Member Article

Digital heavy weights celebrate world usability day in Bristol

User experience professionals - Nick Finck, Amazon web services and Dan Healy, Nationwide Building Society were just two of the luminaries that shared their secrets of digital success at ‘Collaborate Bristol’ this year.

The one day conference was aimed at inspiring and developing collaboration in Bristol’s creative industries; helping and encouraging businesses to discover the untapped benefits of digital.

The event, which was held at St George’s, featured some of the industries’ most respected digital thinkers who covered a range of topics from the devil in the detail to ‘making things totes emosh and dead amaze’ to engage millenials. Attendees were enlightened on the subject of designing for humanity; looking at the impact of digital on the world we live in and called upon the audience as designers to stop and think about the impact designs are going to have on the people who use the products and systems every day.

In its second year, Collaborate Bristol is a not for profit UX, IA and design conference set up to celebrate World Usability Day and is run by strategic digital design agency Nomensa.

Simon Norris, CEO at Nomensa, said: “The shift into a new phase of ‘digital’ is well known to designers and technologists - from Big Data, The Internet of Things to Cloud Computing, data carried via digital is more pervasive than ever. We are seeing more and more organisations looking to go beyond a great website or mobile experience, wanting to transform their business to take a truly digital first approach.

“At Collaborate Bristol delegates were able to hear more about taking a digital first methodology and how collaboration is key to thriving in the digital society we are living in.”

Dan Healy, user experience consultant for Nationwide Building Society, said: “User experience is all about how we, as humans, interact with physical and virtual things. Good user experience is about removing the ‘why?’ It’s about having the courage to champion the needs of those who won’t or don’t ‘get it’. Good user experience turns a ‘don’t into a do’ and a ‘won’t into a will’.

“At Collaborate Bristol this year I addressed one of the biggest challenges in digital, how to engage young people – helping them to ‘get it’. Let’s face it, the world of finance will never be fascinating for children and teenagers, so I was honoured to share some of the things I’ve learnt about how to engage the widest possible digital audience.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nomensa .