#27 Dec 6 2018

As the clock struck 00:01 on 1^stJanuary 2018, Ruth decided ‘this is my year!’ and embarked on a journey of mystery and intuition that would launch her business thanks in no small part to social media, deepen her enduring connection with nature, and ultimately take her on a solo and self-supported 350km run across the Bosnia-Herzegovina mountains. Using the password on her new laptop as a daily reminder of her intentions for the year, Ruth set about creating a life that would feel more meaningful and intentional than ever before, at last shaking off years of gnawing doubt and depressive periods. In this talk, Ruth will cover the important highlights (and lowlights) of her year in terms of what she learnt that might just be transferable to other people looking to shake things up, consider the role technology has had to play, and how she navigates the line between going online and switching off entirely to be still in the presence of nature.

About Ruth

Ruth is a mountain-obsessed counsellor-psychotherapist, wellbeing coach, writer and phone photographer living on the edge of the Peak District, UK where she has been running White Peak Wellbeing – her outdoor therapy practice and consultancy - full time for one year. In 2017, after a decade working in Higher Education, Ruth decided it was finally time to quit in order to pursue a different sort of life, bringing together years of ponderings, creative urges and retrainings. Ruth is still writing the book she promised years ago, but in-between times writes for various magazines on all things nature and wellbeing. She also dabbles in self-publication of poetry inspired by her travels or the weather. Ruth is a passionate advocate for suicide support, as well as greater empathy and compassion in the workplace.

When users are frustrated, dropping out or giving negative feedback, often the problem is that their mental models don’t match the designed systems. I’ll provide practical techniques for identifying and mapping out users’ mental models and match with their journeys to improve the user’s experience. As an independent UX Consultant, I’m often hired when there is a problem: the website or app looks and feels too complicated, users are frustrated with the experience, dropping out the website or giving negative feedback, and the project teams are unsure about what UX issues to prioritise. Often project teams are trying to fix usability problems at a micro scale, for example fixing elements on individual pages and creating new features. From my experience, often the problem is found at a macro scale, for example, should this page even exist? In many cases, the users’ mental models of user journeys don’t match the designed systems. In this talk, I’ll show some case studies and provide practical techniques for identifying and mapping out users’ mental models and match with actual user journeys to improve the user’s experience.

About Mariana

Mariana Morris is a User Experience Designer and founder of Fruto, a UX design studio helping tech teams and startups improve the user experience and interface of their websites and mobile apps. Fruto also provides bespoke in-house UX training to digital teams.

Mariana has 15 years of industry experience, holds a Masters in Interactive Media and a Bachelors in Industrial Design (Visual Communication). She is a lecturer at the University of Reading, experienced trainer and public speaker. She co-founded the popular monthly event UX Oxford.

In the West we have little regard for writing. And indeed many people are even proud they have a bad (aka lazy) hand. Personally I abhor sloppy writing. It conveys there’s something dodgy about the writer’s personal hygiene, ethical values, and emotional shortfall. – Alan Fletcher

Typographic hedonism from 1994 with a detailed and revealing look at the handwritten title on the cover of Oasis’ debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’.

About Daniel

Daniel founded Studio Chehade in 2012, a multi-disciplinary graphic design studio now based in Milton Keynes.

We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world and as such, it is essential for leaders to challenge the assumptions that underpin their businesses. In his short talk, Freddie will challenge 2 of the assumptions that exists in most businesses – 1. That money is involved 2. There has to be a boss.

About Freddie

Freddie has over twenty five years’ experience of strategic board level engagement and change initiatives working with many of the FTSE 100 best companies and SME Businesses. His work focusses on business and culture transformation through improving Employee Engagement, building High Performing Teams, Leadership Development & Performance Improvement. Eight years ago, Freddie joined the Engage for Success task force as a Guru. Engage for Success is a movement backed by the then Prime Minister and committed to the idea that there is a better way to work, a better way to enable personal growth, organisational growth and ultimately growth for Britain by releasing more of the capability and potential of people at work

Freddie is also the co-author of the 7 Steps to Frontier Leadership book, published by Bookboon in 2017. This book combines the latest academic research and insight to develop an argument on what it takes to lead, what to lead and who to lead in a VUCA world.

Hate crowds and small talk? You're not alone! John discusses his journey into the world of online streaming in a bid to tackle that exact issue, and how he found advantages to wasting your time streaming live online.

He’ll take a look at how it has led to positive benefits for him as well as a number of new streamers that have started alongside him within the last year. Then he’ll share how you can transform any passion or hobby that you love into something more fulfilling and inclusive than ever before.

About John

John is the self-proclaimed IT Octopus for Dyslexia Action and Real Group, working as the IT Manager and overseer of all things technical. As well as making sure that the computers turn on he also tries to find interesting and beneficial ways to introduce technology into learning and learning with special needs.

In his spare time he is a regular Twitch streamer and affiliate and writes reviews for a small video games magazine. John also discusses the challenges of living with and raising children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder on Instagram.