Rory Madden, Co-Founder of UXDX, joined Richard on this episode of the podcast from last year, to talk us through his journey to creating one of the most dynamic, barrier-free conference series’ in tech.
UXDX (UX being user experience, DX being developer experience) was born from Rory’s frustration when he couldn’t figure out how to implement innovative solutions in the companies he was working in, and he was always looking for case studies of people who had done it before him, as a way to boost his colleague’s confidence in new ways of doing things. His partner Catherine had a wealth of conference experience, so they decided to collaborate. They created UXDX, under the principle of connecting people from across every stage of the development process.
Rory talks about how the attendees of UXDX may work in a huge number of different fields, but underneath it all, they’re all united by a common interest - getting things done. It’s what the conference is all about. Many of their attendees have common frustrations; projects getting shelved or dropped with no explanation from their higher-ups, lack of transparency, etc. Rory feels the solution for this comes down to communication. Management sharing their vision with developers can help immensely when developers need to make decisions that require knowledge of the company’s overall goals.
Lateral communication between different workers at the same level is another key element, and something that UXDX is just the place for. Rory has a varied background in product development, and he dives into the pros and cons of really catering to your superusers, or going the other direction and changing things up to try and impress the people who just feel “meh” about your product.
This decision applies to conferences too, as he reveals that he himself has thought about trying to cater UXDX for more of a niche audience. But ultimately, the multi-faceted crowd is what makes UXDX such a special event. We also hear from him on the topic of community building, and how you begin that task from the ground up. The trick seems to be avoiding loaded expectations. Like product development, your desire to foster a community should stem from the desire to solve a problem that you see around you, and UXDX is truly a wonderful example of this.
Reach out to Rory here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rorymadden/
