I remember reading a LinkedIn post a few years ago when Regnard Raquedan raised this question if agile UX is an oxymoron.
Earlier this year, I got a chance to see UX oxymoron live at work in India. A leading UX conference opens their call for proposals and this is what it says.
For talk submissions from India, priority will be given to the speakers at #RoadtoUXI24 Pre-Conference Meetups who receive good feedback from the attendees. Note: The talk proposal you are submitting is for #RoadToUXI24 Pre-Conference Meetups. Your talk at the local city chapter event will be judged on the basis of reviews from the fellow attendees. Positive feedback would lead to your selection as the speaker at the UXINDIA conference in Bangalore.
They add:
International Speakers can still submit their proposals for our consideration.
What?
So the talk selection criteria is different for Indian speakers? This is ridiculous—and even more concerning that it is coming from a UX conference—it just shows the state of UX in the country.
The conference team does not have their own talk proposal selection criteria? How will they build the bridges between the meetup audience feedback criteria and the conference program goals?
PS: It reminds me of a story. An Indian family enters a restaurant to have dinner. Right at the main gate, the attendant asks them to first stop at the food stalls in the parking, and have a plate each of pani-puri or dahi-puri. They will seek feedback from the food stall owners on how the family ordered, ate, used napkin, and paid for the food. Based on that feedback, the attendant will decide whether they are welcome to have food in the restaurant.
PPS: The story is a fiction but the conference living this UX oxymoron was real.
