Part 2
My first conference talk
Hi everyone! Welcome to my second blog post on my Mobile UX conference. In this blog post, I will go through my experience of planning my talk, and lessons learnt from this experience.
As mentioned in my previous blog post, my talk is called “Applying UX principles to the Covid-impacted airline industry’s customer journey”. This talk will be based on utilising the principles I have learnt so far from UX into understanding the improvements being made to the airline’s experience and requirements needed within a post-pandemic world.
I wanted this talk to not only be an introduction to my name within the field of UX but also highlight how my experience in Marketing can benefit from building my skills through voluntary experience in this field and helping to stand out when looking for employment.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been planning, preparing and recording the talk for the conference. Although I’m still new to the field, the angle of my talk is going to be focused on how I looked into gaining more experience within UX Research through creating an independent solo research project within an industry I knew well. I want this to be an inspiration for those of you who are looking to transition into UX but are looking for ways of increasing experience or case studies to practice with. I also want to create a good impression of the changes made within the airline industry so far throughout the customer journey and how UX can help with airlines going forward.
I have just finished the recording this week and am pleased to say it has been a great learning experience, as although I have been recently building up my public speaking skills with the London Java Community Aspiring Women’s Speaker Group, this has been a new challenge for me to grow my personal brand further.
However, I wanted to do reflections on lessons learnt within the preparation stage for next time.
1.I wouldn’t write a script as I found this method particularly difficult and off-putting. I felt like I had to remember every fact and figure, as well as trying to look directly at the camera. I would instead create a few bullet points that would help to structure the points I want to get across, as well as being able to not feel as robotic in my speech with the script.
2. I wouldn’t worry about it being perfect. I had anxiety of worrying if it would be good enough, particularly as my talk would be based on myself being new within the field of UX and feeling like I’m an amateur. However, through discussions with several of my friends about this, it has helped to remind me to the reasons why I am doing this. What I needed to remember was the fact that I’m pushing myself more into an area I love and want to promote this. I also need to realise that I am starting out with conference talking and I can learn how to improve for next time.
3.When pre-recording the video via Zoom, I would look at ways to reduce the cognitive load. Because I’m not a multi-tasker, I found looking at the camera can be harder, and trying to remember the subjects going forward, let alone clicking on the next slide of the presentation. In order to improve next time, I would have recorded myself on my phone camera in order to remember my talk and gain instant feedback. This would reduce the pressure of being recorded and remembering the script, as well as understanding my timings better. I would have also timed the presentation so that I wouldn’t have to worry about clicking on the next slide of the presentation.
4. Finally, I want to reiterate that I need to remember to tell a story from my perspective and not to worry about being vulnerable. Don’t focus on survivor bias and thinking everything within the project turned out perfect. Focus on creating learning lessons through a storytelling approach that make it more relatable to the audience.
I’m hoping by doing these reflections and lessons learnt from my first recording for a conference, it will help those of you who are either in a similar situation or who are looking to gain confidence in the field of doing talks for conferences.
Mobile UX Conference will take place between 22nd-26th March 2021. For tickets and more details about the event, please click here. My talk will be on 23rd March at 1.30 pm, with a Q&A session afterwards.
Originally published at https://www.samjayneburden.co.uk on March 8, 2021.
