https://frontenddesignconference.com

Front-end Design Conference - April 25-26, 2024Front-end Design Conference - April 25-26, 2024Front-end Design Conference - April 25-26, 2024 We had a blast, folks, thank you! April 25-26 Palladium Theater, St. Petersburg, FL Two days of talks about front-end design and development in a beautiful city with wonderful people. Let's learn and laugh We'll learn from folks during the talks and from each other while chatting between them. We'll sprinkle in some treats, and hopefully, there will be plenty of laughter. The talented folks sharing with us! A mix of speakers from previous years and some new faces Stephanie Eckles Brandon Mitchell Ben Callahan James Quick Elyse Holladay Cameron Moll Homer Gaines Jina Anne Adam Kuhn Cassidy Williams The Plan April 25 08:30 - 09:30 Breakfast Food and drinks in the downstairs area, with plenty of tables 09:30 - 09:40 Welcome! Kick off the day with a welcome from the team. 9:40 - 10:25 Improving Accessibility Through Design Systems Imagine building your app with accessibility in mind right from the very start, like laying the foundation with bricks. An accessible design system can act as this foundation. It provides a toolbox with clear instructions, core principles, and ready-made components. By prioritizing accessibility from the start, these systems promote the reusability of inclusive design patterns and ensure consistent, well-tested components. This, in turn, leads to a smoother development process and a more inclusive user experience for all. Homer Gaines Staff UI Engineer and Accessiblity Lead for a start-up. Homer speaks at various conferences, blogs about accessibility, and produces music. His latest album, Diving Through Neon, is available on all major streaming services. 10:25 - 10:55 Break 10:55 - 11:40 Modern CSS For Dynamic Component-Based Architecture Unlock the potential of modern CSS development! Explore a modern project architecture that emphasizes theming, responsive layouts, and component design. Learn about features to improve code organization, and dig into layout techniques such as grid and container queries. Get inspired by real-world examples of context-aware components that use cutting-edge CSS techniques. After this informative session, you'll be inspired to expand your CSS skills and ready to create scalable, future-friendly web projects. Stephanie Eckles Stephanie Eckles is a Sr. SWE focused on design systems at Microsoft. 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, egghead and workshop instructor, Twitch streamer, and conference speaker. She's an advocate for accessibility, scalable CSS, and web standards. Offline, she's mom to two girls and a cowboy corgi and enjoys baking. 11:40 - 1:15 Lunch We'll share suggestions in the local area and there will an optional discussion in the main lobby from 1:00 - 1:30. 1:15 - 2:00 Talk It Out: Using Natural Language with AI to go from idea to PoC Dive into using AI to transform raw ideas into blueprints for Proof of Concepts (PoC), using natural language prompts and divergent thinking. This approach leverages AI's ability to enhance and guide the creative process, helping bridge the gap between good intentions to tangible creation. Brandon Mitchell Brandon is a dad, developer, and user advocate with 17 years at a dream job at three five two. 2:00 - 2:15 Break 2:15 - 3:00 It's Not For Looking At: Building Impactful Design Systems When was the last time you shipped something that really felt impactful? We know a design system can be a powerful tool—but “value” and “impact” are difficult to define, quantify, and measure. Struggles with adoption, “convincing the business,” and yes, DS teams getting laid off, point to a challenging reality: we're not delivering the value we say we are. In this talk, we'll explore the idea of “impact” and how to build a design system that delivers it. We'll look at the role of a design system in the product development process, how to measure its impact, and how to use that data to make the case for investment. We'll also discuss how to build a design system that's not just for looking at, but for making a real difference in your organization. Elyse Holladay A technical generalist, Design Systems expert, and builder. 10+ years experience in design, software development, and product management on cross-functional teams, with a focus on Design Systems, at Indeed, RetailMeNot, Square Root (acquired), Bazaarvoice. 3:00 - 3:30 Break 3:30 - 4:15 How I Fell In Love With Astro In a short period of time, Astro has become a serious player in the framework space, competing directly with major frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt, etc. But how? What’s the secret? It’s providing an incredible Developer Experience. Let’s explore the features and functionality that make working with Astro such a joy. James Quick James is a JS Developer, Keynote Speaker, and Content Creator whose passion for teaching has impacted hundreds of thousands of developers across the world. With 10+ years of Software Development and Developer Advocacy experience, he brings deep technical knowledge as well as a proven ability to communicate across levels of understanding and experience to impact a broad audience of developers. In his spare time, he runs a thriving Discord community called Learn Build Teach, plays co-ed soccer with his wife, and can solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute. 6:00 - 9:00 Party Time to celebrate! Take some photos together in the photo booth and enjoy the company of your fellow attendees. Day 1 Breakfast: 8:30 - 9:30 Talks: 9:30 - 12 Lunch: 12 - 1:30 Talks: 1:30 - 4:30 Partaaay: 6 - 9 Day 2 Breakfast: 9 - 10 Talks: 10 - 12 Lunch: 12 - 1:30 Talks: 1:30 - 4:30 April 26 09:00 - 10:00 Breakfast Food and drinks in the downstairs area, with plenty of tables 10:00 - 10:45 Wisdom from the Trees In this session, Ben Callahan will share the most impactful takeaways from over 18 episodes of his collaborative learning community, The Question. Ben Callahan These days, Ben is spending time researching and writing a book on design systems. He writes and speaks mostly about design systems, culture, and being better humans. 10:45 - 11:15 Break 11:15 - 12:00 Building a blog-sharing generator Using Astro, edge functions, and Netlify on-demand builders, Cassidy built (and open sourced!) a new way to share specific private content publicly. In this talk she'll explain how it works, how she built it, and how you can build it too. Cassidy Williams Cassidy. is the CTO at Contenda, building Brainstory! She is also a startup advisor and investor, developer experience expert, and meme-maker on the internet. She enjoys building mechanical keyboards, playing music, and teaching in my free time. You should subscribe to her newsletter, or play her word game, Jumblie! 12:00 - 1:30 Lunch We'll share suggestions in the local area and there will an optional discussion in the main lobby from 1:00 - 1:30. 1:30 - 2:15 So what is "design quality" anyway and why is it so hard to achieve? It would be fair to argue that design quality is one of the most important measures of the work we do as front-end practitioners. The problem is nobody seems to know what "design quality" means — or at least we can't seem to agree on exactly what it is and why it matters, making it difficult to measure much less aim for. In this session we'll explore together what design quality should mean, how to prioritize design quality with peers, stakeholders, and executives, and ultimately how to achieve it despite headwinds, confusion, and lack of prioritization for all things "design quality." Cameron Moll Since 1999, Cameron has had the privilege of shipping exceptional user experiences for web, mobile, and other digital platforms. He has led teams ranging in size from 1 to 100+ (including remote employees and contractors) at non-profits, startups, and some of the biggest companies in tech. 2:15 - 2:45 Break 2:45 - 3:30 Should Designers No Code? One of the age-old questions we hear in our industry is, "Should designers code?" But I want to propose a different question: "Should designers no-code?" No-code — and other collaborative design and development tools — can not only bridge the gap between design and engineering but get rid of the gap entirely. As a design systems advocate, practitioner, and community builder, I’ll share my thoughts on how the future of digital design can bring our worlds closer together — and how some of that is already here today with tools like Webflow. Jina Anne Jina is a design systems advocate living in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m a designer who codes and “no-codes.” 3:30 - 3:45 Break 3:45 - 4:30 A Starwipe is Born: View Transitions, Scroll-based Animations & Other Interactions You Might Not Need That Third-Party Library For Let’s take a look at some emerging animation APIs that allow us to transition content states, transform elements on scroll and impart some much needed surprise & delight without the mountain of Javascript we once reached for. We’ll break down a few practical- and a few wildly impractical- examples and cover some animation fundamentals as we explore some techniques to help keep the web weird. Adam Kuhn Adam is a creative frontend dev at Lightning.ai. His frequent creative endeavors and demos have been featured multiple times in the CodePen Spark, Codrops Collective and several other industry newsletters, with printed contributions for Net Magazine, Web Designer Magazine and Creative Bloq as well as apperances across several web development podcasts. 4:30 Closing Time 🥁 We don't have to go home, but we can't stay there. For those interested, we'll meet up for some final conversations at a local spot. Join Us Some of the people you'll get to meet! We've asked attendees to share a "yearbook style" message if they want to. Nick Walsh spacer.gif Robert DeLuca The best connections were made at front end conf! Brad Miller Make friends first, make sales second, make love third. In no particular order. Jason Beaird Take only memories, leave only kebab menus. Benjamin Marte Stoked to see my FrontEnd Conf Family 😬 Alex Curtis-Slep CSS flexing my way back into tech! John Jameson Love all, trust a few, don’t worry about the CSS — I’ll fix it later Gene Crawford FEDC4Life! Erik Runyon I'm beginning to think this whole web thing isn't just a fad. Ismael Burciaga Excited to see all my homies :) TJ Pitre Life can be like a webpage without a stylesheet - you gotta add your own style to make it interesting. Tami Gaines Ohh yeah, Class of 2014 is back! Hugs all around! I missed you guys! Mike Herchel Excited this is back Carl Smith Of all the things I've lost, it's my mind I miss the most. Daryn St. Pierre Shapes, colors, and bacon donuts with all of my old FEDC friends! Kenyon Kowal Super stoked for that FEDC is back! Always a great time, with a shi!t ton of smart folks. Adekunle Oduye Life is a lot like debugging code—sometimes you just have to embrace the errors and keep on compiling your journey to success. Giovanni DiFeterici Can't stop that feelin' Cory Dransfeldt Stoked to attend and meet everyone! (Less stoked for the cross country flight.) Dzuy Nguyen Here for the donuts and friends. Andi Graham Voted "most likely to attend every year even when it's no longer relevant to her role." Benjamin Ogden Whoo hoo!! :) Jeffrey Pia Front-end is the BEST end Brittney Cox alt="happy web designer in her garden" Efrain Lugo Keep calm and querySelectorAll. Drew Powers [object Object] Matthew Johnson First time. Excited to be among other like-minded professionals. Drew Barontini Don't let your dreams be dreams Philip Zastrow --debug-mode: deeppink; Dan Ryan Humans > Technology Sean Walker So happy y'all are back, now when's lunch? Noelle Lansford I'm just happy to be here. Mike Houghton What Gene said, or maybe it was Carl. I forget. Kourtney Strickland Always remember to make the logo bigger. xoxo Caroline Horn Today is a good day to clean your desktop Christopher Lee Just saying, Google has helped me solve more problems than my therapist. Greg Hemphill Time for Tampabay's nerds to unite! Doug Neiner There are very few problems that chocolate covered bacon can't solve! Alicia Brooks I can't wait for this reunion! Jordan Wade Soda or Pop? Chris Burns I pretend I can accomplish anything, because my parents never told me I couldn't. Ryan Clements VM175:1 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'quote') Melissa Thompson Passionate about savory oatmeal and web accessibility. Charles Villard Let's enjoy the humanity in code and design before the AI overlords take over. Marianne Shaffer Compiling aspirations and deploying dreams Garth Braithwaite It'll be fun to be back at Front-End Conf. Cat Lim H.A.G.S. aka Have a Great (Design) System Helen Solle Conner Dux Femina Facti Justin Linn Think atomically, design molecularly, and build organisms. Great interfaces start small. Marcus Burnette All my friends are plugins. Nina Martinez Just an Internet Maker-Upper ready to nerd out at this conf! Liz Tiller Can't wait to see everyone again! Peter Drysdale Up front? Matt Graham Brian Burridge Chris Lagasse Lin Jackson Amber Feinerman Doug Davis Michael La Plante Melissa Cozart Jorge Hernandez Guil Hernandez Emily Simonis Ben Stankich Bryce Bigger Meagan Ryan Christian Dalby Anatoliy Orgunov Julie Field Tim Dikun Brent Strandy Daniel Broughan Clint McKoy Johnathan Ludwig Kevin Hanselman Mathieu Guilbault Joseph Kelly Sonia Allen Kirsty MacRae Dylan Almonte Michele Cynowicz Brandon Brown Gregory Keener Christy Durity Franco Perez Vivien Lemoine Anna Gernandt Jessica Gray Charlotte Koh Mckenna Martin Valerie Yeltman Robert Lockridge Nicholas Stees Brandon Simanteris Mark Lair Roy Dacke Jacob Lynn Dan Lynn Jeff McNabb Xiaoli Tao Chi Cui Samael Aponte I never get lost. Because I always find the right path. Keaton Moore Always design with