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UX LX – the book signing that almost was!

2012 May 21

Just back from Portugal where I attended UXLX 2012 – As usual the conference attracted a lot of people. People came from as a far as Brazil, Chile, with a huge contingent from Switzerland and of course Germany, Norway, Sweden, UK and from many other countries. UXLX might be the only conference where the ratio foreigners versus locals is the highest. It felt that 80% of the people I talked to where foreigners.

Some great speakers were involved included some O’Reilly authors including –

  • Dave Gray co-author of Gamestorming. I had a very embarrassing moment with Dave. I nagged him to come to the stand and do a book signing. We had everything set for 10.30 on Friday. At 8.30 on Friday I had to admit that we did not have any books to sign – all sold out. Embarrassing but great, it shows how popular this book is. I am also told that his workshop “Gamestorming” is brilliant.

 

  • Jeff Gothelf author of the long coming Lean UX. I am sure Jeff’s talk “Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business” was well received. Unfortunately Jeff did not visit our stand even though I had some flyers ready of his forthcoming book.

I could not say which talk was the best but be assured that talks and workshops are not the complete conference – there is always a huge amount of side activities included.

  • Pre-Conference Get Together
  • Conference dinner – day 1 at the Buffalo Grill restaurant
  • Conference dinner – day 2 at the “Senhor Peixe” restaurant
  • After Party: Sunset Boat Cruise followed by yet another dinner at the Cervejaria Portugalia

As you can see this programme gives the attendees plenty of time to network, discuss work, technical issues and maybe just have a good old chat etc.

No I did not attend all these dinners – only one dinner and the cruise. The cruise was fantastic – cold wind and very dramatic sky and no rain.

What did I learn during this meeting? I did not learn what UX is as it seems that everybody has a different definition. A lot of the UX people seem to have a psychology background and a general complaint was that no university provide a UX course. I hope I convinced you that UX LX is a great meeting and hopefully I will see you there next year.

 

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