On 13 November the UX Service team attended the second Scottish Web Folk event hosted by the Web Services team at the University of Dundee. The conference included a day of sessions on varied web-related topics, with something for everyone in the team to take away.  

The Scottish Web Folk group brings together people working in web-related services from across the country (and the wider UK). The group has existed for years with meetings even continuing through lockdown. Last year the brilliant team at the University of Dundee resurrected an in-person event with the first Scottish Web Folk conference, and this year saw its return, bigger and better with more attendees and suppliers. UX Manager Emma Horrell, Senior Content Designer Nick Daniels, UX Research Specialist Catherine Munn and Web Content Design Assistants Mel Batcharj, Anita Joseph, Katie Spearman and John Wilson all attended and share their reflections here.  

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The Scottish Web Folk ceilidh at Dundee by Stratos Filalithis

Emma’s reflections  

Kudos to the Dundee team for putting on a free event for everyone 

Organising an event for 170 people with sponsors too is no mean feat but the team at Dundee, Rob Ryder-Richardson, Andrew Millar, Pete Hewitt and others did an excellent job. It was clear that a lot of hard work and effort had gone into all aspects of the event including: the catering (breakfast, lunch and plentiful snacks), the exhibition stands, sponsors and free merchandise, and of course, the schedule of sessions. Securing sufficient sponsorship to mean the event was free to attend ensured the event was very inclusive and open to all.  

Learning opportunities for the whole UX team  

I was very pleased to get the go-ahead for the whole UX team to attend the free conference. They have been heavily involved in supporting the migration project for many months. This has required rapid upskilling and learning about EdWeb1, EdWeb2 and migration processes with few opportunities to learn about the broader context of how web services are run and managed in Higher Education. This event afforded the chance to meet others from the sector to hear about different approaches and case studies, as well as the opportunity to present on work we have been involved in, to share our own experiences. Furthermore, it was great to chat with colleagues from other University of Edinburgh teams and the train journey to and from Dundee gave us time for some social chat.  

Nick’s reflections 

It was great to see the second Scottish Web Folk conference draw such a big crowd. There’s clearly an appetite across the HE sector for an event like this, and for good reason. We might work at different universities, but we’re often dealing with similar challenges and there’s a lot we can learn from each other. 

In the afternoon I presented on some of the content design training that our team has been working on this year. It was fun telling people what we’ve been up to and shaping the work into a story. I talked a bit about how web publishing works at Edinburgh, then about some of the training events we’ve been doing, and finished with reflections on how it’s been going. A good thing about presenting is that people working on similar areas come up to you later to have a chat about it. 

The other talks were super interesting. I enjoyed hearing Soph Hawkesford and Nat Green from our Digital Marketing Team talk about how they’ve been approaching social media at the University of Edinburgh. I especially liked learning more about how you can use personas to characterise the different tones of voice we have to use. 

Later in the day, I heard about how Heriot-Watt University have been handling their migration from one CMS to another. We’ve been on that journey ourselves and it was interesting to see how they’d approached migration, and to see the back end of the Contensis CMS. 

Overall, it was a great day, 10/10 would go again. 

Katie’s reflections 

This was the first conference I’ve attended since starting my role at the University and indeed the first one which has been focussed on web-related services.  

The conference covered a wide variety of topics – there really was something for everyone, particularly as you could choose which sessions you attended in advance, depending on your areas of interest.  

I enjoyed the collaborative nature of the discussions and the willingness of people to share experiences and knowledge.  

Digital sustainability  

It was particularly interesting to hear about the work that Dundee University had been carrying out in relation to digital sustainability. It’s a very topical issue and one which generated interesting discussions throughout the day.  

Stratos and Osh also gave a great talk about the work that they (alongside the Green Web interns) had been doing in this area.  

Both talks provided useful takeaways on things that web services teams can do to reduce their digital carbon footprint and highlighted the wider positive impact these actions could have on user experience and accessibility – so a win, win!  

John’s reflections  

My first conference…ever! 

This was my first time attending a conference. It was such a cool experience to meet others who worked in web-related services and to see such interesting presentations across many different areas. I really learned a lot. 

A refreshing talk on AI 

Tracy Playle’s talk on using generative AI to help design content workflows was extremely insightful. Using a very funny example of a taxidermist who had to preserve a lion without ever seeing one, she highlighted the importance of context when using AI. If we ask AI a complex question, without giving it context, it will produce undesirable or inaccurate results. However, if we practice ‘context fencing’ – letting the AI know where it should source the information – we will be able to be use it more effectively and produce more accurate results. 

I haven’t really worked with AI that much and only used it a bit in my spare time. So it was interesting to hear how I could make the most out of it in my future work. 

Document and note everything you do on a project – It’s valuable 

This might be obvious for some, but a personal takeaway from this conference to me was to document everything you do on a project. There were so many interesting talks on projects undertaken by universities, from University of Glasgow launching its student support hub, to Heriot-Watt migrating to a different CMS. I was able to learn so much from the experiences they shared. 

By taking their learning experiences from their projects, they provided all of us attendees with knowledge we can use going forward for our work. 

I’ve only been working in web-related services for a short time, but if I clearly document work done on my future projects, maybe one day I will be able to provide useful insights that will help others with their projects. 

Mel’s reflections 

There was a real community spirit 

Having previously only ever attended conferences online, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my first in-person conference.  

The day was filled with chances to meet like-minded people and partake in stimulating conversations. The enthusiasm to share stories and ask questions lent to a great atmosphere and real sense of community as soon as that lanyard was popped on. I left with new connections and, after Nick’s fantastic talk covering our content design training, had fun discussing work I’d been involved in with those around me. It was a rewarding trip to have made (making that early commute worth it!) 

Fresh insight on sustainability 

I enjoyed gaining further insight on topics previously discussed in our team. The University of Dundee’s talk in tandem with Manifesto was a highlight, particularly their consideration that sustainability should be perceived as a ‘tool in our toolbelt’ used to create a moment of change, placing it on par with other web legislations that have shaped web services in the past. Stratos and Osh’s talk on sustainability led to a suggestion of opportunities for collaborative work across universities, once again underscoring a shared commitment to meaningful, scalable progress toward more sustainable practices. 

Overall, it was great to learn from the experiences shared – I left feeling reinvigorated and, as we see the migration project nearing its end, ready to delve into new projects and challenges.
 

Anita’s reflections 

Conferences like the Scottish Web Folk conference are a fantastic opportunity to soak up industry best practice, but I feel their biggest value is when colleagues across a sector share an honest, real-life case study of a project undertaken. There’s always a real sense of community in the room when a speaker shares hurdles and outcomes that the audience can relate to and glean insights from. One talk even prompted a comment from the audience suggesting shared practice across the higher education digital sector in future.  

It’s also interesting to reflect on similar projects that have presented with different challenges for different institutions. An example of this was Heriot Watt’s presentation on their website migration – a hot topic for those of us who have helped migrate the University of Edinburgh web estate over the last year. 

The other two standout sessions at the Scottish Web Folk conference for me were the talks on sustainability – the first by the University of Dundee in tandem with digital experience agency Manifesto, and the second hosted by our own Stratos Filalithis and Osh Doherty. Both teams were open about the challenges of scoping a digital carbon footprint accurately and offered real takeaways in terms of where to focus efforts first for highest impact. Perhaps the other key takeaway from these sessions was that the way we talk about environmental impact has to be relatable in order to motivate change. Discussion of scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, for example, might well turn people away. But when we can hang our understanding on something relatable like reducing the energy emissions of a website from a three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom flat, we might be in a stronger position to inspire positive action. 

Huge thanks to Dundee for putting this event together – it was a thoroughly enjoyable and insightful day! 

Catherine’s reflections 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a whole year since the first Scottish Web Folk conference! I was presenting a talk last year, so it was great to sit back this time and absorb everyone’s else’s presentations without having the pressure of doing my own.  

In particular, I enjoyed our own Nick Daniels’ talk about his experience of running digital content training at the University of Edinburgh. I’ve been hearing bits and pieces about this work through the year, so it was great to hear the full picture of how the project has been going and what the team has learned from it so far. 

There were also presentations from the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee about the environmental impact of web services. The two universities took different approaches to this topic, so it was really interesting to hear different perspectives. The speakers were also both inspired by last year’s talk from the University of St Andrews on digital sustainability, which I think shows the importance of events like this in sharing ideas and experiences between institutions.  

Congratulations to the organisers at the University of Dundee who put on such an excellent event!