UXDX Conference Returns to the RDS in Dublin

UXDX Conference 2023 was in Dublin’s RDS from October 11th to October 13th. After arriving at this digital design conference, I sat in on the end of a talk by Marine and Morgan around fostering a customer centric culture at an enterprise. They answered some interesting questions around email newsletters, insights from other internal functions, and how to incorporate them into a UX design process.

My next stop was to the exhibition area, where folks were networking, along with UX providers setting out their stall of services. I stayed a few minutes at the Discovery stage, which had an auxiliary capacity for attendance before moving back to the (main) Vision Stage.

UXDX Conference Returns to the RDS in Dublin

Fergal Reid from Intercom gave an excellent overview of AI, ChatGPT, and how Intercom, as early adopters of ChatGPT, integrated it into their front end systems. They created a product called Fin, which leveraged ChatGPT’s API into their customer service bot. Their adoption experience started small, but iterated repeatedly through a fast development cycle. It delivered measurable results within 6 months from project inception.

This led to Fin’s development path adopting more and more of the power of ChatGPT. Fergal made a fiercely relevant point about seeing ChatGPT as an engineering component, not an alternative to an internal service. For Intercom, its power augments their customer service with a view of enhancing the customer’s UX experience. By Fergal’s current figures, Fin as a bot, accounts for circa 50% of all completely answered customer queries.

I then had the pleasure of chatting with Pamela Mead, VP of Design with SumUp. We talked about the COVID triggered challenges, given that the pandemic pushed enormous amounts of consumer interaction into the digital space. The reactive paradigm in response triggered a need for a revised velocity in problem solving. Design collaboration across multiple functions was required to meet the enormous challenges faced under time pressure.

She explored how influencing through story telling was key in establishing trust. The conversation then explored procedural velocity involving multiple disciplines that deliver understandable product functionality to the user. COVID validated the need to build trust as a design leader with teams, and also with multiple stakeholders.

On leadership style, she made a resonating point about the need to merge design knowhow and leadership competency in the skill-set of an embedded design leader. This consultative approach is a key aspect of success for any product team.

After lunch, I went to meet Kevin Hawkins, Global UX Director. His views on UX and digital adoption through COVID are based around people. He sees change management as a key skill, which is driven by smaller entities who have to change up to survive. Digital adoption was a key part of their COVID journey, which had many learned lessons.

One of those was replicating the bricks and motor experience in the digital realm. Kevin offers that the emotional connection with a handwritten note from an employee cannot make it into a UX interface on a mobile app, but it should accompany the delivery.

Another example is a small restaurant with a reputation for quality in their bricks and motor service. Deliveries for their new takeaway service should not deliver quality meals in a plastic microwavable box. Packaging for digital products should always be brand-aligned.

Moving in between stages, I stopped off at the talk called “An Unexpected Approach to Design: Uncovering Hidden Parallels With Writing Story Tales”. Raphaele’s walkthrough of his design process reminded me of my current novel’s design story. Working backwards and mapping artifact points are as important as the story (or data) flow.

The talk at 4pm on the Vision Stage brought day 2 of UXDX to a close. The last day is at the Herbert Park Hotel with a focus on UX workshops. While I cannot attend, I am confident that the quality of the event will make it one to look out for in the future. Given the strong design and UX nature of the conference; if you have digital products, booking your 2024 tickets for UXDX should be on your to do list.

By John Mulhall @johnmlhll | john@maolte.ie is a writer with Irish Tech News for over 7 years and also a Founder, Writer, and Engineer with Maolte Technical Solutions Limited. You can learn more about John and his IT services company at https://maolte.ie.

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