While technology makes it easier to stay connected, sometimes there is no substitute for a face-to-face meet-up when you can. So, at the end of October, after a lot of planning and help from colleagues across the Welsh public sector, my CDPS colleagues and I pulled off a bit of a first. We held the first face-to-face meet-up of the User Research in Wales community since we set it up in April.
The community was set up after doing some research earlier in the year to understand if there was a need for a community for user researchers (and those interested in user research) working in the Welsh public sector, and we now have over 100 members!
Our research showed that there was an appetite among the community members for a face-to-face meet-up where we could share experiences and knowledge and get to know each other better, so we started planning the big day.
We held our half-day meet-up in BizSpace, Cardiff, and 20 members attended, all with a really varied range of experience from across the public sector. It was heartening to hear how much it meant to those who attended. It was a great day with lots of networking and sharing of experiences and some learning thrown in too. Everyone there was engaged and really got into the spirit of collaboration.
We could go on, but we’d much rather our members tell you themselves!
“Having been a member of the UR community for a few months, it was great to move the virtual meetups offline. One of the most engaging aspects was the unconference style of the event. Providing everyone with an open floor to pitch their ideas and challenges helped to create a fantastic agenda for the day, and it was also reassuring to know that my challenges resonated with many others in the community.
Being challenged to think about the changing context and constraints that might impact user research was a particularly useful tool or method that I will consider when planning future research.”
“Thank you for inviting me along to the User Research in Wales community meet-up back in October. It was great to have the opportunity to attend a face-to-face meet-up local to my home office.
I enjoyed meeting with other user researchers based in Wales, and the workshops were relevant and engaging. I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to attend. I'm already looking forward to the next one!”
“I recently found out about the User Research community that CDPS started it in April, and at short notice I went along to their first in-person event.
It had a great mix of orgs represented: Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd, Careers Wales CDPS, Office for National Statistics, Public Health Wales, Gofal Cymdeithasol Cymru / Social Care Wales, Llywodraeth Cymru / Welsh Government and more, as well as one or two freelance folk and myself.
The particularly cool thing was that while the community is focussed around UR for public services there were no qualms about private sector folks like myself, or non-URs, or even non-Wales based folks getting involved. The mix was good and everyone got stuck in and really engaged with it which is exactly what you want.
For a first event this was excellent – a big well-done to the organisers!”
Needless to say, we hope that this is the first community meet-up of many!
We’re always open to new members, if you would be interested in joining the community, sign up.
We also run 4 other digital and design communities, find out more.