The Hatch Conference: Part 3
The last day of this 3 day event was packed with a lot of talks that were super interesting. From design systems, inclusion, accessibility, design processes, to AI. I was in my conference topic wonderland.
Before the event, I got ready by looking at the topics, and reading the gist. I listed down what I wanted to join, added them in my calendar and noted the location as well. In case I could not access my calendar for reasons, I also noted them down in my notebook. I am just organized like that. I wanted to apply for 2 roundtables, but they were limited to just one per participant.
So I joined one talk after the other.
A couple I really liked.
Like the Systems of Exclusion by Luke Murphy, where exclusion was discussed in current designs. Why can’t it be more inclusive especially in today’s current situation. One of the example Luke mentioned was fields that ask for gender. And yes it was not inclusive at all, which sucks. But then also got everyone to thinking, what is the purpose of the field anyways? Same with the title field. Is it even necessary? This felt like a relict from the past that everyone just accepted and did because everyone else was doing it.
Another was the talk Beyond the hype: AI & new design tools by Nadia Piet. Now, she actually presented something that also opened my mind completely. It was not about how I could cope up as a designer with AI at all. It was about how I as a designer can help make AI better for us, for the world. Her talk opened up my mind about a couple of things I never thought before. For one, the fact that any AI / ML / DL related feature needs a huge amount of data, and data centers are very hot. Or another fact about who tells the machine which ideology to present and what not to?
A third talk that I enjoyed was Beyond compliance: Embrace Multisensory & accessible design by Natalia Filvarova that talked about designing for abled users and how the experience of disabled users are not even considered most of the time. But it also went deeper to how the current experience lacks multisensory for all users. Be it with the use of colors, or music in a website, which is not that accessible for all.
And lastly, The design process is a lie by José Torre. This one I loved the most, not only because of the topic, but because of the storytelling power of José. I was really captivated. But most of all, as a process loving person myself, it taught me that even though there is a process it will never fit all situations.
I still cannot fathom my luck in being able to join. And the topics really were awesome. The feeling of being in a room where people speak the same language was elating.
The only problem I had with a really full schedule was that I had to run from one talk to the other. And I did not really want to skip the q&a portion which took up most of the last parts of the talks.
Still can’t wait to join another one in 2024. With topics like these, I am in!
Silke 