German UPA UX Festival 2023: The German UX community’s reunion
Is it still a Barcamp, or has it become an offsite with hundreds of friends? The German UPA UX Festival took place in Erfurt for the second time. Under bright sunshine on June 17 and 18, over 300 UX professionals gathered at the train station to share their ideas on stages both large and small, discuss topics together, network, and celebrate. The main sponsors were DATEV and UX&I.
“If you come away from a conference with sand in your pockets and a mild sunburn, then you’re either an insurance broker from the ’90s or a UX professional,” concluded Nadine Pieper, Senior UX consultant at UX&I, with a wink. It’s no coincidence that the German UPA’s industry event is called the “UX Festival.” In true Barcamp style, spontaneous sessions were pitched, workshops and presentations were planned, people chatted, partied, and, fitting for the weather, often engaged in heated discussions.
Just like last year, UX&I was the main sponsor of the event, this time together with DATEV. In a cozy beach lounge, both companies treated participants to snacks and cold drinks under the beach umbrellas.
Courage wins … the Best Session Award
At the same time, DATEV and UX&I were also active members of the community themselves and gave several talks. The highlight: Flora Maxwell, Senior UI Designer at UX&I, not only gave a session for the first time in her life (and moved her audience to tears in the process), her talk, “4, 8, 12, 16: 4 reminders from a perfectionist,” was named the best of the 62 sessions held at the festival.“In my view, we all deserve the Best Session Award because we were so brave: we thought boldly and acted boldly,” emphasized Flora Maxwell.
Anouk Ellen Susan also emphasized in her keynote that taking risks pays off. “My most important takeaway from the festival, based on Anouk’s keynote, was: ‘When in doubt, do it.’ I’ve decided to incorporate this into my life. It was also such a perfect fit that Flora had the courage to take the stage,” said Christian Korff, Senior UX consultant at UX&I.
Inspiration from across the entire UX universe
Christian Korff and his colleague Markus Brendel, also a senior UX consultant at UX&I, provided inspiring insights to the community: Christian shared “5 Tips for Strengthening the UX Mindset in the Workplace.” Markus raised the question of how UX professionals can learn from the restaurant industry.
Overall, the selection of topics was as diverse as the audience. For example, the talk on neurodiversity, which highlighted, among other things, the advantages of various conditions such as dyslexia, generated a great deal of interest. The German UPA’s UX writing working group presented seven heuristics for effective UX copy and raised awareness of language in user interfaces. “It’s great to see that UX writing is gaining more and more attention. The interest, and the professionals, are there, as the many conversations at the festival also showed,” said Juliana Hirsing, Senior UX Writer at UX&I. In keeping with this theme, another talk focused on error messages. Takeaway: The best error message is no error message at all. Charlotte Spang moderated a panel discussion on challenges in the B2B environment, particularly regarding finding suitable test users. Building user communities and development partnerships were suggested as potential solutions. The talk on UX debt and prevention strategies provided further food for thought. Under the motto “You can’t bake the eggs into the cake after the fact,” the session demonstrated just how costly it can be to neglect UX from the very beginning.
DATEV also provided insights into its working methods and best practices. For example, Tolon Winter and Katharina Stachewicz explained how the many UX professionals at DATEV organize themselves into a community of practice and promote the topic throughout the company.
Pure exchange
The wide variety of session formats was also particularly enriching: sometimes on the main stage, sometimes sitting together in a casual setting, and sometimes during a “Walk & Talk.” Exchange, discussion, and relaxed networking were always the focus and continued well beyond the sessions, on Saturday even into the late evening hours around the campfire or on the dance floor.
The open, “class reunion” atmosphere was further enhanced by Dominique Winter of the German UPA, who moderated the event in his inimitable, captivating style. He, too, was thrilled by the special atmosphere: “The friendliness, this sense of togetherness. This is what I’m absolutely convinced of: If we want to build awesome products for other people, we need respect, empathy, and a sense of togetherness. And you all embodied that so brilliantly yesterday and today. I’m so grateful for that.”
THE community event
Many agreed that the UX Festival had actually improved even further compared to last year. This time, it drew even more participants to Erfurt, and the sense of community was firmly established. “For me, this is THE community event for UX in the German-speaking world. I met old friends, made new ones, and had many great, and in some cases, very in-depth conversations! There was a tremendous amount of mutual appreciation,” said Christian Korff.
Many thanks to German UPA for the excellent organization and to all participants for a truly unique weekend. The dates for the 2024 UX Festival have already been set: feel free to mark June 15 and 16 on your calendars.
About UX&I
UX&I offers consulting, enablement, and implementation services in the field of user experience (UX). We focus on deep tech, enterprise software, and digital transformation. Our goal is to help people harness complex technology to serve users. In doing so, we bring together all relevant perspectives: human, business, and technology.
- Locations: Düsseldorf (Headquarters), Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Munich
- Employees: 37
- Founded: 2014
- Clients: Ten of the fifteen largest German companies, among others, rely on our UX expertise
Contacts
“UX is only sustainable if everyone gets on board.” Christian Korff turns user experience into a team effort and particularly enjoys getting involved with complex systems.
Juliana has been bringing text to the digital world since 2009. As a UX writer, she ensures that language guides users to their goals and makes products measurably more successful.
For more than 12 years, Nadine has been passionate about complexity and has been breaking it down for clients, teams, and users, in a pragmatic way and with snappy headlines.
Markus Brendel
Senior UX consultant
Markus is a senior UX consultant and has been part of UX&I in Düsseldorf since 2018. He has been involved in the design of digital products since 2009. Markus particularly enjoys challenging tasks, feels right at home in the role of facilitator, and loves working in interdisciplinary teams.
Flora approaches design from a human-centered perspective, and brings structure to complex applications with a keen eye for what matters most. She helps teams drive product development through intuitive design.
