UX Scotland 2025 – Five key takeaways
On 11 and 12 June 2025 I was again an event team volunteer at UX Scotland, an in-person conference held at the University’s John McIntyre Conference Centre. In this post, I share my key takeaways from the event.
About UX Scotland
UX Scotland is an annual international conference for UX professionals, service designers and other digital specialists. It provides a very supportive community where it is easy to meet like-minded people and to expand the professional network.
The reception desk at UX Scotland 2025 with ‘UX’ letters, a number 10 for the event’s anniversary, a welcome sign and artificial plants
UX Scotland 2025 was a two-day event with talks, workshops, case studies and discussions. It marked the event’s tenth anniversary.
My key takeaways from UX Scotland 2025
Structure is important for presentations
The event organisers asked the event team volunteers for the first time to note down themes presenters addressed in their presentations.
I thought that identifying the themes would be straightforward, but this was not the case for all sessions. Sometimes it was tricky to identify the themes of presentations.
Why were some sessions more difficult than others? When we create web content, we use a summary, headings and subheadings to structure the content. Presentations benefit from a similar structure.
During well-structured presentations it was easy to spot the themes. When presenters spoke about their experiences but such a structure was missing, fellow volunteers and I started to struggle to come up with notes for the event organisers.
It surprised me that well-structured presentations were also more memorable. I can recall a lot more of the content of those sessions. More or less unstructured presentations did not make it past my short-time memory.
It showed me that presentations need a structure to leave an impact and to make a difference.
Lean Coffee sessions are a good addition to conference schedules
My fellow volunteer Ricky Callaghan and I facilitated a Lean Coffee session at the start of the second day. Lean Coffee is an open and democratic technique where attendees suggest topics they wish to discuss, vote on the most popular items and decide for how long they want to discuss them (starting at five minutes).
How we are using Lean Coffee in the University (although we often use five votes for the dot voting)
Previously I facilitated Lean Coffee session within our department, but this was the first session with participants I did not know before.
We only had a small group and just 45 minutes, but the discussions with professionals from very different backgrounds and with a variety of experiences provided many insights and were very thought provoking. We discussed topics including:
- AI deciding when it wants to follow instructions and when it wants to ignore them (for example, style guide information)
- how AI might be used in the future (for example, AI agents for first round interviews)
- whether we should we make it clear when content or images were created using AI
- the impact of AI on professional groups like graphic designers
- leadership dos and don’ts (for example, deciding in an instant to use AI outputs without thorough consideration)
It was also rewarding to introduce the Lean Coffee technique to participants, who had not worked this way before but left with the intention to try it in their own organisations.
A colleague as fellow volunteer
This was the first conference where another member of our team, Pete Watson, was one of my fellow volunteers.
As nice as it is to meet new people and to widen the professional network, it is also beneficial to work with a colleague outside the usual team parameters. I felt that we got to know each other better and bonded more on a professional level. This can only be good for the team dynamics and future cooperation at the University.
Thankfully Pete also seemed to enjoy the volunteering experience and the involvement in the sessions. It put a smile onto my face when he mentioned that he would like to volunteer at other conferences and that he got more out of this conference than out of events he attended as a delegate.
I have been going on about my conference journey and using volunteering for personal development for long enough anyway. Now a colleague has followed my example.
UX research with children and minors should be varied and fun
Caroline McKinley and Marta Valle are UX researchers at the NatWest Group. During their session they shared their story and challenge of getting the business closer to young customers.
Our team recently carried out usability testing with high school students. Some of the participants were under 18. So it was interesting to hear how Caroline and Marta went about research with children and what we might be able to learn from their approach for our own research with minors. This could apply to research with prospective undergraduate students or for research around widening access offers.
Caroline and Marta recommended to:
- take a course for conducting research with children or to initially use an agency who work with children to learn from them
- establish governance on how to work with children
- obtain the parents’ consent
- think about the differences in cognitive ability from age 5 to age 15 and tailor research activities/adapt methods to keep the participants’ attention
- sessions should be no longer than 45 minutes
- work in pairs to avoid overwhelming young participants and to make the sessions fun
Using field-based user research for deeper insights
In his talk, Alex Barker made a case for getting out of the office and conducting in-person research activities. These can be planned fieldwork like the observation of customer service staff in their working environment or spontaneous interviews with customers.
Alex provided useful pointers when choosing the research approach. He recommended in-person methods when:
- the users’ environment is important to understanding their behaviour
- observing body language and non-verbal signs are important
- tasks involve offline interactions
- the users’ real world might reveal unexpected insights
Screen-based/remote research is flexible, convenient and efficient. It can be beneficial when:
- we want to observe users in their natural digital environment
- remote participation helps with reach or accessibility
- physical interaction is not required
Alex emphasised how important it is to approach any research activities with an open mind and heart by:
- being welcoming
- accepting that views may vary
- allowing everyone to have a voice
Following the actual research activities, playbacks of recordings/experiences tell the stories, provide rich and qualitative insights, and bring the human reality to life. What is more impactful than observing users struggling with web content or certain elements of it?
It was good to see how far our team has already come on this way. Just this month we undertook on-campus usability testing during the Undergraduate Open Day.
Read Pete’s blog post about our recent on-campus research
My conference journey continues
I will again be a member of the event team for SDinGov (Service Design in Government) 2025 and Lean Agile Scotland 2025. Both conferences also take place at the University’s John McIntyre Conference Centre.
Volunteering at conferences is demanding and can be exhausting due to long and busy days. But I find it very rewarding to be involved in such events and to be in demand for volunteering opportunities of this kind.
Read more about our team’s conference experiences
We regularly contribute to events and conferences. Watch out for more insights shared by members of the Prospective Student Web Team.
Read our other conference blog posts
If you are interested in volunteering at conferences and would like to talk to me about my experiences, just get in touch.
