The Festival

Each Thursday in June we have a conference focused on a big-picture topic like increasing the impact of design, creating an inclusive design culture and building the future we all want (and need).

These festival days are focused on zooming out a little and are perfect for a more senior practitioner, design manager, senior IC, product manager, product owner or anyone looking to progress our industry as a whole.

Three conferences will cover big picture topics including:

- Strategy & Business
- Design Culture
- Design Ethics

Digital by design

Spread over three Thursday afternoons in June (or mornings if you’re in the US), it’ll be a combination of over a dozen short talks you can watch live or on-demand, plus live Q&As.

To ensure content is accessible pre-recorded content will be captioned and live Q&As will be live transcribed and available on-demand within 72 hours.

Please note the schedule is subject to changes as we finalise the line-up.

Day Three - Design Ethics

Our final mini-conference puts design ethics front and centre. Expect straight-talking about how we can, as an industry, be better and tackle some of the most challenging questions we face as designers.

Introduction & Welcome from Jeremy

A few words of welcome from our UX Fest host and an introduction to today's theme.

Jeremy Keith   Founder, Clearleft

Not Your Typical Design Ethics Talk

Kit will talk about the ethos of "makers"—how making things and simply being creative for the sake of creativity can be a bad thing, if we're not willing to be responsible for our legacy and pretend that “design isn’t political.” I'll showcase studies of companies and products that are making our lives and our society worse—sometimes unintentionally. He'll explore dark patterns and how they could cost millions of dollars—and, sometimes, human lives. And share three areas of transformation where we as an industry can get better:

  • Self-identity: Transform our beliefs to shift from pure craftsmanship to become the makers of social good, evolve our definition of success from “moving fast and breaking things” into the sustainability and health of our society.
  • Connection: Engage with as many people as possible in our companies (beyond just tech), overcome our biases through diversity and inclusion, and share beliefs and values that empower our partners and us to care about people, together.
  • Future-proofing: Ask questions to one another to collectively identify the emerging risk zones for our products and services using a variety of tools, including EthicalOS, moral value maps, “worst-case scenario” workshops, and more.
Kit Oliynyk   UX Design Lead, OneMain

Q&A with Kit Oliynyk

Jeremy will take your questions for Kit.

Kit Oliynyk   UX Design Lead, OneMain
Jeremy Keith   Founder, Clearleft

Time for a break

Time for a break from sitting down. Take a walk if you can, and grab a drink (hot, cold, long or short). We'll be back in 30 minutes.

Equity in Design - What's Not Working, and What We Can Do About It

In this talk, Steven Wakabayashi (founder and president of QTBIPOC Design) will walk through the landscape of diversity within our design industry, highlight some of the pitfalls of transactional DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) work, and ways of creating brave and safe spaces to create more equitable spaces for one another that encourages more diversity and creativity within our design teams.

Steven Wakabayashi   Founder & President, QTBIPOC Design

Designing The Future When You're Steeped In The Past: How Pop Culture and Media Tropes Contribute to Bias in Technology

In this talk, Felicia explores how modern media and pop culture influence engineering and design, from target audience to coding and ethics. With an eye towards unlocking positive possibilities, as well as critical feedback for the industry, this talk aims to open up new avenues for designers, engineers and all sorts of product people and inspire us to work in more inclusive and robust ways.

Felicia Williams   Design Director, Twitter

Time for a break

Time for a break from sitting down. Take a walk if you can, and grab a drink (hot, cold, long or short). We'll be back in 30 minutes.

And Now the Good News

It's been a tough few years. But I don’t need to tell you that. You were there.

This talk provides answers to some of the most challenging questions facing us as designers and builders for the coming years: Where do we go from here? How are we going to get there? And how can we make things better in the face of a world that seems to be getting worse and worse?

Jon Bell   Founding Designer, Replay.io

Q&A with Jon Bell

Jeremy will take your questions for Jon.

Jon Bell   Founding Designer, Replay.io
Jeremy Keith   Founder, Clearleft

Outro for Day Three

A few words from Jeremy about the day and a wrap up of the Festival.

Jeremy Keith   Founder, Clearleft

Tickets

We have a range of passes available to suit every schedule. All the conference and festival content will be available on-demand for three months after the event.