I managed to score some free tickets to Embrace UX, an innovative conference focused on user experience and product design, thanks to McMaster Spectrum. The ticket price was $70, which was a great gift!
It was held in, what appeared to be, a dingy apartment building. Upon entering, the room was actually quite spacious and inviting.
It was a 2-day conference, focusing on user experience and how to design with the user in mind. On the first day, lots of interesting speakers came up and delivered great talks.
In particular, they showed this hilarious picture:
Many times, designers hope the product is being used one way, but the consumer ends up disregarding it. This results in a lot of waste and inefficiency.
The second day was spent on an interactive workshop. We were divided up into groups and given a task: to redesign one of the biggest intersections in Hamilton, King St. and James St. Basically there was a beautiful second floor terrace in one corner that people were underutilizing.
We brainstormed a lot of different ideas. Many of the folks in my group were design consultants, architects and entrepreneurs. They immediately jumped in with brilliant theories: there were a lot of undesirable people (homeless, gangs) loitering around the street corner, driving away citizens. Need to remove undesirables by moving credit unions, employment services, and consignment stores away from that corner. To attract traffic to the second floor terrace, we need a tall fixture in the vicinity that draws people’s eyes towards it. We also talked about getting rid of the walls and jutting staircase, and replacing it with a sweeping, open stairway that directs people upwards to the terrace.
We spend all morning brainstorming and preparing a presentation for our fellow conference attendees, as well as city managers and stakeholders. A local catering company provided a working lunch for us, as we toiled away. It was muffins, fruits and sandwiches stuffed with cheeses, vegetables and spices.
In the afternoon, each group got to present their work. Everyone’s pitch revolved around a similar theme: to use physical space and smart planning to draw out undesirable people and draw in citizens to the terrace.
