Scaling CSS Layout Beyond Pixels

Responsive designs being created today have to serve more users on more devices and with more varied abilities and preferences than ever before. And size and spacing of elements can quite literally make or break your layout. In this new world, strict pixel values are so Web 2.0. Let’s review modern CSS techniques for building future-forward flexibility into our layouts and components.

(Addition: (link: https://moderncss.dev/contextual-spacing-for-intrinsic-web-design/ text: read the companion article to this talk here))

Lost in Translation

A frontend developer’s job is to look at a design, interpret it, and translate it to HTML and CSS. Unfortunately, information often gets lost in translation because we rely too much on visual aspects of a design, rather than its semantic meaning.

In his talk, Manuel Matuzović uncovers the invisible patterns we should recognise in a design, and how they affect accessibility.

Exclusive Design

A few years ago Vasilis was trying to become a better inclusive designer. During his research he realised that he knew quite a lot about the guidelines and the theory behind technical accessibility, but he didn’t know that much about the people who actually need these guidelines. So, he started to invite real people with disabilities over to their university. In a few different courses his students design and create tailor made products exclusively for and with these people. The idea is, that by closely observing how real people use their computers, they will better understand people and become better designers.

Some of the things Vasilis is going to show in this presentation: a tool that makes it harder to type for someone who has difficulty typing, a website without any semantics for someone who is blind, and some funny, yet invisible animations he created for a blind artist.

Returning to Your Maker Roots

Work is all consuming. It gobbles up your time, leaves little space for your passions, and can ultimately lay claim to your personal identity. It’s a recipe for an existential crisis. You can find the balance you crave and the growth you need by investing yourself in projects outside of your day job.

In this talk, Aarron Walter shares how launching a podcast about the challenges of life and the alchemy of satisfaction helped him grow in ways he’d never expected.

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

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.

More Than Answers – Designing for Questions and Provocations

Jude will share his insights on why companies, both large and small, should keep an open brief at the beginning of the design journey. The Brief should ‘leave room’ for ideation to occur while the project is ‘in the wild’, reacting to feedback and critique, avoiding confirmation bias in the team and hence outcome. To do this, a deeper awareness of ‘Beta Testing’ is essential, and to allow for multiple variations of success, as well as allowing failure to also avert doubling-down on the wrong things. For any industry which has subjectivity and a brand strategy, this can be a powerful way to disrupt in a way that strengthens the bond between company and consumer.