Premiere: Joint UI/UX designers meetup with Konzepthaus

With 70 enthusiastic UX/UI participants, the discussions were rich and inspiring. The theme of the day? Community, knowledge, and fun!

Speakers who made an impression

In her session “Design like you mean it,” Hertje Brodersen, former Head of Product Design at Zalando, addressed the question of whether designers should continue to rely on user-centeredness and empathy as unique selling points, or whether, in an increasingly interconnected world with many, sometimes invisible, stakeholders, we need to significantly broaden our perspective and sense of responsibility. She emphasized the need for new guiding principles if we truly want to put people at the center of our work. Hertje shed light on some of the biases and blind spots that prevent us from doing so and presented ideas on how to design in a truly human-centered way, for all stakeholders involved, not just shareholders. Her combination of backgrounds in literary studies and cultural anthropology lent her views a unique perspective.

Juliane Steinberg, Senior Conversational UX Architect at Future of Voice, focused her session on the topic “Open Bot Surgery: How to Revive a Dead-End Dialogue.” Everyone is familiar with the challenges of voice-controlled user interfaces: Who hasn’t found themselves frustrated, asking, “Why doesn’t this thing understand me, even though I said exactly what I want?!” Voice interfaces have their own unique challenges, ones that shouldn’t be underestimated, compared to graphical user interfaces. In her presentation, Juliane addressed these specific issues in detail and provided in-depth insights into the world of voice bots. She also demonstrated just how powerful voice user interfaces can be, especially when your eyes and hands are occupied with other tasks. 

Hias Wrba, product coach at UX&I and lecturer at artop, Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin, focused his session on the concept of “UX for Well-being.” Hias described human-centered design as the foundation for improving our lives. He drew valuable insights from positive psychology and the question of how we can place basic human needs at the center of our work to develop truly meaningful solutions. In his view, we should expand the scope of design to encompass a broader societal, ecological, and economic context. In his view, the design process needs to be democratized. Hias also shared some illustrative examples of design failures, which helped demonstrate why it’s a good idea to make design a team effort. 

Networking in full swing

Between the presentations and during the networking drinks that followed, you could feel the energy in the room. New connections were made, old acquaintances were rekindled, and people finally met their LinkedIn contacts in person.

“What impressed me most was how they not only focus on users, technology, and business, but also take into account areas such as ecology and society. It sparks curiosity about how we can navigate this complexity. It’s an exciting and challenging task.” (Samuel Lottner, Recruiting Manager at Konzepthaus)

“Exchanging ideas with the UX community, gaining new inspiration, and creating shared memories is simply essential.” (Markus Brendel, Senior UX consultant at UX&I)

After the event is before the event

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who came. Kudos to Konzepthaus: it was a pleasure organizing the event with you. And for everyone who missed it: the next event is already in the works. On October 23, 2023, the German UPA Event featuring Don Norman and Rainer Sax will take place at the UCI Düsseldorf. More information is available here.