UXcamp 2011 Kiev Report - Inside View

1st day

Road to UXcamp

On the last weekend of July 30-31, a two-day workshop for User Experience specialists from Ukraine was held in the vast Ukraine. However, the event went far beyond the framework of Ukraine and brought together experts and experts from various CIS countries. This event could not miss and I. Already by July 28, the entire formal part with registration, payment, ticket purchase, etc. was completed, and I began to prepare for the departure to Kiev. From the newsletter, which did not keep myself waiting, I understood where and how to get there, however, I didn’t figure out what to do if I was late, for which I paid later. July 29 it is, and after work I began to collect things ... A toothbrush, toothpaste, camera, mobile phone charger, clothes, a few trifles and the book “Alan Cooper about the interface. Basics of interaction design, ”decided to re-read on the road. At 22.45 I got on a bus from Minsk and on the road. They promised to come to Kiev at 9.30, and the registration was before 10.00, it was just about time. As a result, 2 stops in Belarus, one in Ukraine and hello Kiev. The rainbow mood at 9.20 was interrupted by a traffic jam from the Levoberezhnaya metro station to the Dnipro metro station. Not really thinking about the emergency disembarkation, I did not think of a route from other points of Kiev and had to go to the station, and the time was already 11.30. With annoyance in my heart, I went out at the station and rushed to the venue of Uxcamp.

Arrival

I arrived at the place at about 13.00, Olga Gorenka met me, she told everything and helped to accommodate. “Blue” team (Ruslan Kokin at the presentation said that we are blue, but you don’t believe this :)) I joined the customer when the interview was over. I had to catch up with the loss.
We got an interesting project - a platform that provides information about promotions, sales, and discount products at offline shops in Kiev. The task was to conduct an expert assessment, denoting that it is necessary to provide users on the site, based on the general concept of the product. The moderator was Margarita Titova (Usabilitylab.ru, Moscow). During the whole UXcamp, experts approached us: Dmitry Satin, Alexey Kopylov, Sergey Kudryashov. Yuri Vetrov refused the role of an expert and joined one of the teams, which, of course, contributed to a perfectly prepared material and a brilliant and creative presentation in the end, but more on that later. Olga Gorenko, as an organizer, always approached and was interested in the course of the project, gave advice somewhere, helped with missing information and materials somewhere.


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Lunch and games

Before 14.00 we did a good job and it was time for lunch and games. Everyone went to relax and have fun. For two hours we ate, played various games, generally rested. In an informal setting, we got to know each other better and talked to experts. I made an amazing conclusion for myself - they are the same people as everyone :) It was very pleasant to talk with Dmitry Satin and Alexey Kopylov (wonderful people, not just good experts). During the games, everyone had fun playing badminton, a broken phone, a frisbee, a basketball-football-volleyball (the ball was one and used it differently) and attention, even in games the unruly usabilists stood out and invented badmint-football (the rules games ask paz0r ).

Photos from the album Usabilitylab (Uxcamp 2011)

Job

Around 16.00, everyone started working again. From the schedule, we are a little behind and just started working on the characters. Time flew by unnoticed, and the work moved with creak. There were a lot of ideas, everything was discussed, but agreement was difficult to achieve. This situation was en masse for all teams. As Alexey Kopylov correctly noted at the end of the first day, people who worked in the teams were mostly unfamiliar and it was very difficult to determine the leader. To be more precise, there were many leaders, but there were no recognized ones. My personal impression was that on the first day, people in teams were looking at each other, getting to know each other, finding out who was the best, but because of this, the work dragged on and was ineffective. At the next UXcamp, I would recommend starting with teambuilding, team building games, during which team members will get used to each other and it is possible to immediately determine the leader (Olga Gorenko note :)). In general, by 20 o'clock some results were summed up, several ideas were taken into account and characters were developed. The participants wanted bread and circuses ...

Photos from the album by Alexander Kulik (Uxcamp)

Relaxation

At 8:15 pm, a general review of the 1st day was held, the experts commented on the work, made a few comments to all the teams, and everyone went to dinner. At 20:30 there was a delicious kebab, however, it dispersed faster than it had time to bring it. Who did not get the kebab, was organized by the second batch somewhere in 30 minutes. As a result, everyone ate and the barbecue even stayed. After dinner, we went to play mafia and wait for the final stage in the UXcamp schedule, which was called “The Cat in the Bag.” The game was in full swing, when the cat still got out of the bag. It turned out to usability testing site. The respondent was picked up and successfully seated in a seat at the computer. Only testing began, as it began to rain. However, this did not frighten the fearless respondent, and usability testing continued until the organizers began to seriously worry about the technique. The rain intensified and everyone began to move under the shed. Thus, the schedule of the 1st day of UXcamp has ended. The schedule was over, but the usabilityists were full of enthusiasm. UX-Bukhalovo became a logical continuation :) Someone rushed into the city for something stronger, and this was already enough for someone, but the overwhelming majority continued to swim in a sea of ​​beer. The situation became completely relaxed and communication was easy and not forced. The difference between experts, specialists and just Vasya Pupkin was only in ...? Yes, there was no difference. Someone played the mafia, someone crocodile, someone “chased smart carts” for those who could take something else seriously, there were more contests and much more. In general, it ended up somewhere around 3 nights. Although for some it was not the end, and everything went on in the rooms. I got to my room when my neighbor was already asleep, which is what I wanted so badly. According to the old Russian tradition, he got about 5 alarms from 8.30 to 9.30.

Photos from Oleg Nesterkina's album (Uxcamp 2011)

2nd day

Awakening

At 9.10 my head slowly rose from the pillow, turning off the penultimate alarm clock, I still decided on a desperate attempt to get up. According to the schedule of the 2nd day, breakfast should be from 9.00 to 10.00. Already at 9.40 I got to the place of breakfast. Of course, there were not many people, and having had breakfast, I waited for the rest. At about 10.30, our team gathered and we, after receiving a parting speech, moved forward to continue work.

Deadline race

I took a bottle of beer with me. The work began sadly, but after half an hour, everyone was busy and “started the pot”. Someone was well influenced by morning beer, someone finally woke up. All organized, divided into pairs and finished up the characters, developed scenarios, designed the presentation. Started a quick race for the deadline. Time was categorically not enough, but thanks to the coordinated work we managed to catch up with the deadlines. Working in a team was interesting and fun, the seriousness and controversy of yesterday disappeared. Everyone began to joke and have fun. In between, they shared funny videos in youtube, told jokes, but Petro was the apogee of humor and fun. No, this is not a real person, this is a character developed by Evgeny Kiselev (hi Zhenya). The presentation of the character's own character within the team produced a whole explosion of emotions. It was a character, or even the whole story of a character’s life, which was filled with a sad childhood, not a rosy student body and a beautiful future (for more information on the history of Petro, ask Eugene). In general, the story, according to all the rules of the series with a happy end :). On a pleasant note, with a sense of accomplishment, we all went to lunch together. To get away from the vain affairs, we talked about ourselves a bit, talked about remote topics, and Olga Gorenko caught up with us. We described the respondent that we need for usability testing and Olga left in search of such an individual, and we went to rehearse. Ruslan Kokin presented our work. Having received a small piece of criticism mainly from me and Anastasia Savchenko, Ruslan clearly gave a presentation. I was a test respondent, and Margarita Titova tested usability. When the rehearsal was over, we moved to the presentation.

Presentations

Around 2:30 pm presentations began. The first was presented by the team with Yury Vetrov, who did not meet the time allotted to 5 minutes, but the performance was very creative and, with the consent of the audience, they continued. In my opinion, this was the most interesting presentation. Then all the other teams presented in turn, and the last one, since we had usability testing, our team performed. With the support of two beautiful girls from our team Victoria Perederiy and Olga Borzenkova, Ruslan Kokin told about our project and the work done. Next Margarita Titova conducted usability testing of our prototype. Not without inconsistencies in the teams, somewhere there were disputes within the teams, somewhere in general the participant separated and did his work on the project and presented it. Customers appreciated the work done and noted the recommendations for improving the site. Recommendations were on how to improve the individual elements of the pages, and on the redesign of the site as a whole.

And the end

At 6:00 pm, all presentations were completed, and UXcamp came to an end. In the first routes to the metro station "Zhitomirskaya" mostly non-resident people were leaving to catch the train, the bus. Saying goodbye to new acquaintances, I left on the second flight. With a good mood and a lot of knowledge and emotions I received, I went home.