The closing plenary speaker has a rare mandate: to pause, take stock, and think deeply about the future of our industry. It’s an opportunity I wouldn’t have otherwise had, and if you gained something from my talk, the organisers should receive their share of the thanks.

A transcript of my closing plenary at the IA Summit 2011 in Denver, Colorado.

I’ve been thinking about how reading apps could take a different tack. How they could be calmer.

Our mobiles have latched on to the French networks and pushed our clocks onto continental time. An hour lost, an hour gained, it doesn’t matter. Time is unimportant here.

My theory is that, as in chess, “taste” is simply the ability to draw on patterns and experience to help us choose better candidates for analysis.

Nottingham’s tram system NET is regarded as one of the most successful urban light rail systems in Europe. I commuted on it daily from its opening in 2004 until I moved away, and remember it fondly when stuck on an uncomfortable Underground journey.

The field’s abstract leanings have attracted the attention of those who’ve considered content a downstream function, but have also proven too elusive for some. At last, we had a chance to see the nuts and bolts.

To paraphrase Marty Neumeier, a brand is the intangible public perception of a product or organisation. A gut feeling. A collective hallucination. 

Please indulge me for the customary year-end contemplation.

Evidence that, despite my scepticism, there’s something in this technology-as-behaviour-change-catalyst argument.

Can UX designers make a difference in the advertising field? Possibly. But I see it as a a quixotic endeavour, swimming against the tide of a value system that frequently causes the disempowerment of the user.

Several weeks ago, I opened a late-night email from Livia Labate, the IA Summit conference chair. I responded with blinking disbelief, the sort you get upon learning you were raised by wolves.

All around the web, hover states are being abused, and only you can put a stop to it.

For now, my Kindle has found its niche just serving me Instapaper articles. Sure, the integration is hacky, but it comes with an odd curatorial satisfaction, just like loading the iPod in the old days.

At last, the book’s rolled off the printers and is in stock at all good online bookshops.

Digital environments undergo an aging process more aggressive than mere erosion. This aging is not caused by the degradation of the environment, which stays as faithfully preserved as at its creation. Instead, the value of our digital worlds is eroded by relative decrepitude

UX Brighton was an enjoyable addition to the conference circuit, although there was much material that, however fascinating, I don’t view as user experience.

The UX industry is becoming polluted by dilettantism. It’s no surprise then that people are attacking the field.

After 200 pages, 50,000 words and over 1000 hours, we’re done. Undercover User Experience Design is now available for pre-order from Amazon UK and Amazon US. It’ll hit the shelves from 17 September.

Writing is a jealous lover. Every hour I’m apart from her, she saddles me with guilt. Time is my new currency, a precious gemstone traded on rare occasions.