I was inspired to get back into UX at NIDC!
NIDC is the Irish Developer Conference held every year in Belfast at the ICC, right beside the iconic Waterfront Hall.
I always tell myself I’m a designer first. Developer second.
But I spend most of my day in code (mucking about with AI) — building Shopify themes, breaking things, testing things and of course shipping fast.
So, when I read the schedule, a name stood out: Gareth Dunlop.
10am slot. I told myself, I have to make that one.
Gareth’s one of the godfathers of the web in the Irish/UK scene.
The talk started with some screenshots from his life as a programmer in the banking industry in the early 90s. Seeing Visual Basic 2.0 on the screen was a great nostalgic moment to start the day. I’ve always loved the old Windows UI. Even though we didn’t realise it at the time, there was a certain simplicity and charm in those interfaces.
Gareth didn’t talk about how he was key to two of the most important Web and UX businesses this island has ever seen. Instead, he talked about user empathy and the lessons he’s learned over his 30 year journey.
He began with a story about helping his father, a retired architect, to book flights. Most of us are probably the tech person in the family, so it connected instantly. He talked about how family members, or users, can be made to feel stupid when systems aren’t designed for them to do simple tasks.
Nicola who was sitting beside me for this talk whispered into my ear and reflected on how outside of this a lot of those systems mentioned can sometimes use dark design patterns to not only make people feel stupid but to keep them in that confused loop.
A key point Gareth reflected on later in the talk "This is what happens when you let marketers control the way things are designed"
That really hit me. It reminded me why I got into design in the first place. Why human centred design matters. Why I wanted to build Invisible Building to bring the magic of design, UX and the web to anyone on my island that wanted to make their own dent, launch their own project, scale their own business.
The talk took me right back before that and back to University, learning about Don Norman, Jakob Neilson, Jeffery Zeldman and more.
And it made me think about the future. Gareth compared the gov.ie and gov.uk websites and talked about service design. It made me want to design systems that help people get things done and made me think about how in the future we will need design to empower the change that will come. To make lives better and to restore balance.
The main take away..
It made me want to be a designer.
Which I personally think is a fantastic take away from Northern Irelands premier developer conference! ;)
