Friends, a zombie apocalypse is upon us: an onslaught of new mobile devices, platforms, and screen sizes, hordes of them descending every day. We’re outmatched. There aren't enough designers and developers to battle every platform. There aren’t enough editors and writers to populate every screen size. Defeating the zombies will require flexibility and stamina—in our content. We'll have to separate our content from its form, so it can adapt appropriately to different contexts and constraints. We’ll have to change our production workflow so we’re not just shovelling content from one output to another. And we’ll have to enhance our content management tools and interfaces so they're ready for the future. Surviving the zombie apocalypse is possible. In this talk Karen will explain how: by developing a content strategy that treats all our platforms as if they’re equally important.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the web community create style tiles, element collages, style guides, pattern libraries, and a slew of other tools in order to break interfaces down to their atomic elements. Our interfaces are going more places than ever before, so this shift is essential to help us better understand what our websites consist of in order for us create smart, scalable, maintainable designs. This session will introduce atomic design, a methodology for creating robust design systems, and discuss how UX designers can use a pattern-driven workflow to make designing for our multi-device Web without going mad.

Patrick Haney & Jenna Marino, the husband/wife team at Hanerino, take you through their Dr. Suess-inspired journey of designing for screens big and small. During their talk, they’ll touch on best practices and pitfalls to avoid when working on applications across smartphones, televisions and of course the web. Using a highly visible application as an example, Patrick & Jenna will review their process and tips for designing a successful, cross-platform product for multiple devices.

It’s hard to dispute that wearable technology is being lauded as the next big thing. With predictions that the wearable technology market will generate USD22.9 billion in revenue by 2020, it's difficult to ignore all the hype surrounding wearables today. However, despite the seemingly limitless opportunity of this emergent technology space, new and innovative wearable products and services are in short supply. Businesses, technologists and designers alike are struggling to make sense of this new and challenging design space.

The network that over the last couple of decades has connected people to one other, to information and to online entertainment is now spreading into the physical world, bringing hundreds of millions of new objects online. Within a few years it may be impossible to buy an electrical device that does not come—by default—with internet connectivity and some kind of online or app-based service layer.