This February, we’re incredibly excited to have user experience expert Steph Troeth joining us all the way from London, England. She’ll be talking to us about how we can use storytelling to improve our work. She’ll be joined on stage by local design phenom Justin Kropp, who will be exploring how the tools of design have changed over the years.
John LeCarre famously said, “‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not the beginning of a story; ‘the cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is.” We need very little introduction to the art of storytelling, but the craft of story is more nuanced and is a skill we can hone. Unless you’re already fully-engaged in storytelling in one form or another, it’s rare that we get to explore these nuances in practice. Come and have some fun with Steph in this interactive session as she demonstrates little ways we can get better at the craft of story—a universal skill that you can use in everything you do.
This talk covers some of the material from her forthcoming book: UX Storytelling Handbook.
Steph is a user experience strategist who loves maturing ideas and making things real. She has worn many hats, including a product lead for a startup in digital publishing and a studio director at a digital agency. She is also known for her grassroots contributions to best web practices through the Web Standards Project and the W3C. More recently, she works with MailChimp’s UX team as an independent consultant.
Steph is currently writing a book on how to better use storytelling in user experience research and design. She is also a hopeless BBC World Service radio addict, aspiring literary novelist, once-upon-a-musician, occasional silversmith, serendipitous gardener and slow food aficionada. Well-travelled and living on her fourth continent, she speaks several flavours of English, a few languages, and possesses an indecipherable accent.
Tools are an essential part of our discipline. They afford us the opportunity to execute our work in the ways that we intended. However, the landscape of what is available to carry out our work has changed rapidly over the last decade—from the applications we use to strategize and design, to the frameworks and methodologies we use to build and deploy. These tools have not only influenced our processes, but also the way we approach our discipline. In this presentation, I’ll explore the evolution of the design practice and the tools we use to craft our work.
Justin Kropp is an interactive product designer in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He helps design and build digital products and services for individuals, institutions, and organizations. Justin is currently a design engineer at Automattic, the makers of WordPress. Previously, he lead product design at Readmill, a Berlin-based startup dedicated to crafting the best ebook reader for iOS and Android.
Justin studied graphic design at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, earning his BFA in 2003. He went on to earn his MFA in Graphic Design at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2010, where his graduate research explored semiotic theory and its role in our evolving visual culture.
He is inspired by typography, modernism, and solitude.
Code & Creativity is a social talk series created to connect us with each other and our larger community. Every other month, we’ll gather at the Camp House for a few hours to listen to one local and one visiting designer/developer as they share their passions, wisdom, and war stories. We'll ask questions, talk shop, and maybe even make some new friends. Of course no gathering would be complete without something yummy in your tummy, so snacks and a tasty beverage (coffee, soft drink, or beer) are on us!