While in Vancouver for a SharePoint conference, I was incredibly pleased to be able to present to a session of VanUE, a local gathering of UX folks. We had 100+ in the room, and I explored the opportunities for UX within the enterprise.

A few notes from the presentation:

• The quote of the evening was apparently my description of “cubeland” (the office environment) as the “labyrinthine hell where UX goes to die”.
• Organisations are looking for greater productivity, but the opportunities to squeeze existing staff have been pretty much exhausted.
• Improvements to systems, processes and staff tools now provide the greatest opportunities for business benefits, and UX plays a key role in this.
• Instead of just aiming to make things “less painful”, we should be delivering enterprise solutions that surprise and delight.
• We then explored four principles of delight.
• Generate a (positive!) emotional response by producing intranets (and other tools) that are beautifully designed.
• Make things simpler, whether by applying best-practice UCD techniques, or by streamlining how we access information or complete tasks.
• Use technology in smart ways, taking full advantage of what modern tools can do, often quickly and easily.
• Put people at the centre, with a particular focus on social and collaborative tools.

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Thanks again to Thoughtfarmer for making the evening happen, and a big shout out to the audience, who generated so much energy during the talk.