Two weeks ago, our Lead Designer Sunny Yang gave a presentation on user experience design (UX design) techniques and principles to a sold-out crowd in Cebu City, Philippines. TechTalks.ph, a Cebu-based organization that is an “independent community of business, technology, and startup enthusiasts,” organized the event, dubbed Let’s Talk UX.

Tina Amper, TechTalk.ph’s founder, asked Sunny to impart some of her knowledge and expertise to the quickly growing technology / startup community here in Cebu. So, Sunny put together a comprehensive presentation on UX design best practices and principles and walked through it for the crowd attending the event. Although you may have missed out on Sunny leading a discussion on UX design, you can still get access to her wisdom; her UX design presentation is online and freely accessible to anyone who wants to learn a lot about a crucial topic.

One of the areas that we at engageSPARK and Opportunity Labs are passionate about is design. As Sunny often says, design is not just about graphics (despite what many people think); in fact graphics is only one part of UX design. So much of design is about researching and learning the user’s needs, figuring out how to make it simple for the user to interact with the product, and testing! testing! testing! with real users to dig deep into what works and what doesn’t – and then, most importantly, updating your product in line with what you learn. Don’t forget to constantly rinse and repeat that process.

At the presentation in Cebu, which was TechTalks.ph’s largest meet up ever (there were people outside the door leaning in to hear Sunny speak), Sunny delved into those issues, expertly answered the many questions posed to her, and helped steer Filipino technologists towards incorporating user-focused principles and practices into their technology projects right from the beginning.

Last week, Sunny published The Ultimate Usability Testing Guide on the engageSPARK blog – a must-read for any startup, non-profit organization, business, freelancer, or anyone who wants to build a successful product or program. Another must read is her detailed UX Design and Testing presentation, which is worth a careful study. UX design is key – so don’t leave home without it!