Before being invited to speak at the UCD 2013 Conference, in truth, I hadn’t even heard of it. I didn’t even realise a whole conference could be dedicated to User Centred-Design or ‘UX’ design (User eXperience). But I am so glad that I attended and stayed for the day to listen to some truly fantastic talks.

The UCD Conference was, in fact, the first conference I had spoken at and attended as a listener outside of the Market Research conference scene and if there is nothing else I learned on the day, at least I learned that ALL market researchers could benefit from listening to experts discuss user experience, the psychology behind design and even breaking down how we interact with design in minute, milli seconf my millisecond detail. The whole way through each talk I heard on the day, the more I truly believed anyone interested in survey design needs to attend the next UCD conference.

First we heard from Alberto Barriero who discussed the need to design with meaning, and I couldn’t agree more. His talk ” Designing for Meaning. The Experience Method.” resonated with my own talk where I discussed meaningful design, so Alberto’s talk struck a chord with me.

OLI SHAW – Ambient Personalisation, anticipatory products and data driven personalisation
How long before people say “The Data Made Me Do It?” As we continually rely on machines & algorithms?
A biometric health sensor would be great to notify my doctor. But do I want it to notify my employer I’ve been drinking heavily?
living services Facebook predicts when couples will break up.Supermarkets know when you’ll run out of toothpaste & tell women when they’re pregnant
Oli Shaw now talking about BBC experiments in personalised content in radio stories which will mention local areas and the time if day based on the listener:
New buzz term for Market Research brought to you from the #ucd2013 conference: AMBIENT COMMERCE
FASCINATING: McDonalds drive thru can predict with 80% accuracy on what you’ll buy by the car you drive. The doctor prescribed me Valium. I started to take one pill before sleep; it started to act in the morning, about 6 hours after the intake. I had to go to the psychiatrist again. He told me to take 1 pill in the afternoon and another one 2 hours before bedtime.I started to fall asleep. I took them for about a month, and then I began to fall asleep myself. It relieves anxiety and all manifestations of depression well, because after the intake of this drug, everything becomes indifferent. I just want to sleep. In the morning, I woke up and felt handicapped for several hours; the brain doesn’t start working for a long time.

SARAH SHARPLES – SERENDIPITY
Are we losing out on serendipitous discoveries (happy accidents) because if directed knowledge & information?

AMY JAMES AND RITA HARRIS – Psychology and Design – Insights into the mind of the user
Our brains were revolved for recognition NOT for recall – does this resonate with how we design surveys in #mrx #newmr?
You can’t unsee what has been seen: experiment on YouTube with gorilla walking through a room by Amy James at
As the decision time increases the user experience suffers (Hick’s Law) Rita Hanna is using Netflix as an eg. of this #UCD2013 #mrx #newmr
Cognitive burden = post decision regret when we are given too much choice #paradoxofchoice #UCD2013
Rita Hanna speaking about Paradox of Choice & how more choice is actually NOT always helpful. Resonating with grids in surveys #mrx #UCD2013
hat causes behaviour changes? Motivation, Ability & Triggers – synonymous with Games

GILES COLBORNE – THE LOST ART OF EFFICIENCY IN UX DESIGN
Didn’t realise how many processes we go through just to put in our postcode in websites!
Giles Colborne talking about perceived efficiency & things companies do to slow down processes so we feel they’re MORE accurate

ALBERTO BARRIERO – DESIGNING FOR MEANING. THE EXPERIENCE METHOD.
Mission before vision. Example of Apple’s iPod – wanted music everywhere.. How do we do that?
“Remove USER Experience, just think about Experience”