Schedule
Below you’ll find the schedule for our 7th SmashingConf Freiburg. We’ll keep this page regularly updated with new sessions, so be sure to keep checking in! Want to stay updated? Follow SmashingConf on Twitter.
Conference Monday, 10th | Conference Tuesday, 11th
Monday, 10th – Conference
Doors Open
Books, Walking, and the Ethics of Scale
Systems and products that have the most influence on the world today tend to have the least presence. What tools can we use to make their intangibility and intensely unhuman scale more human and tangible? We’ll look at book design, how designers of the 20th century have tackled this problem, and how meditative practices such as vipasanna and walking are useful tools in the contemporary human toolkit.
Morning Break
The Small Things That Add Up: How to Find What Design Factors Influence Conversion Rates
How do you know what consumers expect from your site? Every shopper is different and every shopping visit is different. Industry stats tell only part of the story. You need to crack the hood and analyze your own real user data.
Tammy will outline how and why to gather real user data, extract action-oriented insights, create a better shopper experience, and improve business metrics.
Coffee Break
Building Resilient Front-end Systems
It’s time to accept that system and network failures are inevitable and to start designing our systems to withstand them. Accomplishing this isn’t easy but we’ve learnt a few tricks along the way which we would love to share!
I’ll explain the principles behind our approach as well as detailing some of the solutions we have put in place: covering areas of automation, instrumentation and continuous testing in production. Come and learn 19 ways BuzzFeed designs their front-end to be resilient to failure!
Lunch Break
Afternoon Break
Designing for Global Audiences
Whether or not the product you’re creating is currently only being sold in one country, it’s always crucial to design and build it with global audiences in mind.
Many businesses are convinced that designing for other markets means copying their successful business model in the home country. They believe that localisation is about translation. They design their products without properly understand what changes are needed and why they are needed. Even big companies do not always get it right.
In this talk, Chui Chui will discuss how these inaccurate perceptions can lead to flawed businesses and decisions, and explore why and how to understand and design for users in different markets.
Afternoon Break
I Thought we Were Building World Peace - Using Tech Ethics to Build Better Futures
Every decision we make is one made on behalf of your user. How do we know the decisions we make are the right ones? It is time we initiate a conversation: About where we are and where we want to go, about how we define and measure goodness and rightness in the digital realm, about responsibility, about decisions and consequences, about building something bigger than our own apps. It is time we talk about the ethics of design.
This talk introduces a method for ethical decision making in design and tech. Rather than a wet moralistic blanket covering the fires of creativity, ethics can be the hearth that makes our creative fires burn brighter without burning down the house.
Closing Remarks
Party at the Kaufhaus + Evening Session
I Thought we Were Building World Peace - Using Tech Ethics to Build Better Futures
Seb loves to strip down classic machines from the 80s, and give them an extreme make-over with cutting edge technology. You may have seen the hacked Nintendo light gun with laser, lights and a built-in smoke machine that became a viral sensation on the internet in 2016.
This insight into technology from a simpler age gives us a new found appreciation and understanding about the tools we use on a daily basis.
Expect super bright LEDs, electronics and, of course, lasers.
