Full Schedule

10:00 AM – April 23

Leanne Macaspac
Product Designer, Freelance Creative/Founder
Designing Community: Bridging Digital and Physical Connection

I'll be sharing practical insights from my experience building online and IRL communities (co-founding Asian ERG at Shopify and transitioning from in-office to online during the pandemic; organizing the core team and micro-community programming at Recess, a collective dedicated to cultivating creative curiosity; co-founding Infinit, a wellness app striving for accessible wellness and connection using monthly events). There's a false dichotomy between online and IRL communities, and I suggest that designers can architect meaningful connections that flow naturally across contexts. I'll provide a framework for designing community touchpoints, transitions, and metrics that can create cohesive experiences, regardless of the medium. Attendees will learn actionable strategies for building trust-based communities that support both human connection and business goals, which is particularly valuable in our post-pandemic reality where the boundaries between digital and physical continue to blur.

10:30 AM – April 23

Kelly Dern
AI Product Design – Google
Designing for Neurodiversity in the Age of AI

Unleash the untapped potential of all learning styles. Generative AI offers a revolutionary path to equitable participation and discovery, especially for neurodivergent individuals. This talk will provide concrete strategies for designing inclusive user interfaces, leveraging GenAI to adapt to diverse learning styles and create truly empowering experiences.

11:00 AM – April 23

James Bearhart
Senior Product Designer – Google
Design Thinking Beyond the Screen

How to sustain a career in an ever-changing world, by using design thinking as a foundation of your work. As AI looms over the design world, threatening to consume work, learn how design thinking can help your career not only survive but thrive in an evolving field. As a trained industrial designer, James will discuss how learning to observe the real world can lead to design insights that increase your value in the corporate world. This skill will allow you to power-up your career.

12:00 PM – April 23

Grace Kwon
Service Designer – Spotify
Design for Landing: Service Design Beyond the Product Launch

This talk explores the critical role of service design in the post-launch phase of a product, offering a practical guide for product leaders. Too often, organizations operate in a reactive “build the plane as we fly” mode. This talk will demonstrate how service design has shifted stakeholders toward a proactive, long-term approach to product thinking at Spotify. Key insights will include: 1) The real differentiator for a business isn’t whether a service fails—it’s how failure is managed when it inevitably happens. 2) Trust is essential for human interaction with machines, built on the belief that technology aligns with human values. 3) Every product or service is a reflection of intentional design choices. Product leaders must ensure these choices are designed to be reliable, adaptable, and future-proof.

The talk flows like such: 1) Service Design at Spotify: How service design intervenes and the impact it creates. 2) The Broken Promise of Design Thinking: Why design thinking alone is often insufficient. 3) Post-Product Launch: Designing services that anticipate and adapt to an unpredictable future.

12:30 PM – April 23

Halim Madi
Senior Product Manager – Stripe
AI Provocations for Designers

Halim (ex-Meta, Stripe, co-founder of Invisible, Inc. 5000's #3 Fastest Growing AI Company in 2024) explores the accelerating disruption caused by AI and its profound implications for design and the creative world. We'll examine the emerging power balance in the design ecosystem, where AI tools are not mere assistants but potential collaborators and replacements, challenging traditional design workflows and business models. Learn why data is the new UX and how evolving AI-driven interfaces demand designers to create more symbiotic relationships between users and products. Through real-world examples from Invisible's journey, Halim offers practical frameworks for navigating this shift. Designed for aspiring and seasoned designers alike, this talk provides clarity on how to thrive as designers in an era where interfaces are dissolving, memory is becoming external, and our relationship with technology is fundamentally changing.

10:00 AM – April 24

Neha Sehgal
Interaction Designer – Google
Learning and Adapting: My UX Journey, Sales Trends and AI

This presentation offers a dual perspective: first, a personal journey from architecture to UX design, detailing strategies for navigating the competitive job market and establishing a strong foundation as a junior designer. Secondly, we'll explore the evolving landscape of UX within sales platforms, examining current trends and practical insights for optimizing user experiences. Finally, we'll briefly touch upon the future of AI in sales automation, highlighting its potential impact and the critical role UX plays in its ethical development.

10:30 AM – April 24

Christina Yang
UX Designer – Carnegie Mellon University
Rethinking Product Requirements Document Management

Integrating Artificial Intelligence into products increases unpredictability, role ambiguity, and communication challenges for the product builder’s team, limiting the effective use of Product Requirements Documents (PRDs). This particularly impacts Product Managers (PMs) in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), who coordinate teams with limited time and financial resources throughout the development process. This project proposes Synco - An AI agent to improve PRD management for PMs in SMEs. This study demonstrates the potential of AI agents for PRD management to reduce misunderstandings, improve team productivity, and enhance interdisciplinary collaboration. It contributes to the broader discussion of how AI agents can support workflow optimization in product management, particularly in fast-paced and multidisciplinary environments.

11:00 AM – April 24

Stan Shifferd
Senior Instructional Designer – Google
Unlock the Secrets of Learning Experience Design with Industry Veteran Stan Shifferd

Having designed and launched over 200 impactful courses for Google, Meta, and Toyota, Senior Instructional Designer Stan Shifferd will reveal what a learning experience designer truly does, how it differs from other design disciplines, and share exclusive insider tips you won't want to miss.

12:00 PM – April 24

Daniel Destefanis
Product Designer – Figma
Lowering the Bar / Raising the Ceiling

How product development is shifting with the introduction of new AI tools that empower makers to create faster than ever before. What this means for the product design industry and how Daniel approaches building with these tools.

12:30 PM – April 24

Ujjaini Lahiry
Product Designer – Google
Demystifying AI User Experience: Crafting User-Centered AI Journeys

Discuss the essential steps for designing seamless AI experiences, covering AI-specific challenges, and practical methods for creating effective user journeys that prioritize trust and satisfaction.

1:00 PM – April 24

Favie Chiu
Visual Designer – Google
The Balance Between Simplicity and Complexity

Finding the sweet spot of making design complex but simple. In UX design we often find that the simple design can be clear and easy to understand by the users, however, sometimes, it’s not always easy to find the simplest solution to solve the problem. How can we find the balance between them?