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Last week saw the third in the lightningUX series of events. I hoped to write something up more quickly afterwards, but it was an exhausting week and client projects were keeping me busy in addition to the event.

It was hosted by LBi in their Brick Lane offices, which was a great venue. Apart from having a separate bar area (with beer kindly provided by Flow Interactive and Foolproof) that made it more relaxing both before and after the event, the room for the presentations was much larger than we’d had previously, and there was a massive projector screen, so everyone got a clear view.

First up was Sophie Freiermuth on “How not to get started in mobile UX”. She talked us through a recent project and described some of the mistakes made and lessons learned. For example, starting with a design that was focused on a standard desktop browser without consideration for mobile up front, not considering the range of different mobile OS’s, potential viewport sizes and the pitfalls of gestural interfaces.

Continuing the mobile theme was Alex Baxevanis from Webcredible with “How I single-handedly designed, built and launched an iPhone app and lived to tell the tale”. He certainly had the longest presentation title! His presentation gave us some great insight into what it’s like to just take an idea and run with it in your own spare time. I must admit it’s something I’d find daunting, but Alex managed it and had some interesting lessons to impart.

First was don’t re-invent the wheel, but pay attention to the details. There are examples of code and guides everywhere for designing iPhone apps, much like anything else, but the details are what sets an individual product apart. Then he talked us through how this affected his app.

Our third presentation was quite a change of tack after the first two. In “Adapting techniques to culture”, Sedef Gavaz described some of the difficulties she encountered in conducting research in China.

She told us about how culture in China made it difficult to run what in the UK might be fairly standard research activities such as usability testing, and emphasised the importance of a shared language when conducting research. Not just the basics, but ensuring you can communicate effectively and with enough subtlety for the research in hand.

Davide Casali & Riccardo Cambiassi then dived into the age old story of project politics, and how personal debates can sidetrack a project. The essence of their presentation was that communication is key, and when issues arise they need to be dealt with professionally and dispassionately. The longer these issues fester the more personal and intractable they can become.

Through all of the lightningUX events so far I’ve worked hard to get slightly left-field perspectives on what are seen as traditional UX practices, and I’m happy to say this event was no different. We had Alison Thomson of SomehowRelated come along to tell us about her experiences of designing outpatient services in the NHS, which was great and really refreshing. It was a research and design project that could be seen as in the service design mould, but as Alison prefaced her discussion with the quote “I hate service design” (not entirely seriously I don’t think) I’ll refrain from calling it that.

One of the really interesting aspects of her presentation, and in the same mould as Mary Cook from Uscreates at lightningUX II, was the way Alison conducted her research. It was user research, yet conducted in a completely different way than you might see in a typical UX project. Big Brother style chairs for participants to discuss their doctors for example. Really interesting stuff.

Jason Mesut gave us a five minute rendition of his UXLX presentation on recruiting for UX. This was highly entertaining but also hugely informative. There were several areas in this that resonated with me, not least of which being candidates turning up to interview claiming they couldn’t show any previous work. Not good enough.

David Whittle finished off the event with a great narrative of a project he was involved in a few years ago. It was an interesting tale about how there can be disconnects between client and agency, and how it’s all too easy to lose control of a project over time. This one won’t be on Slideshare unfortunately, so it just goes to show it pays to turn up to the event!

One thing I’ve been a little surprised, and I have to say a little disappointed about, is the lack of people coming forward to speak. In some cases I have people in mind for particular events, but it’s great when people drop me an email or a message on Twitter because they want to share their ideas. This is a platform for people in our industry to communicate in a friendly and informal way, and there are no barriers to entry.

A common misconception is that people think they have “nothing to say”, or that their subject is too complex or esoteric for the 5-minute format, but neither of these is usually an issue. We all have stories and ideas to share, and the smallest insight can easily fill a five minute slot. Similarly, the audience is made up of peers, so it’s a great place to discuss a narrow idea in some depth.

All in all though, this was a great evening, and I’m already planning the next one. Apart from David’s, I’ll try to get all of the presentations online in the next few days, so keep checking back. And of course if you have any ideas, do drop me a line…!