Schedule of events

WDC2022 is taking place over 2 days, October 6-7 2022.

Conference Day 1 - October 6.

8.45

Doors Open

9.00
WDC Logo

Welcome to WDC2022

Alex & Luke

9.15
Photo of Jhey Tompkins

Supercharge your skills with creative coding

Jhey Tompkins - He/Him

As developers, we're learning new skills all the time.But how can we stay creative while progressing our careers? In this talk, we'll discuss how we can discover new tools and techniques while having fun. We'll learn how making literally hundreds of demos to unearth new ways of doing things can lead to an entirely new way of working, and most importantly, how to not take things too seriously.

10.00
Photo of Hannah Clarke

(You don't have to) follow the yellow brick road - let's talk detours & diversions

Hannah Clarke - She/Her ⚡

How do you go from running projects for rowdy teenagers by day, living in a caravan teaching yourself Python by night - to a mid-level front end developer in under three years…? By connecting with people who believe in you and can point you in the right direction.
10.15

Morning break - Tea & Coffee provided

10.45
Photo of Geri Coady

If Not Now, When? Turning Your Passion Project into a Reality

Geri Coady - She/Her

Going full-time freelance can be challenging enough, but taking the plunge to bring your ideas to life as physical, sellable products can be even more intimidating. In this talk, Geri will discuss how she switched her career focus to turn her lifetime passion into a livelihood.
11.30
Photo of Jessie Auguste

Empowering web dev and design teams to build securely

Jessie Auguste ⚡

81% of developers admit to releasing applications they know to be insecure. Knowing this, how can we enable our software and design teams to ensure a secure software development life cycle without relying on training alone?
11.45
Photo of Geri Reid

Designing an accessible future

Geri Reid

Accessibility has gone from being an afterthought, to something that’s baked into the workflow of design systems everywhere; from startups to big orgs.

Just as we’ve all got to grips with WCAG 2.x, WCAG 3.0 looks set to change the way we measure accessibility.In this talk, I’ll look at the changes that the draft is proposing and what you can do now to get ahead.

What will the digital landscape look like when these new guidelines drop? I’ll apply some of WCAG 3.0’s goals to visions of the future – from automation, to Web3, to Humanity Centred Design, to questioning if the most accessible future even involves a screen.
12.30

Lunch

14.15

Welcome back

Good lunch?
14.30
Photo of Jeremy Keith

Design Principles For The Web

Jeremy Keith - He/Him

Designing and developing on the web can feel like a never-ending crusade against the unknown. Design principles are one way of unifying your team to better fight this battle. But as well as the design principles specific to your product or service, there are core principles underpinning the very fabric of the World Wide Web itself. Together, we'll dive into applying these design principles to build websites that are resilient, performant, accessible, and beautiful.
15.15

Break

15.30
Photo of Josh Tumath

How to design a GeoCities website

Josh Tumath ⚡

I’m going to take you back in time to see what web development was like back in the early 2000s when marquees were cool and everyone was getting to grips with table layouts. And let's not forget the ghastly repeating backgrounds and GIFs galore! No CSS was needed. Just don’t ask about the accessibility.

15.45
Photo of Scott Riley

Mindful Design: The Good Bits

Scott Riley

Scott wrote a book. It's called Mindful Design, and discusses how designers can take inspiration from the natural proclivities of the human brain to create ethical and effective products for all people.

This isn't a talk where he sells his book.* Instead, Scott will share with you how you can design for the natural structure of human psychology, what bad design looks like, and how designers can take steps right now to create meaningful products that positively impact people’s lives. He'll take you through the fallacy of 'designing for dopamine', why Pavlov is a dickhead, and why design shouldn't be about manipulation.

* But, you know, you should totally buy his book.

16.30

End of Day 1

19.00

After Party & Pub Quiz

Golden Guinea

 

Conference Day 2 - October 7.

8.45

Doors Open

9.00
WDC Logo

Welcome to back for Day 2!

Alex & Luke

9.15
Photo of Akil Benjamin

Radical Is Close To Home

Akil Benjamin

COMUZI’s philosophy is based on Radical Creativity.

Radical Creativity isn’t anarchy or sticking it to The Man, it’s about being:

  • Adventurous
  • Experimentation
  • Championing: rigour, privacy and transparency
  • …and Meeting people now with whatever we design

We use this to give us a wide range of options to create new takes on problems, and imagine new futures.

Radical Creativity has now been used by: Southwark Council, Kings Health Partners, Guys and St Thomas’ Charity, Wellcome Trust, Google and more.

We’ve been labelled “Creative Superheroes” for our work.

But how do you produce something Radically creative again and again and again?

The truth of the matter is, designers at COMUZI are not superheroes, we’ve been on a journey of growth and the pains which come with it.

We’ve identified it’s our decision making which matters.

Radical Creativity is a decision away and usually as a designer that decision lies with you.This talk is about our journey working with this ‘truth’ while living in the pandemic, the challenges we’ve faced and growth required to still reimagine the future.

10.00
Photo of Alex Jegtnes

An accessibility audit anecdote: Achieving awareness and amelioration

Alex Jegtnes ⚡

If you've ever been a contractor, or worked in a large organisation or agency where teams and projects are shuffled around frequently, at some point, you'll be responsible for something you had little hand in shaping. What would you do if, just after this happened, Very Important Senior Stakeholders commissioned an accessibility audit with thoroughly disheartening results, and you found yourself as the only developer with accessibility knowledge on an entire team?

Join one man's account of an accidental mission to try to instil an accessibility-minded culture in a large organisation. You'll be regaled with the inevitable pitfalls and frustrations of having things be out of your control for both technical and organisational reasons, but, also, the joy of a few things going right and seeing that sometimes, change _is_ possible.

10.15

Morning break - Tea & Coffee provided

10.45
Photo of Amy Hupe

Building conscious design systems

Amy Hupe

Design systems help us work more efficiently by helping us to accelerate and multiply our design decisions across our product landscape.

But design systems are not just harmless scaling machines.

When we don’t design for the full human spectrum of identities and characteristics and circumstances and experiences that our design system needs to serve, we don’t just exclude people - we erase them.

In this talk, Amy will explore the human side of design systems, and how we can create more conscious design systems that centre people over technology.
11.30
Photo of Imanina Birch

Social Design, Capitalist Society

Imanina Birch ⚡

A short reflection on the limitations of designing for good. How can we design to make a difference, when money dictates the change we can make? And how do we not hurt ourselves (and others) in the process?

11.45
Photo of Jules Mahé

Finding the right balance between consistency and flexibility for your design system

Jules Mahé

When you start building design systems, it’s easy to think your design system should ensure consistency in design, aligning every one of your projects so they can all deliver the same experience. However, you may realize that flexibility in a design system isn’t at odds with consistency, especially if you want to prevent your team’s design system from being a living nightmare. So, why is consistency so important in the design, and how do you find the right balance between flexibility and consistency in design systems?

12.30

Lunch

14.15

Welcome back

Good lunch?
14.30
Photo of Andy Bell

Be the Browser’s Mentor, not its Micromanager

Andy Bell - He/Him

We look at how we can hint the browser, rather than micromanage it by leaning into progressive enhancement, CSS layout, fluid type & space and modern CSS capabilities to build resilient front-ends that look great for everyone, regardless of their device, connection speed or context.
15.15

Break

15.30
Photo of Alex Older

Sensible Golf (Risk vs. Reward)

Alex Older ⚡

When I go to play a round of golf every every shot has a risk vs reward. Much like the work we do every day it is all be about weighing them up and making sure we make the smart choices for our current predicament.

15.45
Photo of @JamFactory

LESS THINKERING, MORE TINKERING

Gavin Strange

A neon-soaked passion-filled presentation of all things creativity, trying to strike the elusive balance between uncurbed enthusiasm and pragmatic process. Director & Designer Gavin Strange plots his creative journey through his time in the design and film industry– picking it apart and extracting the lessons and learnings from it all. It’s loud, silly, and hopefully energizing. The aim of the game is to convince YOU to make more of the stuff that makes YOUR heart sing.

16.30

End of Conf!