At the end of March this year I was invited to speak at an incredible UX conference in Seattle, WA: ConveyUX.

It’s been running now for 6 years and is, let me just say, gaining steam. There were peeps from Facebook, Google, Amazon, Dell, and Microsoft giving talks (to name a few). I was speaking as part of the software design + developer UX track, sharing about rapid app building for fundraising software. And I had a blast.

As ConveyUX reported afterwards:

ConveyUX 2018 set a lot of records for the six-year old event produced by Blink UX. As Seattle’s annual user experience conference, we hit our highest attendance so far with 420 attendees from 27 US states, five provinces of Canada. Plus 17 countries, including Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Costa Rica, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

I was 1 of 45 speakers there, and it was amazing to take it all in. My session was called 20 Million People, 12 Days, 8 Organizations, and 1 George Clooney. It detailed the build process our software team used to quickly stand up a custom application we were tasked with building: a donor platform for a group of nonprofits, GERC (the Global Emergency Response Coalition). The goal was to raise funds to combat the unfolding and severe issue of famine in the horn of Africa. I walked through how we used development, design, and UX to help raise over $5 million dollars in under two weeks for the campaign.

A few takeaways:

1. 1. 1. Speaking at a conference is a very different thing that attending a conference.
         From the VIP lounges to the awesome conversations you have with other speakers, being a conference presenter has its perks! You get private tours & access, free food, and overall: special treatment.

    

   1. 1. UX has definitely baked in to the industry now and is more understood and professionalized than ever.
         Digital agencies & departments get it. The user matters, and interactive products should reflect that. Leading-edge teachers and conferences are paving the way for a user-centered-design revolution. The mystique around UX is fading, and a universal language is being formed around the industry.

    

   1. 1. The development concept of Agile programming is now being utilized in user research and testing.
         Rapid prototyping is now being done cross-departmentally. Lean UX and MVP are part of the common dialogue between teams now. Google and other teams are using design sprints as part of their rapid prototyping process.

    

   1. We, as programmers, testers & designers are creating the future of UX.

Seattle: You are a gem. A place of rain-cleansing-hippie-yet-cosmopolitan innovation. I applaud your laid-back tenacity. And also thank you for Pearl Jam, Starbucks, and Amazon.