This last Saturday, Graham, Todd, Amanda, Emily (our new intern), and I trekked to Washington, D.C. to attend the 2012 DC UXCamp. Graham and Todd are veterans of the Bar Camp style of conference, but the rest of us had never attended one before Saturday, and I, for one, was not entirely sure what to expect. I am as fearful of speaking in public as anyone - would I have to present something on-the-fly? Would I be required to be actively involved in every discussion? Egads, I’m just the developer over in the corner with my head down, coding!

As it turns out, the entire concept behind a Bar Camp is that it is very informal, and how involved you choose to be is entirely up to you. The sessions ranged from full-on presentations with slideshows to very loose group discussions. I honestly expected there to be a lot more in-depth, fine-grained discussions about UX - including maybe some HTML5, or jQuery, specific talks with some nitty-gritty details. Instead, the sessions I attended were much more high level.

The first two sessions I attended revolved around wireframing and prototyping. The first was a presentation of a tool that the presenter’s company had built to facilitate quick creation of wireframes and the second was an open discussion about various tools that attendees use or have used and what we liked or didn’t like about each.

One thing I love about the Bar Camp format, is the informality. We attended WordCamp in Richmond in the fall, and while I do feel that I learned more there than I did at UXCamp, I found that it got to be a drag being in the same room the entire time. UXCamp allots a 2-hour break for lunch, which allowed us to venture out, get some fresh air, and get some quality team-time in together.

After lunch, I attended what was by far my favorite session. When I walked in the room, the presenter was showing a slideshow of pictures from a recent concert by the band Rush. I knew then that I was in for a different session than the previous. As people wandered in, he discussed Rush’s show aesthetic and how it relates to UX. Then the session transitioned into a presentation/discussion about Frank Lloyd Wright and how his architecture and designs relate to UX. Very cool concept, and my interest in FLW was renewed after this session.

I was very excited about the final session of the day that the entire team attended. I don’t recall the title, but it was about iPad/iPhone design, and I was hoping to learn quite a bit as Business Bullpen is growing our mobile development experience. Instead, the session ended up being about the new features in iOS5, and admittedly I found myself nodding off a couple of times. To be fair, we left Charlottesville at 6 am and had a hefty lunch so I’m not blaming this entirely on the topic or the presenter, but I found it to be a little too much of an Apple advertisement.

Having said that, I am already looking forward to UXCamp 2013! And who knows, maybe I’ll even find it in me to lead a session …

Posted by Brian Chenault, developer for Business Bullpen. You can follow Brian on Tumblr or Twitter.