UCD2012 Conference in London 9th to 10th November view from a chair
After a year and a half of planning and work UCD2012 is almost due to start. It started as a conversation on Linkedin for me, then for a while between contacts became all consuming to make it happen.
As a contractor myself I argued for an event that would also be available on a Saturday as I know how hard it is to motivate someone to lose a day’s rate and then pay for a conference on top of that. To my knowledge UCD2012 is the only United Kingdom conference to focus on it’s users in this way. It’s totally appropriate for a user centred design conference to be designed around its attendees, rather than forcing then into an Academic style event format.
The second really important factor in the design of this conference was to not be exclusive, 2 days for £450 (inc. VAT) is a pretty good deal compared to £995 (plus VAT) per day that many commercial one day conferences charge. The fact that people can choose a day was also imperative to maintain reasonable access to the conference.
I like the idea that ‘Human knowledge belongs to the world’ but unfortunately it can’t be free as venues, printers and designers charge for their time. If you want to go ticketing closes on the 6th of November, so get your skates on.
