I am leading a Conversation about “UX practitioner & design researcher interaction” at the Decipher conference, September 27th, at the University of Michigan.
My “conversation” proposal:
- UX practitioners at Decipher are invited to a session to recap what they have gotten from learning about and discussing the academic version of design research.
- Design researchers are invited to also join us, to share what they have gotten out of having UX practitioners participating in the conference.
- We will see what next steps emerge.
My hope is that the conversation will motivate both practitioners and researchers to take some action to continue bridging the academic-practitioner gap. Maybe participants will stay in touch, share information, and eventually collaborate on some sort of project. Ideally, leaders of practitioner groups (such as UXPA) will connect with leaders of design research groups (like DARIA) and start discussing some way to work together.
This is just another small step in my long journey of UX research-practice interaction.
And the conversation assumes that some UX practitioners will be at this “Design Educators” conference. If my plea for UX practitioners to attend worked, some of my UX colleagues will indeed be there. You can still apply to participate (deadline: 9/1): see the Decipher conference page for details.
