UserExp '08 - Day Zero, Course for a Young Fighter

Yesterday was the “zero” day of the UserExperience '08 conference, the main (and only) event of which was the training “Course of the Young Fighter”. My colleagues and I took part in it and below is my opinion as a participant, after a day (that is, from a cold head and “through the prism of history”).

Impressions mixed:

• pro
  
  • Opportunity to practice under the guidance of leading Russian specialists .
  • Informal atmosphere : I think round soft “chairs” were remembered by everyone :)
  • The opportunity to work side by side on the same task with colleagues from other companies, which in real life is almost impossible.
  • An interesting topic on the topic of the day (ridding Moscow of traffic jams).
  • All participants together went through the stages of user analysis, selection of the target audience, usability testing.
  • We got an invaluable experience of observing a user who first encountered our creation.
• contra
  
  • Crowd It is difficult for her to manage a prori, and 20 people in a group is already a crowd. For a workshop that implies active creative work of active creative people, such a division became critical: sometimes they had to shout down to their colleagues, the poor moderator (prudently reserved a whistle) attracted attention only with a shrill whistle.
  • Lack of expert evaluation : what everyone expected from the organizers. The logic is natural: once the seminar is conducted by an authoritative expert, then in the end we should expect a “debriefing”. Alas, did not wait.

Here is the essence, I hope, of all the comments made at the end of the seminar. I will make a discount on the “first coma effect” and say: in general, many people liked it :)

I would like to hope that the rest of the conference events will also be successful and interesting.