Tait Communications, founded in 1969 by Sir Angus Tait, employs over 770 people and specialises in developing cutting-edge voice and data radio technologies for various sectors, including public safety, utilities, and transportation. Headquartered in Christchurch, New Zealand, the company has a global presence with offices in 17 countries.
Our first speaker Bonnie Duggan will be discussing the UX team at Tait and how they handle a diverse range of tasks, including user research, user testing, prototyping, industrial design, and user interface development. Bonnie will also explain the methodologies and processes they use to manage this variety of responsibilities. She will discuss the challenges faced by the small team within a large company and her strategies to overcome these obstacles. One significant project led by Bonnie involves creating a design system at Tait. She will share the challenges and future plans for this UX initiative.
Our second speaker Anna Bakker will be presenting the Tait base station user interface, which is a web server embedded on special hardware often located at remote radio towers. Within the radio communications industry, there are many different system types that can be set up, all with their own kinds of very technical configurations. But users will only be interested in one specific system type for their setup, which is a very small subset of functionality the base station can provide. This presentation will show some of the improvements made recently to the user interface for handling these scenarios.
About the Speakers
Bonnie Duggan holds a degree in Industrial Product Design from the University of Canterbury. During her last semester, she secured a summer internship at Tait Communications and has remained with the company ever since. Coming up in four years, Bonnie has continuously championed the cause for UX maturity within the organization. Her work spans a variety of projects, ranging from industrial design to comprehensive UI refreshes for applications and websites. Bonnie has also traveled to the USA to participate in dealer meets and conduct user research, underscoring her dedication to enhancing user experiences on a global scale.
Anna Bakker holds a degree in Information and Communication Technologies from Ara Institute of Canterbury. After developing Virtual Reality training simulators she started working at Tait Communications over three years ago, primarily working on improving the Base Station Web User Interface. In her spare time she also volunteers to develop websites, game servers, and IRC or Discord bots to help users find useful information.
Agenda:
5:00pm • Doors open, networking + refreshments
5:30pm • Presentation starts
6:30pm • More networking
7:00pm • Event close
Food and drinks are kindly sponsored by Tait Communications
Tait Communications HQ information:
Address: Tait Communications, 245 Wooldridge Road, Harewood, Christchurch 8053
There is plenty of car parking available at Tait and wheelchair access.
The meetup will be in the Kauri meeting room inside the office building (245). It is on the first floor which can be accessed by stairs or elevator.
