Schedule

• 18:00

  Details

  Warm-up at Just Eat Takeaway.com

  

  We've once again teamed up with our friends at Just Eat Takeaway.com to invite you to a free meetup to get you in the mood for the conference!

  It's a chance to network, make new friends, and listen to a few lightning talks in an informal, intimate setting. Here's what we have planned:
  

  • Molly Nye: Systemising Delight
  • Jamie Maguire: Building a Design System: Things I Wish I’d Known Three Years Ago
  • Marwa Gorvan: Designing with Aphantasia

  The warm-up is free to attend, but as space is limited, please register to reserve your spot.

  Sponsor

  A huge thank you goes to our venue sponsor, global on-demand delivery platform Just Eat Takeaway.com, for hosting us.
  

  Where?

  2nd Floor Auditorium, Just Eat, Broad Quay House, Broad Quay, Bristol, BS1 4DJ (Google Maps).

• 8:45

  Details

  Doors Open and Registration

  Pick up your conference pass and grab a tea or coffee!

• 9:20

  Details

  Welcome

  This year, the one and only Bruce Lawson will MC the conference and take you through the day!

  

• 9:30

  Talk Details
  

  Rachel Andrew

  A Pragmatic Guide to Browser Support

  It’s tempting to think of Baseline as creating a hard line. If a feature isn’t Baseline, then it’s not ready for use. However, we all know that web development is a world of “it depends”.

  While we can, in most cases, make an objective, unopinionated call on whether something is or is not interoperable, it’s much harder to decide whether something is a good candidate for progressive enhancement. That requires an opinion, knowledge of the audience, even the exact use of the feature.

  So, how should you think about using Baseline to inform your browser strategy? What about those features that have limited availability but are obvious progressive enhancements or have a great polyfill? Is there a difference between a feature that’s only in one browser and one that’s stable in two?

  In this talk, you'll learn about some of the CSS and JavaScript features that are Newly available and some that are still not yet Baseline, but that have a clear path to be included in your development roadmap.

  Read our interview with Rachel.

• 10:15

  Talk Details
  

  Morgane Peng

  Dev x Design x PM: A Trio in Transition

  The classic Developer x Designer x PM trio is supposed to work like a well-oiled machine… but in reality, it's often three people arguing over who broke the designs, who forgot the edge cases, and who keeps adding "just one more feature" to the MVP.

  With budgets tightening and AI speeding everything up, those old role boundaries make even less sense today, yet the friction remains. How do we collaborate without stepping on each other's toes, or egos?

  In this talk, we'll cut through the "AI builder" buzzword and focus on what can work inside established orgs. Morgane will share concrete examples and practical advice to help teams work together more smoothly and with less eye-rolling.

  Read our interview with Morgane. 

• 10:55

  Morning Break

• 11:15

  Talk Details
  

  Nick Lewis

  Designing and Building for the Low-Carbon Web

  Have you ever considered the environmental impact of your digital work? Have you felt stuck, not knowing what you can do within your role?

  In this talk, we will explore how designers and developers can reduce the footprint of the digital products and services they create for clients. From the initial mindset shift, through tweaking how we work with industry tools, to implementation and measurement – this talk isn’t about shaming or passing the blame torch. It’s about the everyday changes you can make that are better for both people and the planet.

  Read our interview with Nick. 

• 12:00

  Talk Details
  

  Matt Zeunert ⚡

  Lightning Talk: Where Do Your Web Performance Metrics Come From?

  Superficially, different page speed testing tools are very similar. But a look under the hood reveals why they often report different metric values for the same website.

  In this talk, Matt will explain the differences in how these tools are built, the constraints they operate under, and how different ways to simulate a slow network can impact your performance metrics.

  Learn what to keep in mind when interpreting your test results from tools like Lighthouse, Chrome DevTools, WebPageTest, or the DebugBear website speed test.

  Read our interview with Matt. 

• 12:20

  Talk Details
  

  Kardo Ayoub

  Well, I Didn’t See That Coming!

  Join us for a fun, light-hearted, and eye-opening (pun intended!) journey through the world of design, as Kardo shares his personal story of becoming a visually impaired designer. He’ll be talking about what it’s like to navigate the design world with a vision impairment, how it’s transformed the way he thinks about design and accessibility, and why inclusive design isn’t just important — it’s essential.

  Expect real-life insights, some humorous stories, and practical tips to help you rethink the way you approach design. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or developer, or just curious about how to make your products more user-friendly, this talk will inspire you to see the world of design differently. You’ll no doubt walk away with a fresh perspective on how good design can make a huge impact for everyone — whether they have 20/20 vision or not! Don’t miss out — make the world more inclusive, one design at a time.

• 13:00

  Details

  Lunch (90 minutes)

  See our location guide for recommendations on where to grab a bite to eat. Show your lanyard and get a 10% discount at the Arnolfini café bar. 

• 14:30

  Talk Details
  

  Luke Murphy ⚡

  Lightning Talk: Design Systems are Dead. Long Live Design Systems

  Design systems need to die — or at least, design systems as we know them. The way we've commodified the discipline, wrapped it in jargon, and positioned ourselves as a "different" kind of team has made it nearly impossible for the people who control budgets to actually understand what we do. We're at the peak of inflated expectations, sliding into the trough of disillusionment, and the way out isn't better branding, it's radical simplification. If we want buy-in, we need to stop talking about "design systems" and start talking about platform, operations, and enablement in language that actually makes sense to the rest of the org.

  In this talk, Luke will argue for de-commodifying design systems entirely: breaking them down into their constituent parts and positioning them as core product infrastructure rather than a separate, magical discipline. The goal isn't to kill what we do, but to integrate it so deeply into how product teams work that it becomes invisible. That's the path to the plateau of productivity: Cut the bullshit, communicate value in terms people understand, and stop treating design systems like a niche specialism that needs defending.

  Read our interview with Luke. 

• 14:55

  Talk Details
  

  Christine Vallaure

  Understanding Layout Between UI Design and Code

  Designers and developers often approach layout with different mental models, especially around grids, spacing, and responsiveness. That disconnect leads to friction and broken expectations.

  In this talk, we look at layout from both sides: CSS Grid, Flexbox, and Container Queries from the code side, and Figma and Penpot from the design side. This is not about handoff perfection, but about building shared understanding and better outcomes through clearer collaboration.

  Read our interview with Christine. 

• 15:35

  Afternoon Break

• 16:00

  Talk Details
  

  Candi Williams

  Language: The Secret Sauce of Great UX

  Good, helpful, useful, readable content is at the heart of good design. So, why is it so often seen as an afterthought?

  This talk hones in on how we can change that, delving into linguistics and examples to highlight why real content is crucial and how UX design and content people can work together to create the most meaningful designs – even when your content designers are stretched thin (or non-existent at your org!).

• 16:45

  Talk Details
  

  Heydon Pickering

  Making HTML Make Music

  The <img/> element was available in 1995. We had to wait another 15 years for <audio/>. There’s still little we can do with sound in HTML, except play, or stop, something already recorded. Actually sampling, signal processing, and sequencing sound means either raw-dogging the Web Audio API or using a monolithic library like Tone.js.

  In any case, you find yourself writing a lot of JavaScript and not much music. Heydon wants to be able to design sound like they write prose: hypertextually. Pursuing this has become a multi-year obsession, and it’s revived their 20-year-long passion for the web. Along the way, they've discovered that a 2KB custom element can do as much as £200 of hardware. This way to the rabbit hole!

  Read our interview with Heydon. 

• 17:25

  Closing Remarks

• 17:30

  Details

  End and Social!

  Join us at The Cock & Tail for a free drink on us!