Over the last decade, design systems have taken the world of digital design and development by storm, and Brad's helped dozens of organizations create and evolve their design systems. Along the way, he invented a methodology for creating design systems called Atomic Design. In this talk, Brad will reflect on the past, present, and future of design systems, sharing bumps, bruises, and best practices along the way.

Brad will also be running a workshop on Advanced Design Systems.

You built a shiny new dashboard to help colleagues make data-driven decisions. You listened to their needs, studied dashboards designed by experts, and launched your baby into the world to... crickets.

Everyone logged in immediately after launch but usage then fell off a cliff. When you ask why, you get vague answers like "I'm too busy" (code for "It's not giving me enough value") or "It's missing what I need" (despite the fact you built exactly what they asked for).

What's going on? Most dashboards fail to answer basic questions like, "Are these numbers good or bad?" or "Do any of these numbers require action?" Often, important problems don't appear on the dashboard at all.

Designing dashboards that meet these fundamental needs isn't easy, but it is doable. How? Find out in this engaging talk by dashboard design expert and best-selling author Nick Desbarats.

Nick will also giving a workshop on Practical Dashboards Masterclass on Monday, September 8.

In recent years, updates in CSS have given us many exciting possibilities for creating modern, dynamic web experiences. Yet, for many developers, the day-to-day reality often involves working within the constraints of legacy codebases.

In her talk, Ana will explore practical strategies for navigating the challenges of maintaining and modernizing legacy CSS. Is refactoring an option? What are the pros and cons of this? How do we approach stakeholders? And if refactoring is not an option, how do we prioritize and initiate changes, measure improvements and quick wins?

With her many years of finding the balance here, Ana will share lessons from past experiences and look forward to what's ahead.

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 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-let's make the world more inclusive, one design at a time.

Today's Web is more complex, unpredictable, dynamic, and powerful than ever. Yet, 25 years after "A Dao of Web Design" we still approach building for the Web with a mindset of control, using linear workflows and static design tools that often don't reflect the Web's true nature and potential. The canvas we work on has transformed, the materials we use have changed.

Together, we'll explore how we can use web design engineering to start painting with the Web and create designs that are resilient, accessible, and true to the Web's greatest strength: its inherent flexibility.

In the realm of secrets, curiosity is your compass...

In this talk, Scott will shed light on the tools and processes involved in delivering web performance improvements at a massive scale. Gain insight into the daily work of a web performance team in 2025, tracking metrics, identifying bottlenecks, proving out potential solutions, and carefully deploying targeted improvements to be monitored and continuously refined.

You'll come away with tips for using metrics that support your product's unique needs, patterns to ensure access in unreliable conditions, tricks to improve delivery speed, and a dose of excitement for the pursuit of making websites work well for the broadest audience possible.

In his talk, Oliver explores how philosophy can inform design—and how creative practice can improve academic philosophy. Drawing on Giambattista Vico's principle of Maker's Knowledge, he reflects on 25 years of working as a designer with a background in humanities. He shows how and where philosophy has influenced his design process, and how the practice of building user focused products could energize academic philosophy.

Some new features in CSS only show their real potential when we radically break with old habits. Doing that on an existing website is almost impossible. That's why Manuel built a new project from scratch with modern CSS and questioned every line of code he wrote.

In this talk, he presents what he has learned and encourages you to review your best practices.

Manuel will also be running a full-day in-person workshop on Accessible Frontend Patterns, the day after the conference!

In current times, it feels like everything needs to be cheap, fast and good, which we all know is an impossible trifecta. And whilst AI can possibly help your organisation understand some of your user groups better, we might need to actually invest more in research first to save & make more money later.

With almost 20 years of user research experience in various industries, Kevin will go into what strategies will work in what situations, even if budgets are low and time is short.

Cassie’s taking GSAP for a spin in a live-coded game, and the direction it takes is up to you. With input from the audience, the game will take shape in real time. Characters? Enemies? Explosions? Syntax errors that break the whole thing (hopefully not). Who knows, anything could happen.

Cassie will also be running a workshop on Web Animation.