 3rd
3:00 pm CEST

The Healthcare UXer: Guiding Omnichannel Design Thinking

Louis Derungs

There is something unique happening in healthcare today. Healthcare got married with Software and they’re having many (many) children. Moreover, the entire medical field and the burgeoning Digital Therapeutics family are, now more than ever, focusing on providing real and tangible value to its main users/customers: Patients. What does that offer to the UXers out there? The possibility to be part of a positive, growing by the second revolution. And what does that impactful mission involve for UXers joining the revolution? Becoming a Design Thinking expert and becoming a Guide. A Guide in the patient-centered navigation of the beautifully complex Digital Therapeutics Omnichannel ocean.

May 3rd
4:00 pm CEST

There is No “Undo” Button in the Real World

Wolfgang Walcher

Mistakes happen everywhere, especially in the construction industry when blueprints are difficult to understand. To avoid these mistakes, workers need clear instructions. Robotic Eyes uses the power of digitalisation to make manual work processes more efficient and safer and to make blue collar labor jobs easier and more satisfying.

May 3rd
4:30 pm CEST

The Future Will be Accessible – or It Won’t Be

Susana Pallero | Silvia Marquez

The speakers, Susana and Silvia will present two scenarios based on data and trends. One scenario will bepositive and one will be negative, and both will be about digital accessibility and its impact on the digital gap and the compliance of digital rights. It is up to us to define which scenario we will make real.

May 3rd
5:00 pm CEST

Recap of Future of Interface Workshop

Gregg Vanderheiden

A recap of the multiple day event, ‘Future of Interface’, held in February 2023, showing main take-aways and learnings.

May 3rd
5:30 pm CEST

UX of AR & MR

Bara Shamrookh | Yousef Halabi

In this world of the future, augmented and mixed reality is everywhere. It changes how humans experience their lives interacting with the physical and digital world cohesively, be it in business, transportation, entertainment, tourism, education, and many other sectors. Interaction design needs to adapt to these technologies and create new standards and benchmarks to create an experience that can be used universally and be able to scale and be customized accordingly.

May 3rd
6:00 pm CEST

Looking into Your Crystal Ball: A Primer on Strategic Foresight for Design Leaders

Ramy Nassar

Futures Thinking is the art & science of understanding change and building resilience. For UX leaders, it means creating products, services, and platforms that are more adaptive to changes in user needs and behaviours.

This interactive presentation will introduce the importance of Futures Thinking to UX professionals and showcase several practical methods & frameworks to bring strategic foresight into their practice, including the Futures Thinking Canvas (TM).

May 3rd
7:00 pm CEST

Responsible Design

Debora Bottà

Present day 2030. Making choices to reverse climate change is no longer an option. And giving a voice to the many who have been calling for the right to equality, equity, and inclusion for the last many years has become routine. Governments and companies have increased their attention to people’s needs and the planet, which drives a systemic approach to product and service creation. New and different points of view have made their way to the decision-making table to adopt systems thinking. Now, not only tech and emerging technologies experts, but also economists focused on sustainability, circularity, and regenerative theory are collaborating with designers, philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists, and experts on inclusion, ethics, human rights, and the rights of other living forms are crucial contributors. And so are AIs, of course! Designers have proven to be key professional figures in bridging the various disciplines and, more importantly, in connecting them to people’s needs through participatory methods and co-design activities. Designers have become crucial in tracing the path to an ethical and responsible design. They have accomplished this by using their tools, adapting them to the new systemic framework, and extending them towards imagination and a long-term view.

How can we get to this near-future scenario? What changes and actions would be necessary to accomplish it? And what role would designers play in this change? What can we do today to drive designers to take on this power and responsibility?

May 3rd
7:30 pm CEST

The Future of Health Design

David Szalay, MD | David Birkas | Viktor Eperjesy | Bence Lukacs

The use of health-tracking technologies and the collection of sensory data on our bodies are rapidly becoming part of our everyday reality. But that’s not all – in 2023 we are witnessing a surge in AI technology that can analyze health data and generate insights and action plans to prevent diseases and promote healthier lifestyles. As both AI and health-tracking devices continue to advance and become more affordable, they offer unprecedented opportunities for people to take control of their health and well-being. However, technology alone is not enough to create positive change. Designers must rise to new challenges and create experiences that empower people to take action based on these insights and make lasting behavior changes. In this session, we will explore design principles and key aspects of how UX designers can join forces with AI and behavior science to turn this opportunity into solutions that work for users.

May 3rd
8:30 pm CEST

Panel Discussion: The Future of UX, Utopian or Dystopian?

Ivana Randelshofer | Lennart Nacke | Darren Hood | David Geerts | Nick Fine | Debbie Levitt | Christiane Moser

It is difficult to predict the exact future of UX as new technologies, and design/research approaches continue to emerge. To discuss how we can stay ahead of these developments and how they will impact the future of UX, we present a panel of experts: Ivana Randelshofer, Lennart Nacke, Darren Hood, David Geerts, Nick Fine, Debbie Levitt, moderated by Christiane Moser.

We do not doubt that advances in technology (e.g., artificial intelligence) have the potential to improve UX drastically. However, looking at the industry, we observed that UX had been “instrumentalized” to serve the business more than the users resulting in lots of unsolved challenges. UX is not a field into which anyone can transition quickly. Still, we need designers trained in ethics, researchers that advocate valid methodologies, and strategists that think about humans as much as businesses. The moderator will kick off the discussion by briefly explaining the motivation for this panel. She will involve the remote audience in an interactive question-and-answer session to explore various questions and topics.

May 3rd
9:30 pm CEST

UXPA History and Possible Futures

Janaina Pantoja | Rich Gunther | Sara Mastro

In 1991, the Usability Professionals Association was founded. In 2012, UPA became the User Experience Professionals Association. Learn about the history of the first professional association specifically for UX. In 2019, UXPA developed a strategic plan that mapped out the future of the organization. Hear about that plan and how the pandemic affected it. Join in the discussion about the possible futures of UXPA.

May 3rd
10:00 pm CEST

Implications of Global Population Aging on UX Design & Research

Chaiwoo Lee | MIT Age Lab

Talk details under finalization

May 3rd
11:00 pm CEST

How to Use UX for Product Innovation

Brian Sullivan

The future is being built today by startups and large enterprises working together. In this talk, Brian Sullivan will explain how UX plays a crucial role at preforming critical user research, design thinking, rapid prototyping, and experimentation to determine the right direction to build the future people want/need. This talk comes from Brian’s experience working as a design strategist on an innovation team at a large enterprise with startups in global locations.

May 4th
12:00 am CEST

How AI Can Shift the Role of UX Research

Ricardo Martins

In this insightful and thought-provoking lecture, Ricardo delves into the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI) and its significant impact on the field of user experience (UX) research. He demonstrates how the rise of AI-powered tools and techniques will lead to a monumental shift in the role of UX researchers, changing the focus from generative research methods to evaluative ones in an incredibly short period of time. Ricardo will explore the following key points during his lecture:

1) The current state of UX research and its traditional reliance on generative research methods.

2) An introduction to AI-powered tools and technologies that are revolutionizing the field of UX research, enabling researchers to analyze large volumes of user data and identify patterns, trends, and insights at an unprecedented scale and speed.

3) How the integration of AI into UX research processes will lead to a fundamental shift from generative to evaluative research methods, with researchers focusing more on testing hypotheses and validating design solutions through data-driven, behavior-based findings.

4) The implications of this shift for UX researchers, as they will need to adapt their skill sets and approaches to embrace the power of AI and become hypothesis testers, deriving insights from actual user behavior rather than relying solely on user intentions and self-reported experiences.

Join Ricardo for an engaging and informative lecture that will leave you with a deeper understanding of the rapidly changing landscape of UX research and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead for researchers as they harness the power of AI to drive more informed, data-driven decision-making in the world of user experience.

May 4th
12:30 am CEST

Role of the United Nations in the Futures of UX

Elizabeth Rosenzweig

World Usability Day has been celebrating making technology easy to use since 2005. Over time, WUD has engaged local communities around the world regarding various United Nations concerns. A World Usability Initiative has been formed to increase the recognition of UX within the United Nations, such as having WUD officially added to the UN calendar. In the future we are making happen, the United Nations will influence the future of UX practices and the UX industry. Hear our views on what we think this will mean for all of us.

May 4th
1:00 am CEST

From Products to Services

Justin Zalewski

Today’s digital “products” are increasingly more like services than products. These digital services meet people’s needs along a journey—over time and across multiple channels. However, our approach is often still geared towards designing a product as a single touchpoint. When we treat services like products, we set our customers—and our teams—up to fail. In this 20-minute session, attendees will learn how we, as product designers, can benefit from a service design mindset. Specifically:
– Distinguish between services and products
– Learn two critical factors that clickable prototypes ignore
– Discover how to evaluate experiences more holistically

May 4th
2:00 am CEST

The Future of Conversational UX

Celene Osiecka

A future where a much greater portion of user-computer interactions are accomplished by conversational interfaces, both in personal life and work life.

May 4th
3:00 am CEST

AI in UX: Balancing Innovation with Ethics and Responsibility

Paula Deschamps

As we look toward the future of UX, one of the most exciting and potentially transformative developments is the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the design and research process. As we embrace these new technologies, it’s also important to consider the ethical implications of AI in UX research. For example, how can we ensure these systems do not reinforce biases or perpetuate harmful stereotypes? How can we maintain transparency and user privacy in an era of data-driven design? These are just a few of the critical questions we must grapple with as we explore the possibilities of AI and UX in the years ahead

May 4th
4:00 am CEST

A Dozen UX Professionals (and You) Weigh In on The Future of UX

Marc Majers

In this session, watch Indi Young, Luis Berumen, Andy Vitale, Grace G. Lau, Hunani Pao, Peter Horvath, Jesse James Garrett, Sophia V Prater, Craig Kistler, Ben Woods, Elizabeth Rosenzweig, and Ryan Leffel talk about what the future of user experience holds. Then join the host of UX Pathways, Marc Majers, to lead an interactive discussion analyzing these future predictions and their impact on business, people, and technology. UX Pathways is a podcast that tries to understand how professionals got into user experience and give their advice to others joining the industry.

May 4th
5:00 am CEST

Preventing the Future

Joshua Randall

On our current trajectory, the future of UX design will look much like the present, only worse. The gold rush mentality towards UX design as a “career” combined with Gresham’s Law (“bad money drives out good”) applied to design combined with automation from software platforms means we are increasing the pace at which bad designs proliferate. In this talk Joshua Randall will cite data from larger research companies like Baymard and Nielsen Norman Group as well as draw on examples from his career to paint a picture of the coming dystopia. Joshua will end with an appeal to prevent this dystopia by recommitting to foundational user-centered design principles.

May 4th
6:00 am CEST

Innovation Design with Data and Intelligence

Wu Qiong

Data and intelligence have been totally involved in desig, not only as methods but also as design objects, even partners. The talk will discuss the new challenges and tasks for innovation design today, based on some projects and the corresponding design thinking and methodology.

May 4th
6:30 am CEST

Information Architecture: Then, Now, and in the Future

Andreas Resmini | Grace Lau

Has the practice of Information Architecture evolved all that much? How have new technologies changed how people organize and structure information and make sense of the world around them? In this everyday conversation, Andreas Resmini and Grace Lau translate the evolution of information architecture in practical terms for the future.

Want to be a part of the next event?