Join us for our annual one-day conference!
Creativity is broad, innovation has been overused so let’s define our terms:
creativity n. coming up with new ways to think about things
innovation n. creating ways to solve problems
As user experience designers, it’s essential to empathize with users and employ various methods to address their needs effectively. However, achieving our best work requires us to turn the lens inward and apply user-centered design principles to our ways of working and our relationships. By doing so, we can better serve those whose problems we aim to solve.
Amid tight deadlines, finding the time and space for self-reflection and growth can be challenging. UX Brighton 2023 offers a rare opportunity for attendees to focus on themselves in a dedicated environment, fostering creativity and innovation.
When creativity is provided with room to grow, it paves the way for innovation. Embracing innovation offers your organization a valuable edge. Each individual has the capacity for increased creativity. Discover techniques to enhance your creative abilities at UX Brighton 2023.
Join us in this enriching journey as we explore the power of creativity and innovation together, and take the user experience design field to new heights. Register now and secure your place in this transformative event!
Some of the smartest, most insightful and entertaining people I've met. And that was just the audience. The speakers were great, too.
Mike Kuniavsky, Xerox PARC
Information for Attendees
The conference is being held in the beautiful and historic Brighton Dome Concert Hall: just 10 minutes from Brighton Station, 3 minutes from the Lanes, 5 minutes from the beach and a whole heap of great restaurants and hotels. Registration starts from 9am with the first speaker on at 10am, we’ll email you to let you know when the talk times are finalised.
Before the conference why not join the UX Brighton Slack and get chatting with other UXers. We’ve also got a rather nice #jobs.
See our Attendee information guide for everything you need to get the most out of your visit to UX Brighton, including:
- Travel
- Accommodation
- Pre-conference meet-ups
- Accessibility
- Wifi and charging
- Cloakrooms
- Registration
- Refreshments
- After Party
Pre-conf meetup – 2rd Nov
In town the night before? Come to The Fountainhead from 7pm to 9pm and meet fellow delegates. It’s a relaxed pub and serves food until 9pm. They do a good coffee too! Look out for Faisal in a UX Brighton T-shirt.
Pre-event networking & coffee – 3th Nov
If you’re coming down early to the conference, Meanwhile Cafe is practically next to The Dome, open from 7am and is a great place to grab a coffee and meet fellow attendees.
Registration
Doors will open at 9am for registration. Name badges will be arranged alphabetically by first name. Complimentary pastries and refreshments will be available.
Use the Dome entrance on Church Street. It’s approx 10 mins walk from the train station.
- Please note that The Dome may conduct bag searches.
- Please be seated by 9.50am so you don’t miss anything.
What is Creativity? – Alice Helliwell
In the realm of design, creativity remains an elusive and often misunderstood concept. How do we define creativity, and what makes it so integral to the world of design and beyond? Drawing from her background in philosophy, psychology, and the intersection of art and AI, Alice Helliwell delves into the concept of creativity, exploring its various facets and its essential role in human thinking and making.
In this stimulating talk, Alice will unravel the philosophical underpinnings of creativity, exploring definitions that go beyond artistic endeavors. Through an analytical lens, she will navigate the audience through intriguing questions surrounding creativity, such as its value, its relationship with innovation and its potential to inspire change.
Alice’s talk promises to be a thought-provoking exploration of what creativity truly means and how it can be harnessed to enhance our understanding and practice of design.
About Alice
Alice Helliwell is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. Alice’s research is focussed on computational creativity and AI art. Her work examines questions such as ‘can AI be creative?’, ‘can AI make art, and if so, can it make good art?’ and ‘are there any unique aesthetic qualities of AI images?’. Alice is also currently involved in projects examining how ethics education can be integrated into computer science curricula, and exploring the relevance of Wittgesteinian philosophy for AI.
Alice completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh in philosophy and psychology. After a stint working as a workplace design consultant, she went on to complete an MA and PhD at the University of Kent in History and Philosophy of Art. She began working at NU London in 2021.
You’re doing it wrong: a celebration of ‘worst’ practices – Stefanie Posavec
I’ve spent my career in data visualisation working in ways that are considered ‘wrong’ or not in line with ‘best’ practices. But by adhering to best practices, could we be missing out on the *best* parts of our fields through these inherent limitations? What creative approaches can you discover when you explicitly set out to do the opposite of what you are ‘supposed’ to do?
Using examples from my creative practice, this talk is a celebration of what there is to gain when we are wilfully, perversely, and joyously ‘wrong’ in how we as designers work with our fields’ respective design processes.
About Stefanie
Stefanie Posavec is a designer, artist, and author focused on creating playful, accessible, human-scaled approaches to communicating with data.
Her work has been exhibited at major galleries including the V&A, the Design Museum (Designs of the Year 2016), Somerset House, the Wellcome Collection, Bletchley Park (all UK), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), and MoMA (New York), where her work is also in the permanent collection. Recently she undertook the book design and art direction of chart creation for the activist Greta Thunberg’s much-lauded The Climate Book.
Her latest illustrated book (I am a book. I am a portal to the universe., co-authored with Miriam Quick) has received multiple accolades, including winning the UK Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize 2021. She has also co-authored two books that emphasize a handmade, personal approach to data: Dear Data and the journal Observe, Collect, Draw!
Exploring Innovation: A Case Study from The Guardian's Product Design Team – Tricky Bassett
For most of its 200-year history, the Guardian existed only in print but today millions of people across the world choose the digital experience of our journalism. As behaviours change and technology advances, the role that Product Design plays is more important than ever. Tricky will talk about his leadership of the Product Design team and how it differs from his previous work, leading teams within creative agencies. He will provide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at his team’s approach and bring this to life by sharing a new product that hasn’t even been launched yet.
About Tricky
Tricky is the Director of Product Design at The Guardian. He has been designing interactions since the 1990s. After freelancing with design agencies in London and New York he founded his first design studio, Tricky Business, and enjoyed life designing user-centred experiences. More recently, Tricky worked as the Creative Director at Magnetic, where he helped organisations all over the world over use design thinking to innovate at pace. Some clients he is most proud to have worked with include Microsoft, PepsiCo, Mars, HSBC, Sky and the BBC. Tricky is a keen cyclist and photographer and a passionate advocate for mental well-being both at home and in his work.
The critical importance of supporting designer and developer creativity – Elizabeth Churchill
When we think about UX as a discipline, what often first comes to mind are everyday consumer experiences from websites to games, or perhaps enterprise and productivity tools. In recent years however, Elizabeth has focused instead on UX for designers and developers and how to enhance and support their creativity. Based in studies of designer and developer experiences, Elizabeth’s team have been improving documentation, working on task accomplishment and smoothing workflows, focusing on better communication and collaboration, and addressing tech and design debt management and team productivity.In this talk, Elizabeth will discuss case studies, and share why supporting designer and developer creative tools leads to better and more inclusive user experiences for everyone.
About Elizabeth
Dr Elizabeth Churchill is a Senior Director of UX at Google. Elizabeth has built UX and Research teams at Google, eBay, Yahoo, PARC, and FujiXerox. She Co-Chairs Google’s UX Leadership Council (UXLC), and was a co-founder of Google’s UXR Steering Committee which she co-chaired for 2 years before joining the UXLC.
Elizabeth holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and honorary doctorates from the University of Sussex and the University of Stockholm. She is a member of the Association for Computer Machinery’s (ACM) CHI Academy, is an ACM Fellow, Distinguished Scientist, and an ACM Distinguished Speaker. She served as the ACM’s Executive Vice President for 2 years, from 2018-2020, and was ACM’s Secretary Treasurer from 2016-2018. Elizabeth has published over 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, in conferences, and in magazines. She has also co-edited 5 books on various topics and has co-authored 2 books (Foundations for Designing User Centered Systems, and Designing with Data). She has over 50 patents already granted or pending.
Elizabeth is a visiting professor at Imperial College’s Dyson School of Design Engineering in London and is an advisory board member for the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California and also for the Flickr Foundation (flickr.org). She recently took up a position as Co-Editor in Chief of ACM’s Interactions magazine.
In 2016, she received a Citris-Banatao Institute Award Athena Award for Women in Technology for her Executive Leadership. She has been named one of the top women leaders in UX over the last several years. In 2023, she received ACM SIGCHI’s Lifetime Service Award.
Enabling Creativity: Specific ideas to help your team flourish – Mark Edgington
Mark’s talk will explore how to foster innovation and creativity in the workplace.
He will discuss the concept of Kaizen (Lean, Agile, Design Thinking) and how its ideas can be utilized to ensure everyone in the company is constantly innovating how they work. He will provide an innovation and cultural framework which can be integrated into your company’s culture with psychological safety in mind. He will outline specific ideas on enabling creativity and allowing creativity in everyone to flourish. This means everyone will be able to be innovative and creative, which could lead to unintended consequences. Perhaps even using the newly possible to learn and create groundbreaking products and services to help the common good.
But the primary outcome will be improved speed, quality, and overall effectiveness in your day-to-day work.
About Mark
Mark has over 25 years of experience in UX and Development. He has founded several startups and worked in large agencies where he has architected solutions serving millions. Mark is a seasoned speaker, judge and the founder and principal consultant of Incendiary Blue, where he creates elegant solutions to the right problems.
His works span GSK, Wyeth, Vodafone, Orange, Deutsche bank, HSBC, DeBeers, Disney, Saint Gobain, Mazda, Mercedes, Airmiles, Philip Morris, Thomas Cook, Condor, O’Melveny, Orrick, Slaughter and May, Pfizer, Sky and EY and many others.
Mark holds a 1st class degree in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and an MSC in Human-Computer Interaction (UX). He has been published online, spoken at multiple conferences and judges UX awards yearly.
He is very passionate about working with schools, running digital days and acting as an Enterprise Careers adviser for the Mayor of London.
Unleash your inner innovator – Chris How
Design is about creating change. As designers, we offer the most value when we’re shaping problems to tackle and not just shipping features. However, in many organisations, it is easy for designers to get boxed into a pure delivery role merely adding polish at the end of the process.
Innovation is a mindset and a set of skills that with a little effort can be developed. So stop waiting to be struck by that eureka moment. Stop waiting to be asked to head up an innovation project. Instead, take the initiative and introduce design-led innovation techniques to your workplace and your work practice.
In this talk, Chris will share some practical strategies for designers to develop their inner innovator. With a focus on looking at what’s in your gift to change, starting small but thinking big, and embracing constraints. He’ll help you to kickstart a move in your organisation to use design to identify, investigate and incubate innovative ideas.
About Chris
Chris is the Head of Experience Design at Clearleft, an award-winning design transformation agency based in Brighton. He helps clients create meaningful audience-centred digital products and services through design leadership, strategic thinking, and robust research.
Chris is passionate about using design to improve people’s lives and transform organisations for the better. You can read his thoughts on creating standout digital products and services on the Clearleft website.
Chris relishes the chance to learn from and share with the digital design community. He has spoken at conferences across Europe and the USA and is one of the co-organisers of the popular annual un-conference UX Camp Brighton.
Sneaking agility back into Agile – Tom Kerwin
Agile. It’s everywhere. And it’s become the dominant orthodoxy under which many designers are struggling.
Why is that? Why do Agile and design often seem to mix like tuna and custard? And why does a methodology that’s supposed to speed up innovation actually slow it down?
Directly attacking Agile doesn’t help. Tom will share some ways he’s made this very mistake. But there is hope! He’ll also share some tried and tested Trojan Horses that you can use right away to sneak agility back into Agile, opening the gates to innovation and creativity.
About Tom
Tom has 25 years of experience as a leader in design, research and product. He’s co-founded two successful startups and worked both agency-side and in-house, coaching cross-functional teams to innovate.
Since running his first usability test in 1999, Tom has been obsessed with adaptive sense-making: how do we continuously make sense of the world so we can act more effectively in it?
He is the author of Innovation Tactics, the deck of cards from Pip Decks that’s packed with pragmatic methods for making things people want. He’s also the creator of Pivot Triggers, a simple but powerful idea that’s helped hundreds of teams become more adaptive by doing discovery and delivery at the same time.
After Party
Join us for after conference drinks in the Foyer Bar (at the venue) until 8pm. You will receive a drinks voucher at registration. Your voucher is valid for a selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
Please keep your name badge with you if you want to leave and come back again.
Highlights from previous years
UX Brighton is one of the premier UX events in Europe. In just one day, you'll get access to some of the most cutting-edge presentations you can imagine. Well organized, fabulous location, packed with valuable content — go if you can: it's worth the investment.
Jim Kalbach, Past Speaker
Sponsor UX Brighton
UX Brighton attracts an engaged crowd of designers, decision makers and influencers. If you’re interested in supporting UX Brighton have a look at the sponsorship information page for more details.
Fantastic conference - a fresh mix of new ideas, provocative speakers, and a highly engaged audience. Well worth the trip.
Alex Wright, Director of User Experience at the New York Times
Headline Sponsor
Premium Sponsors
