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Simon Johnson: Bridging the Ethnography/Design Gap

Simon Johnson is a user experience consultant working with Flow Interactive. Simon has worked for clients such as Reuters, Nokia and the Environment Agency.

Simon has recently completed an research project for the Environment Agency that has involved a mix of ethnography, user testing with Silverback, depth interviews, war rooms, and design. Normally such projects have tight NDAs, which stop the wider UX community from learning about them. However, in this special case, the environment agency has given the all clear, making this a great opportunity to learn about a project that would normally be kept behind closed doors.

Some of the talk’s highlights:

  • Learn how street research can be translated into a final design – that is so challenging it changes the mind of the Secretary of State for Environment.
  • Get the ‘heads up’ on a national project that will affect 2.1 million houses on the coast, yes that includes Brighton.
  • Hear how Silverback software fared in dated 1970 seedy hotels.
  • Learn how to be jabbed in the chest by irate ‘users’ from Norfolk and take it like a man.
  • Marvel how simple ethnographic research can put the government machine onto a different track.

Miles Rochford: Designing for the rest of the world

Miles Rochford is a London-based designer for Nokia Design, in their Service and UI Design team. In the past year, he has been undertaking research into service opportunities for emerging markets in Asia, Africa and South America, as part of developing concepts for future Nokia products and services.

Although he has a tighter NDA than Simon, he’ll be sharing some background on the work his team has undertaken for the development of Nokia Life Tools, which provides services to mobile devices in emerging markets. His team were involved in several rounds of research, including design ethnography and validation, and developed a process to rapidly handle large volumes of research data to quickly gain useful insights. He’ll talk about the impact on their design approach, and how the project changed their understanding of their role as designers.

After the talks, we’ll continue the conversation over a drink at The Greenhouse Effect Black Lion.