Location sponsor Crossroad Consulting in Mechelen set the scene for the next IIBA Brussels Chapter evening event organized on February 21 th 2017. We were pleased to have UX Designer Carole De Block as keynote speaker on the topic of User Experience and how to discover and involve users. She shared some valuable insight with the audience.

A small but interested group of attendees joined us for what was to be a very interactive evening. Our 
venue sponsor Crossroad Consulting supplied logistics and drinks to welcome the guests and around 
19h00 IIBA Brussels Chapter president Stefan Bossuwé took the stand and introduced the audience to 
the sponsors, the topic and the speaker for the evening.

Board member colleague Filip Hendrickx prepared the technics for a life streaming so that non-attendees could watch this session on-line via our YouTube ( https://youtu.be/m13LxRflvBg ) channel. Great job to share knowledge and insights beyond the borders of time.

Carole de Block started out as a user interface and graphic designer building prototypes for web applications. As a UX designer, her focus is on working together with customers and users at different stages of a project to achieve an optimal design. She believes that every project team member needs to have UX skills, whether you are a business analyst, designer or developer. A lot of questions during and after the talk is a fine indicator that this topic lives amongst business analysts. Apparently everybody in this line of business has to do with the same challenges, but often in different disguises.

Everybody will agree that we need to create products and services that fit user needs. But how can you base yourself on evidence, not opinion? Firstly, you find out who your users are through user research. Subsequently, you involve these users in the design process. There are lots of UX design tools and techniques you can use at various stages of a project. Carole showed us a few examples.

The conference room was left in favor of the lobby around 20h00 where the conversations went on during a network drink. Again we can look back on a very successful event.

The slides and the pictures taken during the event are added to the event page.