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Dallas is so much more than cowboys, great BBQ, and big hair. As most know, they have a notable UX community that gets together frequently within the UXPA Dallas group. Last Thursday, we had the opportunity to attend their recent Meetup gathering hosted at Improving and give it a Key Lime Interactive splash.

The Gaming Analytics Summit held in San Francisco brought together a nice crowd of headliner video games such as Minecraft, Call of Duty, Destiny, Angry Birds, and Candy Crush. In attendance were the big gaming giants such as Sony PlayStation, Xbox, Activision, and Electronic Arts. Being an avid gamer and data analyst made this conference extremely informative. The topics ranged from in-game analytics to building a company structure that best handles big data. My focus at this conference was to see how the user’s voice was being heard in the video game development pipeline. Qualitative interviews meant very little to this group who focus more on big data and analytics, but some companies set themselves apart by emphasizing the importance of the user in maximizing their earning potential.

There were two topics in particular that I found most interesting at this year's NetFinance conference in Miami:

1. Digital strategies to support the Omni-channel experience
2. Is Personal Finance Management (PFM) dead?

Let’s face it. We have become a “Google it” society. We can answer almost any question in .00012 seconds (according to Google’s search results page) and get a pretty accurate response. So, before attending the LeanUX15 conference in Brooklyn, NY, I wondered what would Google’s response be for UX’s impact on modern day Systems Development Life Cycles (SDLCs)? Was it even possible to wrap terms like DevOps, Kanban, Lean or Agile into a neat package with a UX bow on top?

 
Just as smartphones and tablets displaced the once-dominant PC, wearable technology has begun to take over the tech-scene. They have been projected to reach $4.5 billion in revenue this year and $53.2 billion in global retail revenue by 2019 (Juniper Research). These devices are popping up everywhere from smartwatches, fitness bracelets, and even smart-clothing and jewelry, but what if your wearable gadget could potentially save and/or prolong your life?

One of the big themes of nearly every SXSW event we attended was personalization. Even events about the Future of TV had panelists talking about supplemental apps or making sure people could watch on the devices they chose. A news discussion with Dan Rather and Dan Pfeiffer also discussed how people consume news on the platforms of their choice, like Facebook and Twitter. Customers are looking for a more personal, customized experience in the place of their choice.
Predictive technology is making big strides in making these more curated experiences accurate. Facebook’s facial recognition technology is making use of their extensive data on user tagging so they can auto-tag your photographs when you post them. This technology may be more accurate than that of law enforcement. Netflix’s House of Cards was famously made by using data to understand that a political drama starring Kevin Spacey directed by David Fincher would be popular. An important consideration with using predictive data for customer recommendations is providing said data to customers.

 Last month we discussed how we could take the unique work ethic of artist Pablo Picasso and apply it to our lives. Through the five P’s of Productivity you can be well on your way to improving your potential and maximizing your strengths. These P’s include: Passion, Purpose, Proficiency, Persistence and Partnership. At the Big Design in Dallas, Brian Sullivan and J. Schuh presented a highly entertaining talk that left you feeling motivated and ready to conquer your career.

We already took a look at the first two steps, Passion and Purpose. Let’s take a deeper dive into the final three steps.

In one of those rare and fine occurrences where work and play intersect, I found myself at the Games User Research Summit at the Sony Computer Entertainment facility in San Mateo on March 3^rd, 2015. I had heard about the conference from another usability professional, and thought it would be interesting to see how usability practices are applied by professionals in the video gaming industry. Although we live in an age of specialization, I find that it’s important to step back from time to time and look at things from a different angle. What unique challenges are faced by usability professionals in video gaming? How do they approach similar tasks, like recruiting representative candidates and designing a product on a rapid time scale? These were the questions I wanted to answer, and a few of the talks that I attended shed light on these key topics.

Produce like Picasso

We all know Pablo Picasso and we all know he was a genius. Primarily known for his role establishing Cubism, he was also an efficient artist. He brought this discipline to each of his artistic periods including Traditional, the Blue Period, the Rose Period, his African-Influenced work, Neo-Classicalism and Surrealism. His innate talent and unstoppable drive meant that he produced an average seven new pieces of art every day. Today we have over 147,800 completed works of art from this amazing artist. At this point you may be comparing your own productivity to Picasso's his jaw dropping feat; try not to feel too bad about yourself. There was a method to his madness.

The presentation was not a Picasso art history lesson, but rather a lesson on how to apply this work ethic to your daily tasks. How can we apply Picasso to our work? Brian Sullivan and J. Schuh presented their findings on how the average worker can apply these Picasso techniques to achieve success.