UXLx Talks

Expanding into international markets isn't just about translating content or adjusting payment systems. Local cultures, political contexts, technological landscapes and social norms all shape how people perceive and interact with products or services. In this talk, Chui Chui Tan will challenge traditional perspectives on cultural awareness in UX. She will show why it's time for UX professi...

I used to be skeptical of AI-powered tools and nervous about the sweeping changes they promise for our industry. But after interviewing over 25 AI research tool founders, testing nearly 100 AI-empowered solutions, and publishing our “AI vs Humans” study comparing traditional UX research with a human-plus-AI approach, I now see the transformative potential these tools offer. In this talk, I reveal...

Every design organisation should continuously run initiatives that improve the circumstances for designers and increase the chances of good design happening. In other words: they should have a DesignOps practice. In this talk, Peter will walk attendees through examples of DesignOps initiatives and how they were executed, as well as introduce his process to maintain a DesignOps roadmap, all based o...

Most of us are familiar with accessibility requirements around color, support for screen readers, and basics for content structure. But what about more nuanced issues that impact users with cognitive and motor disabilities?  In this talk, Devon will discuss ways to keep users with disabilities safe and included on the modern web with clear workflows, options for reduced motion, and interfaces that...

Designing for AI in 2025 is similar to designing computer interfaces in the late 80s and early 90s, where designers need some knowledge of the medium to craft the right experiences since our tools are currently insufficient. This talk will share how Klaviyo's AI team has been crafted to balance high-data literacy with designers that have more creative inspiration that gives our customers a fee...

Sure, AI could help you write that tricky UX copy. But does it make the product work better for users? The right UX text can speed up onboarding, increase engagement, and reduce support costs. In this talk, Torrey provides practical UX text patterns to help you design faster, with better outcomes, and without spending AI tokens.

Your Multi-All-The-Things organization supports multiple products, brands, platforms, and modes. Your design system unlocks desperately-needed efficiency & consistency, which is great! But each product has its own unique design needs, so how can we provide the benefits of shared systems without forcing everything to look exactly the same? The answer is design tokens! In this talk, you'll l...

Designing for AI requires new considerations and new ways of thinking. We must focus our design talents on a new type of relationship with machines—one that is far more dynamic than ever before. What should these relationships look like? How might we take an ethical approach to create the best experiences with AI? And what role does design thinking have in helping us design for AI?

elationships with internal stakeholders are often the key to planning, creating, and maintaining strategic content that gets results. Being able to have productive conversations, even when the topic is tricky, is a skill every content professional can and should develop. From having to tell a stakeholder their idea isn’t on-strategy, to critiquing a non-writer’s writing, to approaching a frank con...

Join me on a fast and furious tour of all the ways we screw up helping users do what they came to do. We’ll see exhibits from the following categories of UI horrors: Sticky bandage Vow of silence Overeager assistant The only customer is you and my personal least-favourite To you this is a tool to get work done, to me this is art Do you want fewer leaky funnels, better user created data, and to be...

In the current political climate, it seems like we’ve all but given up on productive, respectful discourse. However, there are simple design and content design choices we can make that encourage collaboration over conflict, even when dealing with hot-button issues. In this session we’ll look at real-world examples of how the way we phrase a question or design an interaction can have a huge impact...

Like most aspects of product and development, research looks very different at startups compared to enterprise businesses. But how does the transition actually happen? How do you know when it is time to move from one research approach to another? This presentation will address how to determine which research practices best fit your organization and what you need to do to level up your research whe...

Design systems come with promises. Sometimes, though, they don't deliver. Our assumptions and expectations about such systems are partly to blame. But there is hope! By recognising design systems for what they are, we can use them more effectively.

Most AI projects fail. Some fail quietly before launch; some fail spectacularly publicly, becoming another media horror story about AI. Why does this happen? Because the current process for designing AI products and services is broken, especially when it comes to product strategy—what projects to pursue. But a new approach to designing AI is possible, one that instills more cooperation between des...

The way organizations are approaching product development and emerging technologies are constantly changing. At the same time our practice as designers is evolving with new tools, techniques, and approaches, surfacing at a pace that can be hard to keep up with. What does this mean for us as leaders of teams (big or small)? How can we lead teams in progressive orgs going through digital transformat...

In the ever-evolving world of technology and user needs, staying ahead to craft superior user experiences is the challenge of our time for UX designers. The question isn't just how to meet the demands of today but how to remain flexible for the unknowns of tomorrow. Understanding the significant impact of the external environment on user experiences, coupled with the dynamic nature of user evoluti...

Individuals and organizations all over the world are experimenting with design thinking as a methodology for helping them create innovative user experiences. In this presentation, IDEO Partner Tom Kelley will describe the opportunity to go beyond understanding the toolset of design thinking and embrace a mindset of creative confidence. Drawing on his research from the  New York Times  bestseller t...

We are solving the challenges of building and maintaining diverse teams. Slowly. As a result we find people from minority groups being the only ones of their kind in a team, project, or company. For some this is an opportunity to stand out and excel. Yet for others, particularly from under-represented minorities, it is a position of vulnerability. Being "one of a kind" stops them from bringing the...

For a business to thrive, it must find and retain strong UX talent that creates customer-centered products and services. Most professionals don't have time to continually expand their knowledge of new technologies and tools, but their work relies on this currency. How can we stay up-to-date in a world constantly in flux?  This talk explores techniques to build a culture of continuous learning in t...

In the world and work of "social design," participatory methods and strategic approaches have been deepening and maturing. Since all work is social to some degree, our teams and organizations can learn from those approaches. How do we listen to the system that surrounds our work? How can we craft invitations that bring people together as co-creators? What does it look like to involve the people wh...

Is technology killing empathy? Studies suggest that empathy is on the wane and technology might be partly to blame. From self-care to selfies, fail videos to filter bubbles, existential loneliness to righteous outrage, we are confronting the possibility that human-centered practice hasn't created human-centered technology. As if we needed more proof, technologists are now trying to solve the "empa...

Can design have a greater impact beyond commercial settings? That's what Jim Kalbach, author of Mapping Experiences, pondered when a global counter-terrorism organization approached him to facilitate a workshop in Abu Dhabi. Earlier this year, Jim applied mapping techniques to help understand the experience of former violent extremists. In this talk, Jim will discuss the details of his inspiring p...

Technology moves fast. To keep up, we must be flexible and collaborative. While specialization is valuable for perfecting your craft, magic happens when cross-disciplinary teams come together to solve problems. In this session, Becki Hyde shows how product designers, software engineers and product managers can work closely together to deliver human-centered software in a world of ambiguity. Learn...

As large organizations embed design systems, they'll often find they have multiple systems. A search for the "one source of truth" collides with another truth: change and coordination across business units is hard, alignment is costly and effortful, and sometimes there's good reasons for having many systems loosely coupled. In this conversation, we'll explore the nature of systems of systems, tier...

Embodied cognition is the study of how a person's physical body can play a role in the cognitive processing of information.  For example, scientists have found that humans perform better on memory tasks when we offload storage to our bodies and our environments.  Now, as Virtual and Augmented Reality technology becomes increasing common, there are new possibilities for designers to apply years of...