designing

2026-09-15 Nobody Was Frustrated: The Promise and Problem of Synthetic Users in UX Research

Hosted by CapCHI, Cristina & Zeerak  

CapCHI September 2026 event image

Our first event of the 2026/2027 season!

Join us as we kick off this new season with a talk about whether AI-generated participants can really stand in for real ones, presented by Dominira Saul, Founder & Principal, DFFRNT.

Generative AI is making it possible to create hundreds of seemingly realistic research participants in seconds. Synthetic users can answer interview questions, react to designs, complete surveys, simulate personas, and even attempt usability tasks at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional user research.

But are we actually learning about users, or generating plausible stories about them?

DATE TIME: Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 6:00-8:00 pm.

LOCATION: In-Person Event at Impact HUB Ottawa (123 Slater Street, 7th floor, Ottawa, ON K1P 5H2).

  • NOTE: The venue is in a high-rise building, and the entry doors on the ground floor/street level lock automatically at 7pm.

REGISTRATION: (Free!) meetup.com/capchi/events/316426982 

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2026-05-19 CapCHI Student Showcase 2026

Hosted by CapCHI and Anna Lena-T 

CapCHI May 2026 event image

Our last event of the 2025/2026 season!

Join us as we welcome talented HCI, Design, and UX students from Algonquin College and Carleton University. Each team will present their projects in under 10 minutes, followed by an open discussion with the audience.

DATE TIME: Tuesday, May 19, 2026, 6:00-8:00 pm.

LOCATION: In-Person Event at Impact Hub Ottawa (123 Slater Street, 7th floor, Ottawa, ON K1P 5H2).

  • NOTE: The venue is in a high-rise building, and the entry doors on the ground floor/street level lock automatically at 7pm.

REGISTRATION: (Free!) https://www.meetup.com/capchi/events/314668774/ 

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2026-04-21 Designing Enterprise Software with Claude Code

Hosted by CapCHI , Serdar and Anna Lena-T

CapCHI April 2026 event image

Many conversations about AI and design stay surface level. This one doesn’t. Allan Ziolkowski, Head of Product Design at Beyond Identity, will walk you through how his team went from Figma-first to fully AI-first in a matter of weeks, working inside a complex enterprise product environment.

You will leave with a practical framework you can apply immediately and bring back to your team: how to build a code-based design sandbox, how to enforce your design system as guardrails so AI output stays consistent, and how to move your team into shared repos with engineering so design intent ships to production exactly as intended. Every example comes from work that is live in production today.

DATE TIME: Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 6:00-8:00 pm.

LOCATION: In-Person Event at Impact Hub Ottawa (123 Slater Street, 7th floor, Ottawa, ON K1P 5H2).

  • NOTE: The venue is in a high-rise building, and the entry doors on the ground floor/street level lock automatically at 7pm.

REGISTRATION: (Free!) https://www.meetup.com/capchi/events/313966571/ 

Continue reading →