Leisa Reichelt

Leisa Reichelt left the agency and consulting world five years ago in order to concentrate finding ways to help start ups get more access to good user experience consultancy, and to make some good experiences of her own.

She has a background in formal User Centered Design, Design Research and Information Architecture combined with a passion for making these practices more accessible and more successful for companies with limited time or resources, and for those who work using Agile or Lean methodologies.

Leisa’s clients range from the rather large (including Virgin Atlantic, BBC, SonyBMG, HSBC, The Economist, Premier Foods, Pizza Express, Tourism Australia) , to the small but growing (including AMEE, Anobii, Bright Pearl, Moo, Quidco, SkimLinks, TouchNote), to open source communities.

Leisa is a regular speaker and workshop-giver and has spoken at conferences including London IA, UX London, dConstruct, Drupalcon, EuroIA, Future of Web Apps, Web 2.0 Expo, Next, Interesting, GUADEC, Interaction, and Reboot. She has mentored at Seedcamp and coordinates the London UX Bookclub.

Leisa holds a Masters of Interactive Multimedia from the University of Technology, Sydney where she was particularly interested in innovative design research methodologies and the evolution of identity in online communities.

She is writing a book on Strategic User Experience, working on her very own start up, freelance UX consulting, playing with her two small boys, and when time permits and inspiration hits, blogs at Disambiguity.

Strategic User Experience

Familiar with the expression lipstick on a pig?

Too many of us find ourselves frustratedly ‘applying’ User Experience to products that don’t make sense, in organizations who don’t really understand how we work and how they can make best use of us.

In this workshop we’re going to explore how we can make sure that the products we work on are underpinned by sound, customer centered strategies that are aligned with your design strategies.

What does it mean to get involved with Strategic User Experience?

  • Understanding the experience that your users have beyond their interaction with the interface you’re designing, across all medium, throughout the lifecycle of their engagement.
  • Being proactively involved in shaping the product or service offering, working with disciplines across the organization.
  • Becoming fluent in the languages and practices of both User Experience & Business people, becoming a translator and facilitator for both of these groups.
  • Developing some new techniques, and re-framing some existing UX techniques to help explore and communicate the strategic business opportunities that can be generated through a better understanding of our customers/end users.