What the %$*& is UX? (video)

I've got UX (user experience) on the brain for a whole lot of reasons:
  • first of all, I'm doing a whole lot of it at work (in fact, I'm pretty sure that I might get banned from saying "personas" any more if I keep it up :) 
  • secondly, last week I mentored on UX at two fantastic events (Ottawa Gov Jam and Startup Weekend Ottawa) and 
  • finally, because my co-chairs and I are ramping up our planning activities for UXCamp Ottawa 5.
So I've been thinking about UX pretty regularly.

Now, here's the thing. Unless you work in it, you might not know what UX is. In fact, you might not even know that you are doing it (or worse, that you should be doing it). So I went looking for a great video I could bookmark and share about user experience and user-centered design.

I stumbled onto this gem from UX Mastery: it's short, simple and has a really understandable way of explaining UX.

Here's a breakdown of the video:
  • The first two and a half minutes is dedicated to explaining what user experience and user centered design are;
  • At 2:30 he provides 4 reasons why you should care < and you should care!
  • At 3:40 he even has a shoutout to one of our keynote speakers, Steve Krug!
  • And I love the final product at 5:30. Here's a sneak preview: 
Screen shot of video
Check it out, like it, share it, bookmark it and just generally help propagate the message that UX is critical to the design and development of products and experiences for users. And if this is totally your thing, then bookmark November 8-9 for UXCamp Ottawa 5. It's going to be legen-wait for it...



...dary.

;)