Speakers
For our workshops, we invite experts in front-end & UX, with years of experience on anything from accessibility and web performance to design systems and UX. They aren’t just experts, but also experienced teachers and speakers.
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Fantastic first day of design system workshop with @brad_frost — interesting and engaging as always! Pure delight to listen to him talk about his insights and experiences from building design systems in the wild. #inspired #designsystems @smashingconf
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Stephanie Eckles
Senior Design Engineer at Adobe Spectrum CSS team
Stephanie Eckles is a Senior Design Engineer for Adobe Spectrum CSS and a member of the CSSWG. She's also the author of ModernCSS.dev, which provides modern solutions to old CSS problems as in-depth articles, and is the creator of StyleStage.dev, and author of SmolCSS.dev and 11ty.Rocks.
Steph has 15+ years of webdev experience that she enjoys sharing as an author, workshop instructor, and conference speaker. She's an advocate for accessibility, scalable CSS, and web standards. Offline, she's mom to two girls and enjoys baking and watercolor painting.
- On the web
- https://thinkdobecreate.com
- On LinkedIn
- stepheckles
- On Mastodon
- front-end.social/@5t3ph
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Sarah L. Fossheim
Sarah Fossheim (pronouns: they/them) is an independent accessibility specialist and front-end/UX developer, emphasizing data visualization and ethical tech. Their expertise spans multiple fields, concentrating on fostering accessibility within teams and throughout the product lifecycle.
They also love to make drawings with CSS, write about tech, collect ethical design resources, and have way too many side projects. In their spare time, they’re a wildlife photographer.
- On the web
- https://fossheim.io
- On LinkedIn
- sarah-fossheim
- On Mastodon
- front-end.social/@fossheim
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Paul Boag
Paul Boag is a leader in conversion optimisation, digital strategy and user experience design. He has been working with diverse organisations such as The European Commission, PUMA and Doctors Without Borders for over 25 years. Through consultancy and training, he helps organisations better connect with today’s digital consumers.
Paul is also a well-respected figure in the digital sector. Author of six books, including Click, Digital Adaptation and User Experience Revolution. Finally, he is a prolific writer for numerous publications, including his blog, and regularly speaks internationally.
- On the web
- https://boagworld.com
- On LinkedIn
- paulboag
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Brad Frost
Brad Frost is a design system consultant, web designer & developer, speaker, writer, teacher, musician, and artist located in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. He helps people establish & evolve design systems, establish more collaborative workflows, and design & build software together.
He is the author of the book Atomic Design, which introduces a methodology to create and maintain effective design systems. He co-hosted the Style Guides Podcast and has helped create several tools and resources for web designers, including Pattern Lab, Styleguides.io, This Is Responsive, Death to Bullshit, and more.
- On the web
- http://bradfrost.com
- On LinkedIn
- bradfrost
- On Bluesky
- @bradfrost.com
- On Mastodon
- mastodon.social/@brad_frost
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Susan Weinschenk
Susan Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and the CEO at The Team W, Inc. She is a consultant to Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits. Dr. Weinschenk is the author of several books, including 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, and How to Get People to Do Stuff.
Her clients include Disney, Zappos, Western Governor’s University, the European Union, Discover Financial, and United Health Care. Dr. Weinschenk is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, and writes two popular blogs — one at the Team W website and “Brain Wise: Work better, work smarter” for Psychology Today.
- On the web
- https://theteamw.com
- On LinkedIn
- susanweinschenk
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Guthrie Weinschenk
Guthrie Weinschenk is a Behavioral Economist and the COO of The Team W, Inc. He has a degree in Economics, a law degree, and is a licensed attorney. He consults on Behavioral Science and Behavioral Economics, teaches workshops and gives keynote speeches at business and design conferences.
Guthrie is the author of I Love You, Now Read This Book. (It's About Human Decision Making and Behavioral Economics). His clients include Saatchi and Saatchi, CustomInk, BrandTrust, the Big Design conference, and the Internet User Experience conference. Guthrie is also the host of the Human Tech podcast and writes and video blogs for the Team W website.
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Samantha Gordashko
Sam is a Freelance Design Systems pro with a Design Tokens obsession.
You might recognize her under the alias of Sam I am Designs, where she's well known in the design systems industry for making people laugh while she shares pro tips, workflows, and epic fails as a public speaker, host of design systems events, and educational content creator focused on Systems Thinking and Design Tokens.
These days, Sam works with larger organizations that are scaling their design system, but she's spent most of her career as a "Design Team of One" at various tech innovation startups, working on everything from design tokens tools for designers to life-or-death design to genetic testing for psychedelic-assisted therapy. This range of experience has given her a unique perspective on ways of working in small teams to build big things while helping stakeholders appreciate the value of design processes.
- On the web
- https://bento.me/samiam
- On LinkedIn
- Sgordashko
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Kevin Powell
Kevin is a CSS evangelist and educator whose primary goal is to help people fall in love with CSS and, failing that, to at least help them be a little less frustrated by it.
He is best known for his YouTube channel, where he posts weekly educational videos that, he hopes, help both inspire and empower people to improve at CSS.
- On the web
- https://www.kevinpowell.co/
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Vitaly Friedman
Creative Lead and Co-Founder of Smashing Magazine
Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing or speaking at a conference, he’s most probably running front-end/UX workshops and webinars. He loves solving complex UX, front-end and performance problems.
- On the web
- https://smashingmagazine.com
- On LinkedIn
- vitalyfriedman
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Christine Vallaure
Founder of Moonlearning
Christine Vallaure is the founder of moonlearning.io, a UX, UI Design, and Figma learning platform where design meets code. She’s also the author of theSolo.io, a practical guide to building and growing digital products as a company of one, and a regular speaker at design and tech conferences.
With over a decade of experience collaborating with leading brands, agencies, and startups across Berlin, Mexico City, and London, Christine now calls Madrid home.
Christine is passionate about bridging the gap between design and code. She encourages designers and developers to learn from each other, fostering curiosity, collaboration, and mutual respect. Through her teaching, writing, and workshops, Christine helps designers confidently tackle new challenges while staying current with the tools and advancements shaping the industry.
- On the web
- https://www.moonlearning.io
- On LinkedIn
- christinevallaure
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Manuel Matuzović
Independent Developer & Consultant
Manuel a freelance frontend developer, consultant, accessibility auditor, writer, and speaker from Vienna, currently living in Graz. He’s passionate about web standards and a strong advocate for progressive enhancement, specializing in web accessibility and large-scale CSS.
He writes about accessibility, HTML, and CSS on his personal blog matuzo.at and htmhell.dev.
- On the web
- https://matuzo.at
- On LinkedIn
- matuzo
- On Bluesky
- @matuzo.at
- On Mastodon
- front-end.social/@matuzo