Day 1
- October 26th
- 9am–6:30pm AEST
Registration
Get the world's best conference coffee (espresso, filter, cold brew and more), and register for two big days of amazing speakers.

Welcome
Welcome to, or welcome back to, our biggest Web Directions Summit ever!

The Mediated Web
Rupert Manfredi Designer Adept
Morning Break
Fuel your morning with an excellent coffee, and morning tea we've specially chosen to pick-you-up.
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

The Dawn of Design Engineering: A New Era of Collaboration
Adekunle Oduye Design Engineer, Tech Lead Plaid

Choosing the Right Strategy for Product Growth
Mags Hanley Digital Strategy Consultant

Grow Your Content Career
Shannon Leahy Senior Content Design Manager Adobe

Architecture Patterns for App Modernisation
Simon Wardan Principal Engineer Terem

Equitable Algorithms: Designing AI for Positive Impact
Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano CEO The Mathpath
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Dear Designer... Sincerely, the Development Team
Jo Minney Nerd in Charge House Digital

Whose Job is Animation?
Matt Colman Engineering Manager Atlassian

The Who, When, Why, and What of Design Systems
Johanna Lynch Senior UX/UI Designer Pragma Partners

Strategies for Elevating Annual Contract Values
Christopher Truce Advisor

Content Strategy as Sensemaking
McGee Noble Content Strategist Weave

Why Would Anyone Need JavaScript Generators?
James Sinclair Senior Developer Atlassian

The Art of Product Discovery
Mark Boehm Head of Design and Strategy Palo IT
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Brand UX: The Power of Experience
Michal Golas & Lucila Tallone Product Designer & Founding Partner, Product Designer takemedia digital, Bilue

What's New in CSS in 2023
Steve Harrison Senior Front End Developer NSW Department of Customer Service

Permaculture Design Systems for a Digital Landscape
Mick Real Designer & Creative

Making better marketing decisions in a privacy first world
Will Marks, Marketing Science Director Mutinex

Content Strategy for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Audiences
Carrie DeHaan Principal Content strategist Biotext

Exploring the Event Loop
Ikram Saedi Software Engineer Stile Education

Customer Interviews & Storytelling for Innovation
Amanda Brown Product Manager Pretzel Lab
Lunch
We've always got something special lined up for lunch. Visit our partners, connect in the games room, or reset in the quiet area.
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Five Fundamental Principles of Inclusive Research
Bri Norton & Irith Williams OZeWAI.org - Australian Web Accessibility Initiative

How the Web can still win on mobile
Alex Moore Executive Director Open Web Advocacy

Measuring the Value of REA's Design System
Chris Stonestreet Product Manager, Design System REA Group

Out of the Marketing Wilderness: A CEO’s Journey
Anna Harrison Founder RAMMP

Put yourself in a box: Delivering humanity via email
Mathew Patterson Customer Service Educator Help Scout

Hooked on Hooks
Erin Zimmer Senior Developer Atlassian

Defining a New Product Vision for Australia's National Broadcaster
Tim Hardaker Group Product Manager, Product Futures ABC
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Microaggressions and Microaffirmations in Product Design
Laura Kerrison Product Designer RUSH

Taking advantage of AI to help you write code
Lachlan Hunt Senior Developer Atlassian

From a Prehistoric Beast to a Modern Day Product Enterprise
Amir Ansari Design Leader and Coach

How Gamers Have Turned the Tables on Brand Trust
David O'Reilly Lifecycle Marketing Manager Microsoft

Sweat the Small Stuff
Lorien Kaye Content Designer and Strategist Weave

How Server Components Change The Game Using Old Ideas
Julian Burr Engineering Lead Vouch

Radical Collaboration: How to Supercharge What Your Team can Achieve
Natalie Ferguson Co-Founder Powrsuit
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Annotating Designs for Accessibility
Sam Hobson & Claire Webber, Digital Accessibility Consultants Intopia

WebML: State of Machine Learning for Frontend Developers
Shivay Lamba Software Developer TensorFlowJS SIG and WG Lead

Unspoken Value of Design Systems
Emily Pearce Product Design Manager Octopus Deploy
Last minute cancellation

Power up Your Content Strategy with Experience Maps
Mary Sabotkoski Senior Content Strategist Canva

React Server Components in Next.js
Richard Zhang Sales Engineer Vercel

Visionary Product Leadership
Viveka Weiley Meta-scientist CSIRO
Afternoon Break
Need more coffee? Or an increasingly hip tea? We've got you covered, plus a sweet afternoon pick-me-up.

The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
Maggie Appleton Product Designer Ought
Happy Hour (and a half)
Share a drink, a bite, and a chat with your peers, right here at the venue.
Day 2
- October 27th
- 9am–5:00pm AEST
Rebooting…
Get your heart started for another day of amazingness, with the best coffee you'll find at any conference, anywhere

Welcome back
Welcome back for another in-depth day of amazing presentations

Steam Engine Time
Mark Pesce Broadcaster and futurist
Morning Break
Fuel your morning with an excellent coffee, and morning tea we've specially chosen to pick-you-up.
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Design + AI = Good or Bad?
MC Monsalve & Phil Banks, Product Design Team Lead, Design Lead - ABC iview ABC

The Soul of a New Application
Alex Danilo Founder Projectadoc

Pursuing Design Quality
Jina Anne Design Systems Advocate Design Systems Coalition

Leveraging the B2C Experience for B2B SaaS Startups
Irina Smolina Tech Marketer Lentune

How to Prevent Content Crimes
Scott Collins Content Design Manager Telstra

Understanding and Mitigating Third Party JS Risks
Dominic Lovell Head of Solution Engineering, ANZ Akamai Technologies

When and How to Build Machine Learning into Your Product
Karla Belista Group Product Manager Playground XYZ
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Experimenting with AI at the ABC
Anna Dixon Senior Service Designer ABC

Web Components: Another Tool in your Toolbox
Ben Taylor Staff Software Engineer Stile Education

Mapping Typography
Scott Kellum Founder Typetura

Achieving growth through a hybrid product-led and sales-led GTM
Peter Ikladious Co-founder; Principal Unlocking Growth

Content Strategy is Dead, Long Live Content Strategy
Tori Sanderson General Manager of Product, Content and Experience Design Pragma Partners

It is WWW (Is it though?)
Armağan Ersöz Software Engineer GitHub

Bringing AI Magic to Canva
Ivy Hornibrook Product Lead, Magic Design Canva
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Conversational AI Has a Massive, UX-Shaped Hole
Peter Isaacs Senior Conversation Design Advocate Voiceflow

CSS Between the Pages
Phil Nash Developer Advocate Sonar

Evolving the Australian Government Design System
Jordan Overbye Senior Engineer Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry

The Marketer's Guide to Behavioural Economics
Julian Peterson Managing Director APAC Dianomi

Building Community in a Content Team
Beatrix Holland Content Design Manager Indeed

Adventures in Rendering Off the Main Thread
Simon MacDonald Head of Developer Experience Begin Corp

The Product Manager's Guide to Navigating Corporate Politics
Carl Rigoni CEO and Founder sixsix
Lunch
Like everything else we do, expect the best conference food you'll have anywhere, and plenty of it.
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Feedback Fortitude: Designing Success in High-Stakes Scenarios
Carolyn Wilkinson Design Leader Australian Government

Breaking up Long Tasks
Nishu Goel ePilot Full Stack Engineer

Baking Accessibility into Your Design System
Simon Mateljan Design Manager Atlassian

Growth Hacking with Heart: Applying Behavioural Science Ethically for More Impact
Vidhika Bansal Group Design Manager Intuit

How Embracing Complexity Can Deliver Award-Winning Content
Kylie Evans Director & Principal Content Developer Biotext

Building Type-Safe Forms in React
Brendan Allan Software Engineer Spacedrive

Scale Your Product Career with Mentoring
Justin Farrell Lead Product Manager VMware Tanzu Labs
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Defending design: writing to influence
Matt Fenwick Communication strategist True North Nontent

Fantastic Load-Time Savings and Where to Find Them
Quynh-Chi Nguyen Staff Software Engineer Stile Education

WCAG 2.2 - What it Means for Designers
Julie Grundy & Zoë Haughton Senior Digital Accessibility Consultants Intopia

Handle Chaos and Scale Your Growth Experiments
Terence Huynh Software Engineer, Growth Atlassian

Best Practice AI Explainability for Content Strategists
Emily Meller & Aden Rolfe Content Strategists Craig Walker

TypeScript Utilities Every Developer Should Know About
Meligy Senior Tech Lead Telstra Purple

How to Develop and Use a Customer Journey Framework
Stefan Schroeder Head of Experience Cbus Super
Design
Front End Dev
Design Systems
Marketing
Content
React
Product

Designer to CEO – The Path Less Travelled
Ross Chaldecott Co-Founder and CEO Kinde

Frontend's Lost Decade & The Market for Lemons
Alex Russell Partner Product Manager Microsoft

Closing Panel
Design systems speakers

Dark Patterns and How to Avoid Them
Kate Linton Head of Design Thoughtworks

The state of content conversation
Content track speakers

Frontend's Lost Decade & The Market for Lemons
Alex Russell Partner Product Manager Microsoft

Building Principles-Driven Product Culture
Simon Hilton Director of Product Karbon
Afternoon Break
Need more coffee? We've got you covered, plus an awesome surprise sweet afternoon treat.

All the Things That Seem to Matter
Tea Uglow Director Dark Swan Institute
Farewell
Farewell, but hopefully for not too long after two days filled with learning, connection and inspiration.
Partner with us
We work closely with our partners and their technologies to deliver world leading online conferences. Contact us for more on how we work can work with you to help you be even more awesome.
Key Partners

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 and X-Ray, and his ideas formed the foundation for Typekit, now Adobe Fonts, and the entire concept of Responsive Web Design. He's spoken at numerous conferences around the World and delivered dozens of workshops in that time as well.
His writing includes several 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".
John brings his deep knowledge of and passion for the web and all things digital to every aspect of Web Directions.
About Us
Co-founded and now run by John Allsopp, Web Directions has for nearly 2 decades 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.
Our annual extravaganza, Web Directions Summit returns to Sydney in October 2023, bigger and better than ever.

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.