Wednesday June 3
Registration
Register from 8.30, grab a coffee, connect with fellow attendees, and get ready for a fantastic day.
Welcome
Steve Baty, your MC for the day gets the day started.
Most AI Products Aren't Very Good (Yet)
Let’s be honest. Most of them aren’t that good. They work, but they don’t hold up. They’re usable, but not especially useful. AI has massively scaled our ability to produce output, but it hasn’t scaled the taste that…
Tell AI to build a ‘Faster Horse’: Why reframing is the last human advantage
AI is exceptional at optimisation. Give it a goal and it will refine, accelerate, and automate within that frame. It will generate better outputs, faster workflows, cleaner systems.
But it cannot decide that the…
Real-World Vibe Prototyping at Google Maps
For many designers, "vibe coding" sits in an uncomfortable gap. We see the hype, but the reality often feels like a parlour trick: great for messy experimentation, but unreliable for professional work. It challenges…
Lunch
Join your fellow attendees and speakers for a bite to eat, coffee and great conversation.
Personas You Can Talk To: Turning Research Into Persona Agents
Personas are traditionally static artefacts: a poster, a slide, a section in a report. They can be useful, but easy to ignore once the project moves on. Persona agents change that relationship by turning a persona…
Dispatches from the frontline: building AI with AI at Atlassian
Atlassian is rapidly pivoting into an AI-forward strategy, both in our features and our tools. I'm not going to get on stage and tell you AI is a magic technology that can do anything and everything; instead, I'll share…
Why Designers Are Accidentally Breaking Customers' Trust in AI
For thirty years, we've been designing one-way USER experiences. Now we are designing two-way Human+AI experiences. We had established principles we designed 1 user experiences with - consistency, hierarchy and…
Fast ≠ good
Everyone in design right now is being sold the same vision: generate faster, explore more, ship sooner. And the tools genuinely deliver on that. But somewhere in the rush, a quieter question is getting lost — are we…
Afternoon break
Recharge before the final session with great food, coffee, and more.
Designing AI Experiences for High Stakes Industries
AI experiences can look flawless in a prototype. The real risk starts after you ship the feature, when real users, facing real consequences, start pushing your model into use cases you didn’t plan for. This session…
Accessibility walked so AI could crawl
AI search, LLM retrieval, and automated agents all consume your content the same way assistive technology does — by reading structure, not pixels. They don't see your hero image. They don't care about your animation.…
Humans in the Loop…But Where? Lessons from AI in Education, Retail, Financial Services, Utilities, Government, and Health
As AI becomes embedded in decision-making, design, service delivery and operations, the question is no longer simply whether humans remain ’in the loop’, but which loops genuinely require human judgement, empathy and…
Beyond Algorithms: Trust and Culture in the Age of AI
While technology choices are critical, culture is an invisible force that holds power over the success or failure of AI integration. This session moves beyond the technology and solutions to explore how organisational…
Happy hour
Join fellow attendees and speakers For our happy hour (and a half) right here at the Novotel.
Registration
Register from 8.30, grab a coffee, connect with fellow attendees, and get ready for a fantastic day.
Welcome
Steve Baty, your MC for the day gets the day started.
Most AI Products Aren't Very Good (Yet)
Let’s be honest. Most of them aren’t that good. They work, but they don’t hold up. They’re usable, but not especially useful. AI has massively scaled our ability to produce output, but it hasn’t scaled the taste that…
Tell AI to build a ‘Faster Horse’: Why reframing is the last human advantage
AI is exceptional at optimisation. Give it a goal and it will refine, accelerate, and automate within that frame. It will generate better outputs, faster workflows, cleaner systems.
But it cannot decide that the…
Real-World Vibe Prototyping at Google Maps
For many designers, "vibe coding" sits in an uncomfortable gap. We see the hype, but the reality often feels like a parlour trick: great for messy experimentation, but unreliable for professional work. It challenges…
Lunch
Join your fellow attendees and speakers for a bite to eat, coffee and great conversation.
Personas You Can Talk To: Turning Research Into Persona Agents
Personas are traditionally static artefacts: a poster, a slide, a section in a report. They can be useful, but easy to ignore once the project moves on. Persona agents change that relationship by turning a persona…
Dispatches from the frontline: building AI with AI at Atlassian
Atlassian is rapidly pivoting into an AI-forward strategy, both in our features and our tools. I'm not going to get on stage and tell you AI is a magic technology that can do anything and everything; instead, I'll share…
Why Designers Are Accidentally Breaking Customers' Trust in AI
For thirty years, we've been designing one-way USER experiences. Now we are designing two-way Human+AI experiences. We had established principles we designed 1 user experiences with - consistency, hierarchy and…
Fast ≠ good
Everyone in design right now is being sold the same vision: generate faster, explore more, ship sooner. And the tools genuinely deliver on that. But somewhere in the rush, a quieter question is getting lost — are we…
Afternoon break
Recharge before the final session with great food, coffee, and more.
Designing AI Experiences for High Stakes Industries
AI experiences can look flawless in a prototype. The real risk starts after you ship the feature, when real users, facing real consequences, start pushing your model into use cases you didn’t plan for. This session…
Accessibility walked so AI could crawl
AI search, LLM retrieval, and automated agents all consume your content the same way assistive technology does — by reading structure, not pixels. They don't see your hero image. They don't care about your animation.…
Humans in the Loop…But Where? Lessons from AI in Education, Retail, Financial Services, Utilities, Government, and Health
As AI becomes embedded in decision-making, design, service delivery and operations, the question is no longer simply whether humans remain ’in the loop’, but which loops genuinely require human judgement, empathy and…
Beyond Algorithms: Trust and Culture in the Age of AI
While technology choices are critical, culture is an invisible force that holds power over the success or failure of AI integration. This session moves beyond the technology and solutions to explore how organisational…
Happy hour
Join fellow attendees and speakers For our happy hour (and a half) right here at the Novotel.
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Contact us for more on how we work can work with you to help you be even more awesome.
About Us
Co-founded and now run by John Allsopp, Web Directions has for nearly 20 years brought together leading developers, engineers, visual, IxD, UX and product designers, Art and Creative Directors, product managers indeed everyone involved in producing web and digital products to learn from one another, and the World's leading experts across this vast field.
We spend our lives thinking about what comes next, keeping up with trends in technology, practices and processes, and filtering the hype, to make sure you don't miss trends that matter, and don't waste time on hype that doesn't.
We promise attending one of our events will leave you significantly better versed in the challenges you face day to day, and in solutions for addressing them.
John Allsopp
John Allsopp has been working on the Web for nearly 30 years. He's been responsible for innovative developer tools such as Style Master, X-Ray and many more. He's spoken at numerous conferences around the World and delivered dozens of workshops in that time as well.
His writing includes two books, including Developing With Web Standards and countless articles and tutorials in print and online publications.
His "A Dao of Web Design" published in 2000 is cited by Ethan Marcotte as a key influence in the development of Responsive Web Design, who's acclaimed article in 2010 begins by quoting John in detail, and by Jeremy Keith as "a manifesto for anyone working on the Web".
Code of Conduct
For over a decade, we've worked hard to create inclusive, fun, inspring and safe events for the Web Industry.
As part of our commitment to these values, we've adopted a code of conduct for all involved: ourselves, our speakers, our partners and our audience.
If you have any concern or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us.