Exhibition at PUSH UX conference 2022

10 years of PUSH conference in Munich

Our co-founder Josua Andreas Ovari who’s also the UX designer in our team had the chance to represent atlat in our own first-ever conference booth… The PUSH conference is the yearly happening on #UserInterface trends, shared #UserExperience learnings, and #ServiceDesign best practices in Munich. Every autumn the ? Alte Kongresshalle “ turns into the perfect place to get inspired and network with any UX-related professional: No matter, if a designer, researcher, PM, front-end developer, agency, in-house, or freelance. After a year of COVID regulations and hence a remote PUSH, the energy of the audience at this year’s PUSH has been more than exhilarating. ??

Inspiration by thought leaders

Whether it’s technical topics such as the pitfalls of Dark mode, life lessons on keeping that creative spark as a designer, or talks addressing the most pressing issues of our time: The lineup at this PUSH conference had everything a UX designer could wish for. ??

The morning of the first conference day already started with a wake-up call on ?Sustainable UX - or how UX can (hopefully) save the world“ by Thorsten Jonas from SUX - The Sustainable UX Network . The talk was referencing the 10th anniversary of the conference and hence asking the self-critical question of whether we’d still be talking about design trends and UX innovations, or if we would be facing much bigger problems. Thorsten asked the designers in the audience to ?stop designing for the user“ and have a look at all the actors of the system. Even further he urged the design community to reflect the status quo of designing for growth, but rather designing for balance. Special thanks to Thorsten Jonas for starting the conference with this eye-opening talk and thus also shaping the thoughts and the conversations of the entire audience during the whole conference. ??

In her talk, Rachel Ilan Simpson , UX Director at Multiverse , made the argument for the importance of a shared product vision, especially for designers. Showcasing her own work and the visionary stories she visualized navigating through the never-ending detail discussion on incremental product changes.

Mansi Gupta , the founder of Unconform , presented ?The power of women-centric user experiences“ and highlighted that what is praised as ?genderless design“ often forgets the needs and requirements of women. Thereby, Mansi showed the patriarchal influence on the majority of services designed, but also shared practical examples of women-centric design processes.

The talk of Mustafa Kurtuldu , Staff Product Designer at Twitter , focussed on ?user-fudged experiences“ and asked what happens if people use products in an unintended way.

Laura Fiona Holder-Wurzinger ? , Senior UX consultant by interfacewerk GmbH , shared her thoughts and lessons learned on ?getting your hands dirty“ while doing user research. She led the audience through the process of user research executed at a construction site and gave practical tips on user research in challenging environments.

During the talk on ?Inclusive design that benefits everyone“ Irina Rusakova , Inclusive Design and Research consultant, shared her fascination for neurodiversity by giving an introduction to designing with autistic people, and explaining insights on a previous design project focusing on design requirements for the autistic community.

Paavan Buddhdev , Designer at AND Digital , invited the audience to take the perspective of magicians, and thus took a closer at the overlap of the world of UX designers and magicians.

In his talk ?Serious Play- The case against boring apps“, Andy Allen from the Not Boring Software Ltd. , showed examples of UX trends that were actually first discovered in the field of gaming. He then argued how much UX designers can learn from gaming by sharing beautiful examples of applications taking the elements of gaming into account.

For example, Andy showed a weather app making the user feel the weather with the power of playful animations and sounds. Meanwhile, he argued for reflecting on the design dogma of solving problems and invited everyone to think about design in a more playful nature.

On the second day of PUSH, Mauro Rego from AI Community , asked the question ?What is AI for designers?“ and showed how AI and Machine Learning can be used when designing products and services.

Jason Barrons from VMware Tanzu shed a light on the topic of Dark Mode. He summarized the most important studies on the topic and discussed the common misconceptions designer have when it comes to Light Mode vs. Dark Mode.

In ?From Content Designer to Design Leader“ Gemma Germains , Global Head of Digital Experience at Canyon Bicycles GmbH , compared design career paths and advocated for good design leadership.

Paola Mariselli , Director & Head of Product Design at Bumble Inc. , asked what’s the difference between a good and a great manager.

She analyzed ten different key tasks of managers and lucidly what sets apart those really great managers from the good ones.

In his talk ?Building your research ops from scratch“ Ed Gardner Lyon , Research Operations Lead at Wise , illuminated when and how to build out a research operation function.

Kevin Cannon , Design Manager at Pitch , shared his personal thoughts on the question ?What to do when design is never done?“. In his relatable and vulnerable talk, Kevin reminded the audience that we all fail, that even scientific experiments show that failure is an essential part of the creative process and that everyone should invest as much in themself as in their craft.

The last talk was all about the beginner’s mindset. Sarmishta Pantham , User Experience Designer and Creative Director, shared her personal journey of inspiration and explained how she can learn from her beginner’s experience when cooking or doing improve and transfer it to her work as a designer.

Thanks to all the speakers for sharing their learnings, their stories, and their research with the attendees of the PUSH conference!

PUSH-ing the discourse on social innovation at the atlat booth ?

We had the chance to present atlat in our own booth and to gather feedback on different questions.

We have been gathering feedback from all the different design experts on all the touchpoints of our software, and we also discussed the upcoming Supply Chain Due Diligence Law, what is known about it in the general public and amongst designers, and how new legislation might be a driver for social innovation.

Moreover, the designers at our booth shared their amazing ideas for new features and creative campaigns with us. Thanks for that.??

Another big discussion point we wanted to gather feedback about designs in different cultures: We had the privilege to meet and discuss with many designers with diverse backgrounds. The image of the map shows for which cultures or countries designers felt confident to design. This map was a great conversation starter to exchange thoughts on how to design for different cultures.?With our additional online survey, we learned about the design and technology trends but also focussed on the question of how feedback is given and how problems are raised in different cultures. We are well aware that this survey can only be a glimpse into that topic and we need to analyze it carefully in terms of individual perception in relation to societal trends. We are really excited about the findings so far and grateful to everyone who participated.?

Thanks to the whole team at PUSH for giving us this amazing opportunity to present our startup! Thanks to the big group of volunteers for keeping everything running in the background and thanks to the organizing team: Christian Perstl ?? Philipp Sackl-O’Neill Francesca Terzi Chris Kuehn Paola Papetti & special thanks to Henning Schulze ! ??