Agenda
The agenda below was for the most recent MEX Conference on 2nd/3rd December 2009. The 2010 agenda will be published shortly. Please contact us if you have an idea you'd like to share.
Day One, 2nd December 2009
08:30:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Registration
Networking breakfast and registration
Goals for the session
Take breakfast and meet the other MEX participants in the WallaceSpace garden cafe, where they'll be plenty of great brain food available to fuel up for the day.
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09:00:00
| Big Room
| Introduction
Introduction to the MEX Manifesto
Goals for the session
MEX founder Marek Pawlowski and Research Director Norbert Metzner welcome you to the conference, introduce the key themes of the latest MEX Manifesto and highlight the user experience challenges facing digital industry.
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09:30:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
Inspiring team creativity - a pre-requisite for the delivery of an exceptional multi-platform experience
Goals for the session
Inspiring new ideas for encouraging creativity. Explore how it becomes more difficult to manage creativity and stay true to a pure vision for user experience when you are trying to combine multiple platforms and areas of technical expertise. Learn how a team from diverse backgrounds (e.g. people as different as mobile phone designers, broadcast media executives and social networking start-ups) can come together and create genuinely inspiring ideas.
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Sofia Svanteson
CEO
Ocean Observations
Bio >>
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10:00:00
| Big Room
| Learning from great experiences
Using consistent interface and input techniques to establish design language across a portfolio of devices
- Ubiquitous computing and calm technology
- Brand experience and consistency versus consumer value, needs, and user experience versus open innovation
- Elements of user experience, embodied interaction, and cross-platform, cross-media design language
- Important problems and key foundations for design
Goals for the session
Examine the ways in which particular interfaces, input methods and design clues can be used to create a harmonious user experience across multiple platforms, drawing in examples from areas such as consumer appliances, PCs and mobile. This session will show that consistent design isn't just about visual identity, but about establishing particular experiential elements in the interface and input layer.
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Kristoffer Aberg
Head of Interaction Architecture, Creative Design Centre
Sony Ericsson
Bio >>
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10:30:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Networking break
Networking and morning coffee
Goals for the session
Coffee, cookies and refreshments served in the WallaceSpace garden cafe and throughout the venue.
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11:00:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
Human psychology: is multi-tasking really an illusion?
Goals for the session
Insight into how users' minds work when they are dealing with multiple tasks at the same time. Understanding that there are fundamental differences in states of attention and learn some practical tips on how to build products and services which remain usable even when users are distracted.
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Eva Ferrari
Researcher
Goldsmiths University
Bio >>
Dr Jane Lessiter
Senior Research Psychologist
Goldsmiths University
Bio >>
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11:30:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
User testing strategies in a multi-platform environment
Goals for the session
Learn which user testing techniques are most appropriate for multi-platform services and why. Understanding that existing techniques designed for testing on individual devices and platforms may need to be adapted or replaced to effectively understand how users interact with multiple platforms.
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Dr Chris Roast
Reader
Sheffield University
Bio >>
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12:00:00
| Team rooms
| Creative breakouts
Breakout session 1: Meet your challenge
Goals for the session
You'll be assigned to one of several MEX breakout teams. Each team is assigned a challenge relating to the MEX Manifesto, which you'll work on over the course of the conference. On the afternoon of Day 2, each group will be asked to give a 10 minute presentation to summarise the team's response to the challenge. Your team will be led by an expert facilitator appointed by MEX and supported by an illustrator, who'll help the group to visualise its ideas. Teams will also be provided with a variety of stimulus materials in a MEX 'Inspiration Box' to help them create genuinely new ideas.
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13:00:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Lunch
Networking and lunch
Goals for the session
The WallaceSpace chefs prepare lunch in individual boxes, so you can get together with everyone in the Garden Cafe or find a quiet sofa to network with a key contact.
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14:00:00
| Big Room
| Visions of the future
Intelligence in the network - the invisible backbone for multi-platform experience
- What is cloud computing from a user's perspective?
- User needs, user experience drivers and design requirements
- Industry needs, opportunity fields and technical requirements
- Role of network operators and non-network companies
- Ideal-world and real-world scenarios, future perspectives and emerging strategies
Goals for the session
Describe how a layer of intelligence within the network will be crucial in creating great multi-platform user experiences. If we accept the notion that users' data will become increasingly centralised within the cloud, then network providers will need to understand how their systems can be optimised to provide the best user experience on the wide range of devices employed by their users. Set out a vision for the role of the network provider in managing users' data, making intelligent choices about how it is delivered and optimising the way in which it is consumed on multiple platforms.
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Michael von Roeder
Managing Director
iconmobile
Bio >>
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14:30:00
| Big Room
| Learning from great experiences
How to reflect the soul of a consumer brand in a multi-platform environment
- Mobile UX is certainly not a new frontier, but in the evolving world of branded mobiles the ability to extend a brand's reach and soul from classical retail to electronic commerce to mobile commerce presents new cross-channel opportunities that strengthen affinity and business models
- Overcoming mobile device constraints in form factor, usage models, and online access requires a big picture view that connects and leverages the value of multiple channels
- Design beyond the phone, address cross-channel UX and how eco-system design improves UX and conversion
Goals for the session
Jerome will examine how brands with rich, pre-existing heritage can use mobile and wireless technologies to create multi-platform user experiences. Sharing his experience of working directly with some of the world's best known brands, he will look at how a brand can remain true to its soul while making the most of new technology.
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Jerome Nadel
Senior Vice President of User Experience
Sagem Wireless
Bio >>
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15:00:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Networking break
Networking and afternoon tea
Goals for the session
Tea, cookies and refreshments served in the WallaceSpace garden cafe and throughout the venue.
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15:30:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
How to identify new user journeys in the multi-platform environment and keep the interaction pathways simple
- Planning multi-channel user experiences: Using story-telling to define the user experience and create coherence between channels
- Understanding what is core
- Aligning your user experience to the core
- Tasks happen in the features of your design. But experience happens in the gaps in your design
- Walk through an example of planning a trip on a variety of platforms (mobile apps, web, email, telephone, desktop)
Goals for the session
Provide examples of the different waypoints a user may encounter when navigating a multi-platform user experience. Describe how the number of potential journeys between these waypoints increases exponentially as the number of platforms grows and suggest strategies for ensuring interaction pathways remain simple and intuitive.
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Giles Colborne
Managing Director
cxpartners
Bio >>
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16:00:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
What are the best techniques for proto-typing user experiences across multiple platforms?
Goals for the session
Describe a methodology for effectively translating user insights into multi-platform prototypes. Look at ways to manage the complexity inherent in prototyping across multiple channels and how you can stay focused on the overall objective when iterating in this way.
Relates to MEX Manifesto #...
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Bryan Rieger
Designer
Yiibu
Bio >>
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16:30:00
| Team rooms
| Creative breakouts
Breakout session 2: Explore and research
Goals for the session
The facilitator will guide your MEX breakout team as you continue to research and develop initial ideas in response to your MEX challenge. All group members will be involved in responding to the task, drawing on the diverse expertise among MEX participants.
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17:30:00
| Big Room
| Summary
Summary of key themes
Goals for the session
The MEX team brings the whole conference together for a quick summary of the key themes which have emerged during the day.
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18:00:00
| Garden cafe
| Evening networking event
Networking, evening reception and a little multi-platform music
Goals for the session
Relax over drinks and canapes with your fellow MEX participants.
We're also delighted to have Guillaume Largillier and Gareth Williams give a performance at MEX to demonstrate how new generation human computer interface techologies such as Stantum's Jazzmutant Lemur and devices such as the iPhone, have made music multi-platform and multi-player once more.
Before the computer music revolution of the '90s, music making and performance was both mutli-player and mutli-platform. Musicians would collaborate, using different instruments.
Advances in computer technology, with it's powerful software studios and realistic virtual instruments have opened up huge new possibilities for music-making and performance. However, the result is that the pursuit of music has become more and more individualist (the musician working alone in front of a computer) and mono-platform (the computer itself with its suite of sequencer and software instruments and effects).
New technologies were conceived for the purposes of information sharing and communication, and as such, music has become an interesting paradox in this area...until recently.
Guillaume and Gareth will perform a musical duet using a combination of Stantum's Jazzmutant Lemur touchscreens and the iPhone as HCI devices. These various platforms will serve as remote instruments for music software running on two networked laptops. This setup anticipates what music making is likely to become on the 'cloud'.
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Guillaume Largillier
Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer
Stantum / Jazzmutant
Bio >>
Gareth Williams
Artist, Promotions and Content Manager
Stantum / Jazzmutant
Bio >>
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Day Two, 3rd December 2009
09:00:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Registration
Networking breakfast and registration
Goals for the session
Take breakfast and meet the other MEX participants in the WallaceSpace garden cafe, where they'll be plenty of great brain food available to fuel up for the day.
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09:30:00
| Big Room
| Visions of the future
What could happen at the intersection of physical experience and the digital environment?
Goals for the session
Mark draws on his experience at Haymarket, publisher of numerous leading consumer titles such as Stuff and What Hi-Fi, exploring possible ways in which mobile and wireless technologies could add to the user experience of Haymarket's extensive portfolio of magazines and events. He will discuss the benefits and challenges of physical experience platforms such as print publications, how they could be effectively combined with new technology and the unique experiences which may exist at the intersection of physical and digital.
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Mark Payton
Online Editorial Director
Haymarket Consumer Media
Bio >>
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10:00:00
| Big Room
| Learning from great experiences
Meeting the challenge of deploying software and services across mobile, web, PC and other platforms
- 2009: the year of the fragmentation? Why deploying services across PC, TV and Phone is more complicated than ever
- Windows Live Messenger case study
- Should I do it? Justification for investing in building a service across multiple platforms
- How to think about it? Key learnings and tips
Goals for the session
Oded shares his view on the major challenges facing developers as they seek to deploy software and service across multiple platforms, often with different OS, different screen sizes and different network capabilities. He will also explore the lessons learned from deploying one of the world's largest multi-platform applications - Windows Live Messenger.
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Oded Ran
Head of Mobile Services
Microsoft UK
Bio >>
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10:30:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Networking break
Networking and morning coffee
Goals for the session
Coffee, cookies and refreshments served in the WallaceSpace garden cafe and throughout the venue.
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11:00:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
Maintaining purity of user experience in an uncertain environment of multiple network connections and devices
- How can we create adaptive experiences in varying network conditions and a range device capabilities?
- Depict the perception of 'connected & alive'
- Explore design concepts
- Recap the impact on the designer's brief
Goals for the session
How designers can maintain a great experience for the customer even when there is uncertainty over the presence and speed of a network connection and the capabilities of the access device. Explore techniques like smart client-side caching, how to use cloud concepts to best advantage and delivering multiple versions of a service for different device capabilities. Develop a clear understanding of the potential pitfalls as more and more data is accessed remotely and how to maintain a good experience even when there's no network connection or the user has a basic access device.
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Willem Boijens
Marketing, innovation & design executive
Vodafone
Bio >>
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11:30:00
| Team rooms
| Creative breakouts
Breakout session 3: Prototyping and building
Goals for the session
After a brief recap of the previous day's progress, your team will start to bring together its research and ideas into a cohesive response your MEX challenge. Working with the facilitator and group illustrator, you'll prototype and begin building your project.
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12:30:00
| Networking areas and garden cafe
| Lunch
Networking and lunch
Goals for the session
The WallaceSpace chefs prepare lunch in individual boxes, so you can get together with everyone in the Garden Cafe or find a quiet sofa to network with a key contact.
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13:30:00
| Big Room
| Tools and techniques
Designing, testing and piloting the multi-platform museum experience
- Lindsey will begin by discussing the move museums have recently taken from producing content across a wide range of channels. The aims of the museums was to get visitors through the door, and therefore the quality of these individual channels, was never really comparable to being in the museum.
- However, recently there has been a move from museums to position themselves providers of platforms in which to encourage discussions both inside and outside of the building. This focus on digital has lead to a more coherant mulit-platform experience.
- Explore the implementation of the linear multi-platform projects where the experience has been transferred between platforms. The aim of these projects has been about extending the visit. Implementing this type of project has been about about numerous pilots and user testing, all of which have been about simplification of both product, idea and interface without losing the main value of the experience as a whole or the benefits of combining platforms.
Goals for the session
Describe the evolution of multi-platform experiences within museums and the wider context of what's driving these changes. Share a future vision for how the visitor journey can be linked from platform to platform, including tools and techniques for designing, testing and piloting these kind of interactions.
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Lindsey Green
Founder
FRANKLY + GREEN
Bio >>
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14:00:00
| Team rooms
| Creative breakouts
Breakout session 4: Prepare to present
Goals for the session
The final hour of your MEX breakout time will be spent finalising your group's response and structuring your presentation ready to share with the other teams.
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15:00:00
| Big Room
| Creative breakout presentations
Breakout team presentations
Goals for the session
Each MEX breakout team will have 10 minutes to present their conclusion to the conference, using their creativity, visual aids and public speaking skills to deliver their response. It is an informal session with plenty of time for feedback and discussion. Refreshments will be served halfway through to keep energy levels up!
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17:30:00
| Big Room
| Closing conference
Summary of key themes
Goals for the session
The MEX team closes the event with a quick summary of the key themes from both days.
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