Home / Speakers / Matthew Hodgson (Canberra, Australia)

Matthew Hodgson (Canberra, Australia)

Two decades ago, Matthew was building experiences into the first generation of multi-player online games. Today, he is the Senior Executive for UX + Agile at Zen Ex Machina – responsible for design thinking, social media marketing tactics, user-experience, and coaching of Scrum for both designers and developers. Over the last few years, Matthew has been responsible for delivering the experience design for the CHOICE Magazine website, Medicare Australia’s involvement in the national eHealth records program, AHIA’s social business and digital strategy, and the introduction of user-centred agile methods to several large corporate and Federal Government agencies. Matthew is best known as an IA, Agilist, strategist, and international speaker who lives by the axiom “the only power in knowledge is to share it”.

Speaking On

The Trouble with Time Travel

Many UX practitioners own their own TARDIS – it’s the pattern many of us have adopted so designers can work with development teams using Agile methods by designing up-front and then working behind to iterate the designs. While some suggest that its best practice, does it actually reap the benefits that Agile has to offer? What are its pitfalls, what are the advantages and disadvantages compared to just doing up-front design, and are there any smarter ways of becoming agile, whether working solo, in design teams, or working on end-to-end projects? More...

Has previously done talks on...

Iron Man and IA -- designing amazing interfaces!

Matthew will examine modern information architecture techniques in interface design, from the essentials of organising information as navigation through to the complexities of designing for social media interaction. More...

Perfect Personas – Collaborative tools for designers and developers in Agile environments

"Yesterday’s UIs required clever development and cool design. Today’s successful apps demand much more – an approach that requires us to integrate digital world with the requirements of the physical, from desktop to mobile. Personas can help with this endeavour, reminding us of the human need we’re working to improve, but as the industry continues to move into more Agile approaches, is this design tool still fit for purpose? More...

The Hotness of Agile Software Development

There’s been a lot of chatter about agile software development recently. Some say that it’s little more than cowboy coding. Some say that it means no documentation. Some say it’s the silver bullet that projects need to stop wasting time and budget blowouts. Some claim “it’s just RUP and, oh, we did that before and it didn’t work”. Unfortunately, they’re missing the point. More...