Open Tech Calendar

Edinburgh Napier University, Shopify, Edinburgh UX Meetup and Whitespace warmly invite all UX enthusiasts to a one-of-a-kind event. Join us for an opportunity to meet a panel of UX professionals, who will be sharing their knowledge and experience.

6pm – refreshments & pizza!
6.30pm – short talks
7.30pm – Q&A panel with our four speakers
8pm – grab a drink, network, enjoy!

Talk details:

Stop “feeding” your users! (Gillian Massel, Senior Content Strategist, Shopify)

Ever since Facebook launched News Feed in 2006, feeds became a popular way of designing for machine learning. But while machine learning technology evolves and changes every day, the way we design for it is stuck in the past. This talk exposes some of the experience problems created by these obsolete patterns and explores some alternative ways interfaces can help users find what they need.

Building design teams (Rhys Nealon, User Experience Lead, Designit)

Identifying the right context for growing a team, hiring for the right skills, and navigating a few tricky but common situations Rhys has encountered when building design teams over the years.

Writing thoughtful product content at scale (Biz Sanford, Content Strategy Manager, Shopify)

As writers and content strategists, we know it’s impossible to write and review every single word that goes into a user interface. But even small instances of content, like error messages and button text, deeply affect how our customers feel when using our products. So what’s the best way to help customers accomplish their tasks? Teach everyone how to write their own good content, of course. Through examples of how this works at Shopify, you’ll learn how to think like a content strategist. The key to improving your product’s content lies buried deep beneath lorem ipsum.

Take control of creativity (Alistair Lane, Design Manager, Shopify)

The talk focuses on changing our interpretation of creativity, and being creative from something ambiguous and difficult to grasp, to something we can all deliberately practice with tools and techniques for doing so. Creative people have unrealistic expectations for the work they do, and the process in which that work should be created. This talk gives us permission to do things differently and ways to do that.

About the Speakers:

Gillian Massel
@gillianmassel

Gillian is a Senior Content Strategist at Shopify. In the last 4 years, she’s dabbled in everything from machine learning, business analytics, and AR/VR experiences. Gillian first learned about UX design when she was working as a content marketer for a web design blog, and it was love at first sight. When Gillian isn’t scouring Shopify's content for missing Oxford commas, she’s probably reading Shakespeare or hanging out with her dog Maggie.

Rhys Nealon
@rhysotto

Rhys is an Edinburgh-based design leader who cut his teeth in Design Research over ten years ago. He's led a number of design teams and now mainly focuses on UX Strategy, Service Design, and Design in business. He's also studying the UK’s first Design MBA at Central Saint Martins, London.

Biz Sanford
@bizsanford

Biz is a Content Strategy Manager on the UX team at Shopify in Ottawa, Canada. She’s spent the last 4 years building products and tools that help over 800,000 people grow their businesses. She’s shared what she’s learned at conferences like Confab and the Content Strategy Forum. Before joining Shopify, Biz worked for several Canadian government departments, building user-centered cultures and developing a usability strategy for Canada.ca. If she’s not working, she’s probably reading Harry Potter or off adventuring.

Alistair Lane
@alistair_lane

Alistair is a Design Manager on the product creative direction team at Shopify. Over the last 5 years at Shopify, he’s worked across the company on marketing, product, and experimental teams. Prior to that, Alistair lived in Edinburgh for a little over 10 years where he studied and then worked at various design agencies.