UX Speed Dating and “UI/UF”

For several years I led UX Speed Dating in San Francisco — inherited from a product-designer colleague from Atlassian, then carried forward. Timers, rotations, venue flow, prototype intake from paper to high-fi to board games — peer design engines in a room.

Format: classic speed-dating rotations on a timer, but for testing designs on as many users as possible. Attendees planned iteration cycles around the monthly night. UI/UF (User Interface / User Fashion) was the playful sibling — ideation on fashionable new app interfaces. Community research is event logistics + synthesis — not just a signup form.

Today's stack for the monthly night

Today the night would run as a research pipeline. RSVPs and prototype sign-ups would come through Luma, and that list would generate the rotation schedule and print the table cards, so every designer meets a fresh tester each round. Designers would bring ProtoPie or Figma prototypes with a one-page test script built from a shared template: three tasks, what success looks like, and what to watch for.

Testers' notes would go onto a shared Miro board as they happen. Before the room empties, Claude would cluster them into themes with a rough severity, and each designer would leave with a findings sheet instead of a stack of sticky notes. It's usability practice compressed into one evening: realistic tasks, new eyes every round, synthesis the same night.

UI/UF keeps its playful side. Midjourney moodboards would set the fashion prompt for each round, and the monthly calendar would alternate formats so the community keeps showing up. The night is rapid prototyping and community research run as one event.