The 2021 VanUX Awards was last week, and the Aequilibrium team was in attendance. In addition to celebrating the Vancouver UX community’s incredible accomplishments in the past year, we were able to chat with and learn from some of the top design thinkers in our home city. To pass those learnings on to you, here are our top 3 insights of the evening.
1. The importance of removing bias in design
A major highlight of the evening was the keynote address from Bradley Shende, co-founder of Indigenous business accelerator, INDIGENEXT.
One aspect of Bradley’s speech was about the importance of removing bias when designing for reconciliation. He told a number of humourous and inspiring stories to illustrate his points.
One that stood out to us was from the the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw people. They embarked on a project to design an eco-tourism lodge in their traditional territory in the Great Bear rainforest on the Pacific Coast of BC. In addition to protecting the area’s ecosystem, the project would deliver educational programs to Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw youth to preserve and revitalize their culture.
But after construction began, the project was interrupted by government surveyors. They insisted the buildings could not remain at the site, and instead should move much farther down the river—ignoring that the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw had been living and building there for their entire history.
While this issue is especially prevalent when designing for reconciliation, it’s an important lesson that can be applied to all design projects. It was a great reminder to ask ourselves what assumptions we’re making about our users and audiences, and how bias might be affecting our designs.
2. UX design for pandemic life
It’s old news that COVID-19 has changed the way we use technology and interact with the world. But the way our Vancouver peers are using UX to tackle these changes is new and fresh.
First, we met a student UX team from Simon Fraser University. Their app, SmartExplorer, not only helps hikers find new trails to explore but lets them plan their trip to stay safe. During the pandemic, many tried hiking for the first time but without adequate preparation, found themselves lost or in danger. This app would go on to win the VanUX for Students award and could potentially save lives.
Next, we met the Enchant team which creates magical Christmas events across North America. Faced with cancellations due to the pandemic, they adapted by creating the Santa Calls app. It uses XR technology to turn your face and voice into Saint Nick himself and video chat with the kids in your life. Over 40,000 people used the app to connect with their families safely and bring joy to kids around the world.
These are just our favourite examples. Throughout the night we were inspired by our UX peers and how they’ve adapted to solve the new problems we face in the pandemic.
3. The value of seeing human faces
Throughout the evening, everyone kept commenting on how weird it was to be physically standing among our peers. Last year’s VanUX event was fully virtual but transitioned to a hybrid model for 2021.
It was a night of firsts. Many of us were seeing old colleagues and friends for the first time in 2 years. For some students and new grads, it was their first non-virtual networking opportunity. For us at Aequilibrium, a lot of us were meeting our teammates face-to-face for the first time ever.
Remote work and virtual events have their benefits, but as UX professionals, our job is to remember the human behind the screen. It’s easy to get absorbed in the work, make assumptions, and forget about the most crucial aspect of UX design: empathy.
While this hybrid event was a night of firsts, we hope it will be the first of many. As long as it is safe to do so, there’s a lot of value in simply connecting with another human face-to-face.
But for the Aequilibrium team, these key insights were overshadowed by something even more exciting: we won the award for UX in Commerce! Earlier this year, we helped DUCA Credit Union undergo a digital transformation that included a new and improved website. We’re so honoured those efforts were acknowledged by our UX peers in Vancouver.
And congratulations to our fellow finalists, TELUS and AutoTrader, for their amazing work this year. It was definitely a close decision!
You can learn more about DUCA’s digital transformation here. And if you want to see how your organization can thrive in a digital world, you can always get in touch with our team.
