What was UX Ireland?
UX Ireland, held in the heart of Dublin hosted a range of designers from all over the world providing key insights into their fields. This was a valuable opportunity to learn from industry experts, mix with fellow designers and shape your community from the inside. UX Ireland was co-organised by Graphic Mint and event providers Software Acumen, based in Cambridge, England. Attendees left UX Ireland with new ideas and skills to improve your user experiences, an increased professional network, and memories of many useful conversations.
Day 1 UX Ireland Begins
After months of planning and organising, UX Ireland 2016 finally arrived on November 10th! UX Ireland attendees began pouring into the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute on Thursday morning for 2 days of inspiring talks, workshops, and experience reports.
Keynote Speaker: Jon Kolko Bio
Jon joined Blackboard with the acquisition of MyEdu, a startup focused on helping students succeed in college and get jobs, he is also the Founder and Director of, Austin Center for Design. His work focuses on bringing the power of design to social enterprises, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and large-scale industry disruption.
Speaker Sessions
After the coffee break Intercom’s Director of Product Design Benjamin Keyser took to the main stage to discuss designing the future of online experiences, while other case studies and workshops began to unfold on our other tracks.
The amazing Denise Burton, Design Principal at the IBM Design Studio in Austin, Texas, was on the main stage after lunch to wow everyone in the audience with her Experience Report “Design language systems: beware the hobgoblins”. We sat down with Denise during the conference to gather her thoughts on UX Ireland and to chat more about her session. Listen to the interview here: UX Thought Leaders – The Denise Burton Interview
Independent designer Anna Dahlstrom delivered an insightful session on “Beyond the hamburger menu”. Anna is a UX designer and the founder of UX Fika and Glimt.it. Anna regularly speaks and instructs for General Assembly, and currently is writing a book for O’Reilly about storytelling in design.
With Day 1 being packed with over a dozen incredible speakers it was an unbelievable start to UX Ireland.
Social Evening
Our social evening on the Thursday of UX Ireland was hosted by 37 Dawson Street, and what a job they did! Our attendees filed into the venue for a wonderful night of drinks, great food, and great company.
Of course we couldn’t stay out all night, we had day 2 to look forward to!
Day 2
Keynote Speaker: Brenda Laurel
Day 2 of UX Ireland kicked off with the second Keynote of the conference. Iconic interaction designer, author, and educator Brenda Laurel got the show on the road for the second day of the conference. Brenda has worked in interactive media since 1976 for companies including Atari, Activision, and Sun Labs. She is an advocate for diversity and inclusiveness in video games and a pioneer in the research and development of virtual reality.
She led an impassioned keynote about the early days of VR, right up to modern day and the future. The morning session closed with an invigorating discussion by Brenda and audience about the future of VR.
Closing UX Ireland 2016
The closing of UX Ireland saw all the attendees return to the main stage, as the remainder of our prizes were given out, including 5 Sketch Licences, 3 Rosenfeld Books, and an Optimal Workshop Licence worth over €1,800!
Our final thank you is to everyone who attended UX Ireland! You are what made this conference a success. Whether you attended, submitted a session, presented, or manned the sponsor stands, thank you!
