Big Design Dallas Day 1 Recap

If you haven't been following our Twitter feed, then you have been missing out! Our Key Limers, Tracy Antol and Kelly Nercess, attended Day 1 of the Big Design conference in Dallas. Wish you were here soaking up all this UX knowledge? Do not despair. Here's a brief synopsis of our day.

Opening Keynote: Building a Culture of Innovation by Jeff Gothelf @jboogie

Jeff had lots of great tactical advice on how to build a culture of innovation. We'll write more about that later but the short answer is

Give Your Team A Meaningful Business Goal

An example might be to increase repeat site visits or decrease shopping cart abandonments. Send back and let them figure it out. Give them a problem to solve not a solution to implement.

Real-Time Content Marketing in a Connected World of Search and Social by Rob Garner @robgarner

Rob shares his insights on the way real-time content marketing has changed the way we relay information. Content marketing has emerged as a marketing budget line item and new digital discipline. You MUST have a strategy in order to make content marketing successful. There's no flying by the seat of your pants in this approach. Real-time marketing is the extension of real-time communications across other outlets. Social media content is more than a simple tweet. You need relevant meaningful content, strategy and planning to make it all work.

UX of Voting by Elizbeth Rozenweig, User Experience at Bentley University

The single most important UX issue that we as a nation face is the design and usability of our voting systems. Only since the 2000 election has this become a prominent issue. We'll be writing more about this later but we encourage you to get involved at the Voting Information Project https://votinginfoproject.org/interest

101 Different Amazing Engaging Content Ideas by Bernadette Coleman @berniecoleman

CONTENT IS KING. In this engaging talk Ms Coleman took things one step further and crowned a "King of Content" to illustrate the importance of real-time communication. You can check out his photo here. She also broke down 21 secrets to leverage your content. We'll give you the first 5 and save the rest for a later blog post.

Step 1: Publish The Article On Your Blog

Step 2: Publish It In Your Newsletter

Step 3:Submit Industry Blogs & How To Articles

Step 4: Post The Article On Google +

Step 5: Offer To Post The Article On Somebody Else's Blog

ABCD of UX: - Understanding, establishing and sustaining human-centered design by Matthew J Doty @matthewjdoty

Generally speaking we're talking:

A = Awareness

B = Basics

C = Change

D = Discipline

Again we'll cover this topic in more detail later. Our main takeaway? In order to effect true change your team needs to be able to answer "YES!" for two important questions.

1. Can I do it?
2. Is it worth doing?

You can't move forward without that level of consensus. You'll also need an awareness of what good UX can really do. If you can explain that value to others, you're on your way.

Introverts & Extroverts: Extreme UX Personalities by Mike Townson @miketownson

As a self-described introvert, I loved this talk. The idea of the introvert and the extroverts has been a fundamental component of our personality development. Key takeaways from the workshop:

• Can you be a little bit of both an introvert and an extrovert? Yes, they are called ambiverts.
• "Introvert while sober, extrovert while drunk" is a reasonable and common occurrence.
• Create an amazing team by combining one extrovert and one introvert. They can be a deadly combination and extremely competitive. They naturally compliment each other. Yin and yang anyone?
• Extroverts will easily tell you all about their lives and what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner that day. Introverts tend to be more internal and bottle up their thoughts.
• Introverts are typically perfectionists, while extroverts may be procrastinators.

From Scientist to Storyteller: How to Narrate Data by Eric Swayne @eswayne

What is the best definition of an insight?

• Something I don't know AND
• Something I should know AND
• Something I can change

Inspiring Confidence: 5 Strategies to Establish Users' Trust In Your Website by Tom Bowen

Everyone has the goal to have a trusted and and welcoming website so what drives users away from a website?

• Only 3% of visits to the average website result in a conversion so anything more is good.
• Make sure the overall look-and-feel of your website is up-to-date. Follow current design trends. Websites from the 90s send a warning shot to users. It appears no one is minding the store. Literally.
• Competitive pricing is key. Be realistic.
• Neglected 'About Us' pages can be a red flag that the website is outdated. Keep this data current!

CDO vs SEO: Why Content Discovery Optimization is the new SEO by Dan Sturdivant

Let's start thinking in terms of great content instead of great keywords. Create an experience. In terms of Twitter, your ratio of content should be 9 informational tweets to every 1 self-promotional tweet.

What People Really Do On Mobile and How to Design For it by Pamela Pavliscak @paminthelab

Are you addicted to your phone? Do you take it to bed with you? Typical mobile users check their phones 150 times a day and 44% of users sleep with their phones (No, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter!). Pamela ran several tests to learn how people interact with their mobile phones. Key takeaways:

• 80% say that their phone is the first and last thing they look at every day.
• 74% overlook or just ignore bottom navigation options
• 53% of mobile phone users have had a distracted walking encounter (being so involved in your phone that you walk into another person or fall off a stair)

That's all for Day 1. We'll be back tomorrow with a recap of Day 2. We'll also be posting more robust content and links in the coming weeks.