What in the world is a ConFoo? Well, according to their GitHub README.md file, it is a "multi-technology conference for developers that happened from February 26-28, 2020 in Montreal." And that pretty much sums it up!
Here are the top presentations (sadly we couldn't include all of them) from this year's edition according to our Digital Communications team.
♿ Accessibility: the easy part of your job by Oskar Westin
Oskar is a Senior Accessibility Strategy Manager at TELUS Digital and the co-organizer of #a11yTO. In his talk, Oskar presented a bunch of tips and ticks, tools, and even screen reader combinations to conduct user testing. Big shout-out to him since he also attended our Defining Digital Standards presentation and provided us with precious feedback!
🤖 AI and Design – Embrace AI. Unleash It and Boost UX by Miklos Philips
Miklos is a Lead User Experience Designer and Product Design Strategist. In this futuristic talk, we learned how AI will soon help us greatly improve UX on our websites. Unfortunately, we don't have the slides to show you all the nice examples from the talk, but here are some examples Miklos showed:
TL;DR: AI will soon be our new creative partner.
💂 Empowering teams using mission command by Michiel Rook
Michiel is a developer and Platoon Leader of the 10 Reserve Battallion, 43 Mechanized Brigade, in the Royal Dutch Army Korps Nationale Reserve (not sure I got this right).
He shared the idea that the world is "VUCA" (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) and that there are many ways plans can go wrong. He also emphasized the fact that people working in context can make better decisions faster, and that when you hire a specialist to do the job, you should empower that person to make the right decisions instead of telling him what to do.
Inspired by his military experience, he suggest that we should shift from a "task-based leadership" model to a "goal-based leadership" model. How?
Simply put, by defining the purpose, the method and the end state:
- Why are we here? (purpose)
- What are the key tasks to execute? (method)
- What is the definition of success? (end state)
Read the US Army ADP 6-0 mission command manual for more info!
📜 Sticky Fingers: 10 Design principles for updating software by Natasha Eibich
Natasha is a user researcher and UX analyst at Intelerad Medical Systems. She holds dual degree M.Sc. in Human Computer Interaction and Design from Aalto University and the University of Twente, and she specializes in advanced user modelling.
This talk introduces concepts like procedural memory and negative transfer which are probably way too advance for our daily needs. Super interesting though and a must read if you want to learn more about advanced user modelling!
⚾ Defining Digital Standards by Joyce Peralta
Needless to say, Joyce really knocked it out of the park by presenting our Digital Standards at ConFoo and, again, it's a must read for all McGill staff! Don't forget to visit our Web Services website to see all the resources available.