Data-Driven Design and Futures Design Added to Conference Keynotes, Workshops
It’s true what they say: “Good things come to those who wait.”
I’m beyond excited to introduce Krissi Xenakis, Jocelyne Dittmer, and Phil Balagtas to the speaker roster for ITX’s Product + Design Conference 2023, June 22-23 in Rochester, NY.
Krissi Xenakis & Jocelyne Dittmer – Data-driven design
Krissi and Jocelyne will join forces to deliver a day 1 workshop and a day 2 keynote.
The workshop, entitled Accelerating impact: How to align design, data, and business through insights and experiments, gets right at the heart of the UX designer’s mission: solving user problems. It’s a pretty weighty topic, but one they will combine with fun, hands-on activities designed to help fellow UXers to navigate real-world scenarios leveraging data.
Their keynote, How effective communication gets design leading the conversation, will remind us of the tremendous insights UX designers bring in terms of understanding user needs, solving for the right problem, and getting to a solid outcome.
The challenge, they say, is that UXers aren’t always involved early enough in the conversation to guide a project’s vision, strategy, and direction. Using a model centered on effective communication, Krissi and Jocelyne will help their UX colleagues shift their influence to the left by offering new tools and techniques that better position UX to lead the conversation.
Data-driven design and collaboration are themes that harken back to their shared days at IBM, where Krissi and Jocelyne first met and built up their own practices. But it was by building and sustaining a broad community of collaborators – across technical disciplines – that they were able to draw support even as careers pulled its members in different directions.
From Krissi and Jocelyne, conference attendees will leave with an even deeper understanding of the power of data, a toolkit of activities to build alignment around a common goal, and a solid plan for designing experiences with your product teams.
Phil Balagtas – Futures Design
Phil Balagtas is the founder of a global community dedicated to the education and advancement of Futures Thinking. During his workshop and keynote, he will present examples of futuring across the centuries and share stories about practitioners who have made futures work across design and product teams.
Futures Thinking is an emerging field that incorporates principles and methodologies taken from Strategic Foresight, Speculative Design and Design Thinking. It offers a rich set of tools that designers and product leaders can use to determine what forces are driving the world and how we might want to operate in future environments.
The software products we build are not usually one-off designs; they’re living, breathing problem-solving assets. Phil’s day 2 keynote, entitled Activating Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy through Futures Design & Thinking, will help us understand how to understand oncoming trends and adapt to them with a more structured approach so that we can help our customers nurture their software assets and be more innovative – and more prepared.
Those attending his workshop, How to think about the future with Strategic Foresight and Speculative Design, will get an up-close look into the forces of change that are constantly pulling and pushing on society.
In both cases, attendees will benefit from Phil’s expertise, which lies in applying futures as a practical and accessible design and strategy tool, with the goal of giving individuals and businesses the tools to develop informed strategies and design solutions that drive innovation.
See all six of our speakers in action at the ITX Product + Design Conference. For one day only, hear keynotes from some of the best in product and UX design.
Peter Sullivan is Producer of ITX’s Product Momentum podcast and a student of Product and Design processes that work. As ITX’s Marketing Content Lead, he spearheads our efforts to deliver thought leadership that helps Product makers and UX designers understand and shape the future.
