Learning from other backgrounds: Notes from my UXCampEurope discussion

Last weekend, I was in Berlin for my annual trip for the European IxDA Local Leader’s Retreat and UXCampEurope. I facilitated an informal discussion session on “learning from each other’s backgrounds”, and captured some notes.

This session has inspired me to be bolder at embracing and driving a pluralistic way of working and seeing the world. This means less beating each other up about who’s-doing-design-better-than-X, complaining about other fields… but being more open to different ways of working, learning from others…

Disclaimer: I know I’ve complained about other domains / approaches before. If this was you — I’m really, really sorry. I really mean it.

Our group was made up of about a dozen people, with different range of backgrounds:

• computer science / software engineers
• industrial design
• information ergonomics
• marketing
• sales (real estate!)
• communication design
• psychology

We did a round of introductions, which took up quite a bit of time, before we jumped into the core of the discussion with this question:

How does your background…