Last week I went to the excellent Pixel Up! conference. I got in at the last minute as a volunteer, which mostly meant handing out badges and telling people where the toilets where :) (but I also drove the Twitter on day 2). I didn’t manage to sketchnote, but I did scribble down some key things and themes I picked up.
Just do it
A theme that came up a few times was to just do it. A few of the speakers told us not to wait for permission but to go ahead and fix things. For some things, speakers recommended doing that by being an undercover hero.
For other things, they encouraged us to be the hero and to speak up. This led on to the idea of the work being a team sport: everything is a shared responsibility.
Inclusive Design
I was really happy to see Inclusive Design being a shared topic across so many of the talks. It’s something I care deeply about (see Inclusive Design What Ifs, Disability as a continuum and Inclusive Design and Accessibility from earlier this year).
The speakers talked about how:
- control is an illusion and how we should design for the real world and real people;
- we embed biases in products;
- we should be more aware how and when people access our stuff.
We can build a better web. To really change our products we need to change ourselves and change the way we build things. One way to do that is to embrace Inclusive Design: it helps everyone.
And again? :)
I hope Pixel Up! comes back to Cape Town soon. And I am seriously considering heading back up to Jo’burg for Source Up! in September. Flights and accommodation
do bump up the overall cost, though.