Advancing the craft of prototyping

In this summer season, IxDA London has invited prototyping expert Darren Bennett to share some interesting, refreshing and developing perspectives and examples of prototyping tools and prototype work — informing the changing nature of interaction design.

We're being hosted by the gracious and supportive hosts at the Listening Lab, part of Diabetes UK, near Aldgate East / Whitechapel / Shadwell.

Note: We charge a £10 ticket fees to help us reduce and prevent last-minute dropouts, but fees are refundable by request at the end of the event.

Session info

For years, design tooling has plateaued. UI design tool rise and design systems have narrowed design to visual problems solved with static mockups and simple click-through prototypes. But the landscape is changing.

The adage “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” has never been truer, so how can designers break the mould and design in new ways?

In this talk, I’ll explore the design tool landscape, highlight those challenging the status quo, and share my view on the future of prototyping and design.

About Darren

I’m a designer with 35 years of experience who was there at the dawn of the internet. Over my career, I’ve designed and coded almost every type of digital experience, exploring and adopting every new tool along the way.

My specialty is interaction and motion design, with a deep background in tools like Macromedia Flash, Director, After Effects, Axure, Principle, Framer, and ProtoPie. I’ve also coded extensively in HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and ActionScript. For the past decade, I’ve focused on native app design.

I’m the founder of ProtoPilot, a specialist interaction and prototyping studio in London. I also run the ProtoPilot YouTube channel, which teaches no-code, designer-friendly prototyping tools. In addition, I publish Interact, a LinkedIn newsletter covering the latest in the no-code design tool ecosystem.

I’m an active practitioner whose clients have included Microsoft, Amazon, Leica, Sainsbury’s, Nectar, Channel 4, NatWest, and Lloyds Bank. I’ve also taught advanced interaction design and prototyping to teams at Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Channel 4, Squarespace, and more.

About The Listening Lab @ Diabetes UK

The Listening Lab is a UX lab with a difference in Whitechapel London: modern tech, comfy spaces, daylight, and good coffee. Suitable for usability testing, 1:1 interviews, focus groups or workshops. It was founded by Diabetes UK to support the development of user-centred diabetes tech and services - but agencies like Manifesto and Giant Digital, healthtech startups like TendVR and SmartCare, and charities like Crisis and Breast Cancer Now are also using it.

You can choose to hire just the lab and the spacious viewing room, also get support from their user researchers, or even have them recruit research participants. Go to www.listeninglab.co.uk for images, more information, and their very reasonable rates. Discounts for non-profits and multi-day bookings available. You will show social responsibility too: all income helps support the fight against diabetes.

If you want to link to us:
On Linkedin we are https://www.linkedin.com/company/uxlisteninglab/
On Instagram we are https://www.instagram.com/listeninglablondon/

Last but not least, a huge thank you to Futureheads for providing our food and drink refreshments on the evening, and the the IxDA crew Lori, Tanya and Giuseppe.