Really enjoyed UXCampEurope. I've attended a couple of the London events, and got a lot out of each one, so was quite happy to have an excuse for a weekend in Berlin... And wasn't disappointed.
From the moment we arrived, it was all very smooth. A great venue on the outskirts of Berlin (slightly awkward to get to by S-Bahn, but not so much that it derailed anything), huge and light; excellent food; and great facilities. A couple of the rooms got quite crowded and could have done with better air-con, but that's probably more a comment on the popularity of those sessions than on the venue.
There was a good selection of talks; a couple of times I was forced to skip one I really wanted to see (like Eva-Lotta's sketching workshops). Maybe one fewer room would have forced us to fill all the available time-slots instead of spreading out and leaving too much choice... Amongst the talks, there was a heavy emphasis on Agile/UX, and also on tool use: lots about Axure, and a couple referencing Balsamiq.
Highlights for me were the two sessions run by Anders Ramsay on user stories (wonderful analogy: software development is a restaurant, with the kitchen being development and front of house, UX) and the design studio workshop. Honorable mentions to Design For The Toilet, an examination of and call for data-driven design to the exclusion of our own instincts, which the speakers ably demonstrated were wrong; and an examination of a recent redesign of Doodle, one of my favourite web services.
Eric Reiss rounded off the first day with a warts-and-all show-and-tell of disastrous experiences running a design agency, and uncomfortable number of which rang bells; and I had a fascinating and intimate chat in the final session, on bringing design to the often code-emphasising world of open source projects.
"wonderful analogy: software development is a restaurant, with the kitchen being restaurant and front of house, UX"
suspect kitchen being restaurant isn't quite what you had in mind here :)
Posted by: Jane | June 14, 2011 at 07:34 PM
Oh balls. Thanks Jane, fixed :)
Posted by: Tom Hume | June 14, 2011 at 08:46 PM