Every stage before UI execution has a clear handoff. Research, define, ideate, validate. AI has accelerated all of them. Landscape analysis in hours. Prototypes in less than a day. And then we hit UI execution, and everything slows down.

This is where designers go quiet. Where iterations happen alone. Where the wireframes get translated into screens by hand, component by component, in silence. And then the hours pile up. On top of that, the mental load builds. The rest of the team moves on while you are still assembling.

UI execution is different from the stages before it. It is not one handoff. It is hundreds. Every screen, every component, every state, every variation is counted. You are holding the user research, the product constraints, the design system, the technical constraints, and the business goal all at once, and translating them into pixels one decision at a time.

The rest of the process speeds up because AI is good at synthesising from context. UI execution stayed slow because it is about assembling, with hands, and we never separated the assembly from the parts around it.

Until I ran an experiment to see if that could change. If agentic UI execution could work. I got it!

How agentic UI execution works

Three pieces work together. Claude holds the context. Everything I know about the user, the product, and the business is stored in a Claude Project. Figma Console MCP is the bridge between Claude and where your design happens, or I would say, your canvas. And Figma is where the work happens. The screens get built in the source file, using my actual design library that I built.

Think of Figma Console MCP as a connector, not a plugin. It brings Claude directly inside my Figma environment, reading what is there and executing changes on my actual files, with my components, my tokens, and my structure.

Claude is not working from a description of my design system anymore. It is working from the source.

I chose Claude specifically because my project context already lives there. Everything Claude knows about the project travels with it into Figma. That continuity is the whole point.

I am a product designer, and I am proud of three things in my work

The taste

Knowing what good looks like. Judging which component fits the context, what hierarchy feels right, where to break a pattern and where to hold it.

The craft

The foundational design knowledge. Principles, typography, spacing, accessibility, interaction patterns. The stuff that took years to build.

The assembly

The act of putting it all together. Taking the user flow, pulling from the design library, constructing the screens. Making something usable and buildable.

We usually talk about these as one job. They are not. They are three.

The assembly part is what’s actually draining us

The taste stays fun. The craft stays meaningful. The assembly is what drains us. It is manual. It is costly. It is tedious. It is the part that takes hours and leaves you with nothing to show for your skill, because the skill was spent on repetition, not judgment. If assembly stops eating our time, here is what we get back.

🕒 Time
Hours that used to go into building screen variations can go into the work only a designer can do.

🔥 Cost
Less designer time on mechanical work means projects move faster, and design becomes cheaper to scale without losing quality.

🧠 The mental load
No more holding every decision in your head. No more losing context every time you switch tools. No more translating feedback and ideas back and forth between Figma and everywhere else.

That last one is the part that keeps me up at night more than the others.

What success looks like

Before I introduce the tool, let me say what I was trying to achieve.

AI as the context keeper.
The information about the user, the product, and the business should travel with me into Figma, not get re-explained every session.

AI as the assembly assistant.
The mechanical work of putting screens together should be something I review, not something I build from scratch.

Taste and craft stay human.
These are the parts I want to protect, because these are the parts that make the design good.

Unlocking the capability

To get there, three things need to work together: Claude and Figma connected, your design library machine-ready, and your context is set up properly.

What you’ll need before you start

• Figma desktop app (MCP does not work in the browser version)
• Claude Pro or higher (for Claude Projects)
• A design library that meets the criteria below

Okay now let’s get to it!

1. Set the stage: get Claude and Figma talking to each other

Two things need to shake hands first. A bridge and a token.

1.1 Install Figma Console MCP
Follow Figma’s official MCP setup guide in the desktop app’s plugin settings. The browser version will not work here.

1.2 Set up the token
The token is a personal access key from your Figma account settings. It is how Claude gets read and write access to your files. Go to Figma > Account Settings > Personal Access Tokens to generate one.

1.3 Verify the connection
Once the bridge is running and the token is in place, test it. Direct Claude to draw a pink circle in Figma. If it appears on your canvas, that is the handshake. You got it right. But if it does not, restart the bridge, check the token scope, and try again.

1.4 Give Claude your project context
Claude needs to know about the project before it can help. I use Claude Projects to keep everything in one place: user research, product requirements, business goals, design principles, brand guidelines. All uploaded as files so Claude can pull from them in any chat I open.

This is the part that makes Claude a context keeper. Without it, every session starts from zero.

Once the connection is working, the next constraint is your design library. This is where most of the real preparation happens.

2. Get your design library machine-ready

The setup is the easy part. The real work is making sure your design library is something an AI agent can actually read and use. This is foundational work the whole team benefits from. It is not a designer’s side project, and it is exactly the kind of investment designers are positioned to make.

Four things matter.

2.1 Complete variant states
Every component covers all its states: default, hover, focused, disabled, error, loading. Gaps force the agent to improvise. And improvisation is where drift starts. The agent fills the gap with something that looks plausible, and your library slowly stops being the source of truth.

2.2 Annotated component descriptions
Each component carries a usage note. When to use it, when not to, what it signals to the user. Without this, the agent picks by shape, not by intent. A button that looks secondary gets used as a secondary button, even if it was designed for a destructive action. The description is what tells the agent why the component exists.

2.3 Token-linked styles
Colour, typography, spacing, all tied to tokens, not hardcoded values. The agent applies decisions through the token system. Hardcoded values break propagation, and propagation is how a design library stays consistent at scale.

2.4 Auto layout throughout
Components built with auto layout so the agent can resize and reflow without breaking structure. Fixed frames produce fixed output. If the agent cannot resize a component to fit the context, it either breaks the component or skips it.

The principle underneath all four is the same. The agent is not looking at your library. It is reading it. Everything that communicates visually to a human needs to communicate structurally to a machine. And if you are not sure where your library stands, Figma Console MCP can also help you audit it. Get it to flag what is not readable before you start building.

Once the setup is done and the library is ready, it is time to see it work.

3. Run your first wireframe-to-UI test

3.1 What context to give Claude
The context I give Claude before any screen gets built is more important than the prompt itself. Claude needs to understand the intent and the goal of the screens before it can build them. Here is what I put in the context:

👤 The user, and what they are trying to do.

📦 The product, and what problem it solves.

💼 The business goal behind this particular screen.

🎨 The design principles I want Claude to respect.

And then: the wireframe I want Claude to turn into a UI.

3.2 The context engineering that worked

3.3 What came back and what needed refinement

And… that was it! That was the test. But let’s look at where this actually changes the workflow.

The part where it improves our workflow

The real value is in the work where we actually spend the most hours, pushing pixels when it should be more efficient.

Derivative design.
Take one approved master screen and generate the rest of the flow. The settings page, the profile page, the confirmation page. What used to be hours of building from scratch is now a review pass. The time went somewhere better.

Different states.
Take one approved component and generate every state. Default, hover, error, loading, empty. What used to be tedious multiplication is now a review pass.

This is where the shift in where your time goes becomes obvious. You are not assembling the variations. You are reviewing them. And the review is the part that needs your judgment, so your time is finally going to the work only you can do.

Agentic UI design execution in your workflow

With the setup in place and the library ready, MCP becomes part of how you work. Here is the honest perspective.

Where it helps.
File hygiene becomes automatic. Layer naming and component organisation happen in seconds. Global variables sync across libraries without manual propagation. Design tokens match code before handoff, which makes developer handoff meaningfully cleaner. Accessibility issues and broken components surface through automated audits. Project context persists, so the agent is not working from scratch every session.

Where it breaks.
The setup is a barrier. A local bridge, a plugin, and real configuration work. Vague prompts have destructive potential. The agent can make edits that are accidental or hard to reverse. Large files consume significant API and token resources. Complex auto-layout and responsive logic still need manual refinement. The agent lacks intuition. It needs human oversight for deep UX and brand alignment.

None of these are reasons not to do this work. They are reasons to do it with eyes open, with a designer who knows their craft, and with realistic expectations about where the tool helps and where it does not.

The real gains

The shift is not about doing more. It is about where the time goes.

The taste got more of my time. I spend more of my day deciding what good looks like and less of it producing it. The craft got more of my time. I think more about principles, patterns, and accessibility, because I am no longer running out of energy building the screens.

The assembly got less of my time, and that is exactly what I wished for. The mechanical work is done by the agent. The review is done by me.

So, what’s next?

I am still tinkering. The prompts can get sharper. I am still figuring out what context matters most and what I can leave out. The library is never fully ready. Every new pattern needs to be made machine-readable before the agent can use it, and that is an ongoing piece of work.

Some things still need to be done manually. Complex responsive logic. Brand-critical screens. I do not use the agent for everything, and I do not think that is necessary. It still needs real designers.

The true value of AI is when it enhances human capability. Thinking and executing strategically. Taste stays human. Craft stays human. Assembly becomes agentic.

That is what this experiment showed me, and it is why I am going to keep going.

If you want to try this with your team, let’s talk. Reach out to me or anyone at Stampede on LinkedIn.

The post How I used AI to close the gap in UI design workflow appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

For a while, I assumed it was the industry. Then Hidayu Hakim, our UX lead, asked me a question that reframed everything.

“If we propose going straight into deep research to a team that has never done so, will the findings serve them well where they are right now?”

It made me realise: our approach varies because the organisations we work with are at genuinely different stages of design maturity. Understanding that is what this piece is about.

I came across several articles and they explained what design maturity is comprehensively. Some view it as a structured model, while others see it as a progressive scale. One thing I found in common is that design maturity is the level of sophistication and effectiveness of design processes, methods, and outcomes within an organisation. Scaling it is the key to unlocking a more intuitive, engaging user experience that drives retention and growth.

The Nielsen Norman Group’s six-level model is a useful reference for understanding the range of where organisations sit. What it does not explain is what you do differently as a designer at each level, which is where the practical questions begin.

Nielsen Norman Group’s UX Maturity Model:

🤔 Absent:
Little to no UX

🚧 Limited:
UX work is rare, done haphazardly, and lacking importance.

🔥 Emergent:
The UX work is functional and promising but done inconsistently and inefficiently.

🎯 Structured:
The organisation has a semisystematic UX-related methodology that is widespread but with varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency.

🧩 Integrated:
UX work is comprehensive, effective, and pervasive.

🚀 User-driven:
Dedication to UX at all levels leads to deep insights and exceptional user-centered– design outcomes.

Source: The 6 Levels of UX Maturity

🌝 Why am I thinking about design maturity?

During my tenure at Stampede Design, I’ve worked with multiple companies from various industries and observed significant differences in how my team approached problem-solving using design. This variability sparked a series of questions: “Why are we not always using the same approaches? Why do they differ? Is it because of the different industries?”

I turned to my UX lead, Hidayu Hakim, for insights. She responded with a thought-provoking question, “Do you think that if we go straight into deep research for a company that has never done UX and emphasizes execution, we will get the right insights about our users and the business?” This question made me reflect deeply.

After conducting my own research, I found that it really depends on the design maturity of a company. A more mature design practice shapes the way we approach problem-solving, leading to more effective and impactful solutions.

Why does our approach depend on the organisation’s maturity level?

Not every organisation has a strategic approach to design. Some need assurance because it is their first time using design-led problem-solving. Others have high awareness and do not need any introduction. Some have awareness but require reassurance due to the risks they are taking. This is where designers come in to understand their readiness and pivot our approaches accordingly.

🤔 Determine their readiness

So, how do we determine their readiness? The first thing you need to find out is the resources.

As a product designer, these are the first considerations I look into. Understanding the client’s resource constraints helps in managing risks associated with scaling design maturity. It prevents scenarios where the team commits to high-cost initiatives without having the right support, potentially leading to failures and financial strain. Accurate knowledge of the resources allows for more effective long-term planning and setting realistic goals and timelines for elevating design maturity.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” – Peter Drucker

Measuring the readiness and maturity of design practices helps in setting clear benchmarks and goals.

💡 Be more intentional, start small

Based on my experience, we often start by implementing small, visible improvements to demonstrate the immediate benefits of design thinking, especially for organisations new to UX design. Establish basic design guidelines and templates, such as brand guidelines for products to follow. Documentation is key. Start documenting design principles for reference during execution. This approach helps gain allies as they begin to see the value of small, incremental design processes in achieving bigger outcomes.

For example, at one of our client engagements, we began by creating a simple yet comprehensive design system. This not only streamlined the design process but also improved cross-team collaboration and consistency in the product’s user experience. Within a few months, we saw significant improvements in design efficiency and product quality.

In more established organisations, starting with usability testing to gather user feedback can drive improvements in product usability, increasing engagement and contributing to business success. This initial touchpoint with users can provide invaluable insights.

🧩 Strategically integrate design into business

In more mature organisations, leveraging sophisticated tools and experienced designers leads to innovative and effective solutions. Integrating design into strategic business decision-making allows design teams to influence product and service strategies from the outset, aligning solutions with user needs and business objectives.

When this integration becomes the norm, design processes become more comprehensive and methodological, including user research, iterative product testing, and validation stages. This maturity enhances problem-solving effectiveness.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs

Strategic integration of design into business ensures that design solutions are not only aesthetically pleasing but also functional and aligned with business goals.

🤝🏼 Collaborate!

Collaboration with other disciplines enriches solutions with diverse perspectives, enhancing the quality and creativity of the output. Effective collaboration accelerates problem-solving and ensures a cohesive user experience across different platforms and touchpoints, building a strong, reliable brand.

At Stampede, we’ve seen the power of interdisciplinary collaboration firsthand. By bringing together designers, developers, and business analysts, we create solutions that are not only innovative but also practical and aligned with business objectives. For instance, in a recent project with a healthcare client, our collaborative approach helped us develop a user-friendly app that significantly improved patient engagement and satisfaction.

🔍 Detect potential risks

More mature design practices allow for earlier detection of potential risks, enabling timely pivots before costs escalate. Designers are naturally cost-efficient and should react swiftly to any potential risks to cost or effort. Maturity allows for a balance between cost-efficiency and innovation, encouraging experimentation and adaptability in design processes.

For example, during the development of a financial app, our team identified potential security risks early in the design phase. By addressing these risks proactively, we not only ensured the app’s security but also saved significant costs that would have arisen from late-stage fixes.

🚀 Innovate scalably and sustainably

Mature companies excel at developing solutions that are effective in the short term and scalable and sustainable in the long term. Their strategic approach ensures that design solutions continue to deliver value as the company and market evolve. At Stampede, our leaders, Shaza Hakim and Hidayu Hakim, exemplify strategic innovation and drive in this area.

For instance, in a recent project with a retail client, our scalable design solutions enabled the company to quickly adapt to changing market conditions, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and revenue growth. By focusing on sustainability, we also ensured that our designs could evolve with the client’s needs over time.

Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity, not a threat.” – Steve Jobs

Embracing scalable and sustainable design practices allows organizations to turn challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation.

🖖🏽 Moving forward

As we continue to explore and expand the boundaries of design maturity, our goal at Stampede is not just to adapt to innovations but to drive them. We are excited about the future possibilities and are committed to sharing our journey and insights with the broader community.

We welcome discussions with those interested in elevating their design practices. Reach out to me through my LinkedIn or my team at Stampede Design with your experiences or questions about advancing design maturity in your own fields!

The post Design maturity changes what good design work looks like appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

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Well, we shared a little about the event orchestrations in the previous blog. Now, let’s focus on the next part.

We attended the workshops on Day 2 of the Focus Days and also talks on the latter Conference Days. Following are the breakdowns of our learnings there, in separate POV formats to cover our different experiences!

Day 1: The Workshop

Day 2 of the Focus Days portion, was our Day 1 — the workshop day.

All the workshops were very useful and interesting and we were keen to join all of them. The topic ranges from soft skills development like negotiation strategies and UX influence, to the craft-oriented ones like eye tracking and service design. But alas, our time and resources are limited so we need to choose really well which one to attend!

We needed to make full use of this opportunity, so we deliberated in-depth on which workshop to be attended by each of us. Factoring in the relevance of topic with our domains, strength, future project and function considerations, finally we settled with:

• Me (Sarah): Soft skills for UX professionals by Prof. Clemens Lutsch, Claudia Bruckschwaiger & Hanna Köhler
• Azim: Service design and UX – a conversation by Eric Reiss

On to the learnings we obtained from these two workshops!

In Sarah’s perspectives:

In this workshop, the speakers, led by Prof. Clemens Lutsch, divided us into several groups consisting of multiple hats to allow us to see different perspectives from different roles.

We were given some activities to increase our self-awareness about our own capabilities. To top it up, the speakers then provided some input about how these capabilities have been useful to our lines of work. We were then given an assignment to role-play based on several scenarios. These scenarios were to mimic the real life situations on how we adapt to different kinds of challenges during communication.

The outcome of this workshop emphasised that our technical skills are just medium to execute, but in order to be successful in design, there are many other soft skills that we need to master, and they are not easy and that practice is all it takes to succeed. There were 3 categories to these soft skills, being communicative, social and personal soft skills.

Communicative soft skills revolves around the way we designers communicate with the people we interact with. This includes our business or product team, our developers, and our designer peers. Examples would be the negotiation skills, active listening, ability to abstract, linguistic fluency, or ability to enthusiasm.

Social soft skills on the other hand would be on how we are dealing with the interactions with our team, like resiliency, emotional intelligence, conflict resolutions, diversity competence, or even ability to cooperate. Do you see the difference from communicative skills?

Personal soft skills is all about the core supporting your work executing. These skills revolve around the how behind you are executing your tasks or job, like analytical skills, decision making, creative thinking, strategic thinking, self reflection and willingness to learn. Whether or not you realise it, we pretty much rely heavily on these skills in your day to day work. It makes our executions more human and user-centric.

My take was around the communication area (that includes conflict resolution, influencing, negotiation skills, etc). We heavily practice this in Stampede, and it does not get any easier because you definitely don’t experience the same situation every day. We work with people from different industries, priorities and personalities. It is all about us versus the problem!

Azim’s Point of View:

Relevant to my designation as a UX designer, I enrolled into service design workshop by Eric Reiss of FatDUX. I had no prior deep knowledge about the details of service design works at this point of time, which makes this workshop such a pivotal moment for me to realise that services are everywhere – and they can be designed.

The workshop was filled with lessons that Eric himself has gained throughout his life and related them to the UX design or service design domain. One simple example, Eric told his personal story of cat food catering to “customers” (himself as cat owner who buys the food) rather than the “real user” (his cat, who didn’t appreciate green peas in the cat food) and the story of great service nuances provided by the hotels he stayed in during vacations, each of them provided the audiences with clear examples on how even the minuscule details can affect user experiences.

Those were the personal touches that Eric had throughout the session, but being a workshop that is geared towards service design, naturally there are technical lessons being passed down.

Some of the discussed methods and tools have already been incorporated into our practice in Stampede — like the how-tos of user interviews, building user persona, or ways to design effective surveys. Strengthening the fundamentals is always great as a starting point and further validates that what we have been practicing is on the right track.

However, plenty of methods and tools presented were new to me (or even to anyone in Stampede) that brought massive value out of this workshop.

The Service Star provides a clear visual on areas to be focused for the service provided, either for the company we are evaluating or our own service. A star-shaped spider chart would be ideal, but that would be an extremely rare (or even impossible) case where the service provided is perfect. On the service provider side, they would be able to gauge which areas to be improved and maintain the performance.

The ergonomics of need can outline users’ perspectives in clear metrics to detect which part of the service could be focused upon. The outcome will also prepare the service provider for what kind of situations they will face when dealing with customers (eg: when the attitude and expectation are already negative to undergo the task, how can the service provider handle the situation in the best way?)

Aside from the typically-used customer journey map and touchpoint matrix/service blueprint (which often end up being too convoluted and needing massive effort to be understood by people who don’t follow the process), FatDUX have their own framework of communicating the outcome better to stakeholders — the service-experience scope sheet. By filling in this sheet with the details and touchpoints involved, it will communicate the design clearly, outlining the factors and actors involved in the service, with a clear demarcation of the period in service.

There were many learnings to be unpacked and relayed to the team for us to improve our service design practice. This avenue is waiting for us to explore structurally as some of our recommendations when tackling digital UX problems were in the form of service design, and we are eager to flesh out the solutions using methods gained here to maximise the value that our clients can receive.

Day 2 and 3: The Talks

Finally, the main event starts — the conference.

The day started with the official launching of the event, as this is the day where most attendees registered for. We got to see the fantastic opening ritual where there were drums, gongs and an opening act by the Founder of the event itself, Hannes before all the talks started.

Once again, we faced the same dilemma — all talks were exciting for all of us. We had a problem here! The 2-day conference was filled with talks given by speakers that came from many countries and backgrounds. Yet it was set to be multiple tracks segregated by theme ranging from leadership to design management to UX research, it would be wasteful if we focus on just one or two, and miss the talks that would benefit us.

We had four team members, so why not split? To maximise what we could gain out of this, we made use of our numbers and specialisations, strategised on how to split up and went to the workshops that would give us the highest impact on our growth opportunities. Shaza and Wan attended the ones that were relevant to the business side, I (Sarah) attended the ones about design advocacy, and Azim attended the ones that were heavy on the UX research side.

We saw that the strategy deemed effective after several talk sessions, and we continued to do so till the end of the conference.

Sarah’s Point of View:

As a product designer, the central theme of the talks I went to was design advocacy. It emphasises that designers educate and collaborate with non-design teams and stakeholders about solving problems using design. The outcome of design advocacy is the value of design being recognised and practised in not only business, but also the technical team.

One of the things I learned was that when it comes to advocating design, the key is opportunity. However, designers ourselves are the ones who should create the opportunities. Scott Parker, who talked about “Functional Process to Strategic Contributor – Realising the Value of Design”, explicitly covered the topic where designers are problem solvers and how we are responsible for realising where and how we can create opportunities for ourselves when it comes to making the value of design visible across the organisation; we should not just wait for those opportunities to come our way.

On top of that, I learned from Ashnee Gounden of Discover Limited who spoke about “Scaling Design with Limited Budget and Time in a Sustainable Way”, that there are considerations when it comes to advocating design. You need to look into the UX maturity of the particular organisation. Evaluate it before you can start navigating around it; this is because as designers, we need to understand before giving solutions. Find out what matters to the organisation and work your way to improve the UX maturity level. Trust me, the “scaling” portion is most exciting part.

Scaling here would mean how you would navigate to increase that maturity itself. How do you plan that incremental journey and what your considerations are. Of course, there are many ways to improve it. It really depends on what matters to the organisation and what their challenges are. Empathise their situation before coming in and introduce the process. Really look into it and strategies based on all the resources you have. It was John Bowie who emphasised “Influence is Not Enough: Inspiring the Unconverted”. He talked about how people respond to inspiration more than influence, so what can you do to inspire them? And what’s next?

When it comes to design debt, of course, a designer like me would be excited to manage it. “What are my considerations?” “How much are my resources and capacity?” “What can I do with everything that I have currently?” These are the questions that you need answers before executing. According to Alicja Suska of Outlaw Design, who talked about “The ROI of Managing Design Debt – Getting the Leadership Buy-in”, communication of the return from managing the design debt is also crucial as it definitely helps the overall organisation to be more effective and profitable in the long run, so create those opportunities! Leverage the people around you as this helps us understand other people’s perspectives and priorities. This was also covered by Manuel Schnell of Kelag and Juergen Hillber of Red Bull. They emphasised gathering and understanding what the other team is doing so that the whole team could see things eye to eye. This way, our solutions will be richer with inputs from multiple disciplines.

As a plus point, Alejandro Carbejo shared “Context and Empathy as Pillars for Collaborations in DesignOps”. This is where I learned how the DesignOps team at the back end has been supporting the structure of the design team to collaborate as support to other teams in an organisation.

The interesting part is that Stampede has already been practising these for years and attending the talks diversifies my view on navigating situations.

Azim’s Point of View:

I was assigned to attend the UX research & management track, which is very relevant to my line of work in Stampede — UX design. These talks have expanded my horizon on how research can be done from an international perspective, with some familiarity about how we have always done things and issues faced in projects (many things are similar!). But of course, there are many new discoveries made here, which opened my eyes regarding the level of international design thinking. Wish I could cover them all but here are some of the selected highlights we could all learn from!

There were talks discussing the process. One of the notable one I have attended was by Javier-Bargas Avilla from Google, where he shared his experience of improving YouTube’s localisation feature, where they started with the complex German language as the base model (German translation were atrocious, at least according to native speakers). He outlined the metrics used as base to be gauged, and emphasised the importance of collaborative effort with the deserved party (locals in this case) which in the end lead to measurable success.

And there were talks discussing the methods. Dr. Panagiotis Zaharias from UX Prodigy discussed long-term UX, where he made the stance that the UX research methods we have adopted so far are actually measuring momentary experience only, not considering the long-term experience yet. Sourced from academic studies, 4 methods were outlined that have yet to be used in real practice; Day Reconstruction Method, Experience Sampling Method, AttrakDiff, and UX Curve — with their pros and cons to be considered before use. All these to capture the user sentiments of long term usage, in order to leverage on hedonic quality (related to user’s intrinsic motivation) of a product which will result in memorable experience and loyalty.

Then there were talks about the tools. Bill Albert of Mach49 shared about the advanced tools that can be used to measure user’s emotion to gauge the experience by breaking down the existing spectrums when classifying emotions and prioritising the relevant ones to UX. Plethora of scientific tools were demonstrated, like Galvanic Skin Response, Electrodermal Activity, eye tracker, pressure sensitive mouse or chair, and facial expression analysis, to name some — but ultimately, knowing the why behind all of the readings obtained is the most important aspect to assess the real user experience.

Another notable talk that attracted my attention was the talk attended by all four of us — about Systemic Design by Peter Horvath of Whitespace. The presentation was very smooth (too smooth even, for me who loves to snap every slide and failed to capture some of the slides this time) and eye-opening, where Peter described the components of Systemic Design and the relations between them. It took me quite some time to absorb the topic of systemic design fully, and how it plays into the bigger picture of UX design.

Overall, the conference was a treasure trove for those who love the research aspect of UX design and have curious minds open to new ideas and concepts — especially for the ones who are fairly new in the field like me.

Closing

So, as we look back at all these moments and learnings from the workshop and the World Usability Congress itself, we realise that design is so much more than just looking good or being functional. It’s about creating connections, understanding each other, and constantly evolving towards the greater good.

At the end of the day, design isn’t just a job for us, it’s a lens through which we view and interact with the world, imagining all the ways it could be better with every new thing we learn, every fresh perspective we take in. It just brings us one step closer to a future that’s not only smart but also kind and inclusive.

So, let’s embrace the complexity, celebrate the diversity, and continue to design not just for the eye, but for the heart and mind. After all, we are designers, aren’t we?

The post Lessons and practical applications we brought back from World Usability Congress appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

A few months ago, us from the design team were buzzing with excitement when Shaza announced that anyone could potentially attend the World Usability Congress 2023 in Graz! About a week later, Azim, the UX Designer, Wan, from business development team and I, the product designer, got the news — the three of us were selected to join Shaza herself for the trip!

We strategised ways to gain as much knowledge, as this conference is a treasure trove of UX practices in global level presenting many learnings that we could adapt and adopt. Even though the four of us have different roles in Stampede, we came to Graz with one mission in mind. We all want to find opportunities to elevate the design capability standard in Malaysia! On the 8th of October 2023, the four of us packed our bags and flew to Austria. We landed in Vienna International Airport and straight away took the train ride to Graz, while soaking in the sights and learning about Austria’s train system along the way.

World Usability Congress is an international conference organised by Youspi (an Austrian UX, CX and Usability agency) focusing on topics revolving around usability and user experience design practices. Held annually since 2013 in Graz, Austria, the conference brings together professionals, researchers, and practitioners from various industries to discuss the latest trends, share insights, and showcase innovative approaches to continuously improve user experience. This event covers the wide spectrum of usability and user experience design practice; ranging from UX design, user research, product development, strategy, Ops and more, making it a highly relevant event for anyone in the tech and design field.

The event lasted for four days from 9th to 12th of October 2023. The first two days were Focus Days — containing industry-specific talks and in-depth workshops, and then the final two days were the Conference Days — the main event containing multi-track talks, masterclasses and keynote (maximum 4 tracks at one time). Azim and I attended workshops relevant to our respective practices, and then on Conference Days all four of us dispersed to maximise the learnings from the multi-track talks and connections made. Check out our learnings in another post with more detailed breakdowns!

Our main objective in Graz was to gather knowledge, but we didn’t miss the chance to connect with as many people as we can as the UX community in this side of the world is very friendly and engaging, like ours back home. We used this chance to build genuine connections with fellow UX-ers or virtually anybody we can interact with and built our presence in the region.

Even before the conference started, the interaction with the UX community already started by meeting Johannes of UX Graz — one of Shaza’s comrades in arms, having organised together the 24 Hours of UX in previous years remotely from across the world (Making this occasion their very first time meeting in person, which we couldn’t really tell from their sense of camaraderie)! He toured us around the beautiful city of Graz and introduced us to several of his colleagues along the way. Very memorable introduction to the event and hosting city. We also met Ahmed Al-Huwwari of UX Jordan and Peter Horvath — both committee members 24 Hours of UX, making this event such a special in-person meetup for them!

The following day, after completing our workshops, we attended the UX Graz meetup dinner that was open to any WUC attendees. As our usual practice in any mass gatherings, Stampede members scattered as we make connections with as many new faces as possible because we love connecting with a diverse cast of attendees, boosting the chance of getting many new and different perspectives. That very night was very exciting as everyone we met were very genuine and friendly, we also gained some insights into how the tech and design scene looks like in Europe through those valuable conversations. We all had the same mission going into the conference. The actual conference is on the next day, but we already got a glimpse of UX practice through the lens of Europeans and pumped up to go through with the rest of the event!

Real conference days came next. Naturally, we made many connections there as the WUC event was designed to give plenty of opportunities to network and mingle around — during breakfast, in-between talks (20 minutes gap between talks), lunchtime, and the night of picturesque hilltop at Schlossberg during the Networking Dinner. Networking there was so magical that we made so many new precious connections throughout the journey, and we long to see them again anytime in the future. Even after the event ended on our way back to Vienna via train, we connected by pure chance with Susanne, one of the WUC volunteers, that our hearts were filled with joy till the very end and beyond!

And I’d like to share some tips in connecting with event attendees of any large prestigious events, that might not be applicable to everybody but have worked for us;

Focusing too much on design & professional conversation topics every time with everybody can feel transactional and takes a toll on our energy. Just remember that everybody is human no matter how professional they are, and we just want normal conversations to know each other better before opening up more.

So, we tested a different approach with a Danish designer named Anton. Surprisingly, we found that genuine connections were made easily when we are invested in that person’s story. Our conversations that night started to change, as they revolved around our respective country, life, career journey and virtually anything that came across our minds. The conversation eventually led to career & professional topics at some point, but it felt more natural. It was less tiring, and we could maintain our social energy for a long duration. And more importantly, it didn’t felt

We carried this approach to make more connections throughout the event and we managed to learn more about people, common issues and values, and finally not forgetting; to talk about the design cultures abroad to learn from each other. We even scored an office visit to Eventim in Vienna (Thank you for your hospitality, Marcus and Katharina!), attributed to the small talk and genuine connections made with the people we met there. All in all, connections should be pure and have minimal underlying agenda, as we all appreciate the natural relationships between people — as we always do in design field.

The highlight of the World Usability Conference for us aside from the important profession-related learnings, was the connections made with the people, thanks to the numerous networking opportunities designed within the conference itself. We cherish all of them, and this bond will go a long way in the future in whichever means that we have no way of predicting.

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