More than an MVP: The case for continuous improvement in the COVID era

Arrive from 5:30pm, the talk will start at 6:00pm. We'll have the usual drinks and snacks. 😊

💻 The talk

In 2020, COVID-19 has shaped the way that agencies are delivering websites for their users. It’s become all about standing up a website quickly so that people can get the information they need as soon as they can.

But speed isn’t everything.

In this talk, James & Pete will take you through why yes, an MVP site is important, but continuous improvement is where you can really make a difference when it comes to your users’ experience.

Using examples from their work on Connected.govt.nz, Keep It Real Online, and Unite Against Covid-19, they’ll be taking you back to March 2020, where they delivered a number of sites for government agencies under tight deadlines. They’ll tell you what happened to get to MVP, and how they’ve continued to improve the user experience on the sites that are all connected to our journey with COVID-19 here in New Zealand.

Interspersed with personal perspective and tales from behind the Zooms, they get to the heart of what it takes to use a continuous improvement approach to deliver websites that don’t compromise on user experience for the sake of MVP.

💁‍♂️ The speakers

James Ford - Creative director at Silverstripe

With almost 20 years in the design industry, James is Silverstripe’s Creative Director. He believes in making things work simply and intuitively and has an eye for typography and clean lines. After immigrating to New Zealand in 2009, James has worked with the likes of Weta Workshop, NZTA, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Social Development, Department of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Health, Westpac, Meridian and many others. James heads up the creative side of the Strategy & Design team, working with designers to create beautiful, intuitive sites to keep the users' needs at the forefront of everything we do. James is also an artist, exhibiting throughout New Zealand and internationally. He published his second, five-yearly monograph earlier this year, entitled Evaluating Things. Married and a father of 3 girls, his spare time, when not creating art or playing soccer, is mainly spent trying to do nothing.

Pete Lister - Head of client strategy & delivery at Silverstripe

Pete is Silverstripe’s Head of Client Strategy & Delivery team, and is a delivery guy at heart. He’s been in NZ since 2006 and worked for a number of New Zealand’s organisations such as NZPost—where he implemented a digital mailbox (a talk for another day)—and MetService—where he headed up the International Media Team. With over ten years of experience in delivering software solutions to clients across the globe, he is a big believer in change and finding new ways of working. At Silverstripe, Pete is responsible for all things Delivery, leading our creative and development teams to produce solutions that delight our clients and that the team are proud to work on. When he isn’t working across each and every project at Silverstripe, Pete spends his time cycling and almost succeeding in being a professional coffee drinker.