Top 2023 development and design conferences you don’t want to miss
Collaboration
June Cho
Feb 2023
Heyoo, I’m June Cho, Developer Advocate at Zeplin! Over the past decade working closely with developers and designers, I’ve been to my fair share of conferences — some great and some that were …not so great.
Conferences can be awesome for learning, networking, and inspiration, but they can also be expensive and time-consuming. You'll get a chance to learn from industry leaders, connect with like-minded people, and get some fresh perspectives, but you'll also deal with crowded venues, overwhelming info, and potentially underwhelming presentations—not to mention all the moola you’ll be spending!
That's why you need to be selective about which conferences make it onto your calendar. Just between you and me, here's my cheatsheet for 11 must-attend conferences in 2023:
Harmony (March 7)
So nice, we did it twice! Zeplin's annual user summit on March 7 was a huge success, with tons of amazing speakers and a whole host of new Zeplin feature announcements. Plus we announced the launch of our brand new product, Omlet.
If you missed Harmony, don't worry — you can find all of the session recordings here. We had speakers from Chipotle, Veeva, BP, Optimizely, and more. And don't forget to check out my fireside chat with Andy Vitale, EVP of Design at Rocket Companies.
Storybook Day (March 14)
Our friends at Storybook are hosting their first user summit with lightning (5-10 minutes) talks delivered by devs from BBC, Monday.com, Intuit, The Guardian, and Work & Co.Storybook Day will also highlight all of the latest updates coming with Storybook 7.0, like a design and docs overhaul, interaction testing, and the release of Component Story Format 3.0
UXDX USA (May 15-17)
UXDX is a popular 3-day conference for UX designers, developers, and product people around the world. The topics of this year’s design conference revolve around using data, innovating, working together, and building design systems. UXDX USA will take place May 15-17 in New York City and online.UXDX EMEAwill take place October 10-12 in Dublin and online. UXDX APAC will take place November 13-15, location TBA. You’ll want to register soon to take advantage of early bird pricing.
RenderATL (May 31 - June 2)
RenderATL features 80+ expert speakers from all across the product, development, and design communities. Four specialty tracks offer topics for designers, developers, PMs, entrepreneurs, creative directors, and more. Design systems advocate Jina Anne will be the keynote speaker.
React Summit (June 2 & June 6)
React Summit is an annual conference on all things React, gathering thousands of front-end and full-stack engineers from around the world. The in-person event will take place in Amsterdam on June 2 and remote streaming will happen on June 6.
Schema by Figma
Figma’s annual design systems conference took place in New York City, London, Tokyo, and virtually in 2022. 2023 dates for the invite-only event are yet to be announced.
Figma Config (June 21)
If you can’t snag an invite to Schema, try Config. 65+ sessions, 100+ speakers, 20+ countries, Figma’s global design conference always has something of interest. Registration is free.
ProductCon (July 20)
Hosted by Product School, ProductCon brings together experts and industry leaders from the product management side of digital design. The hybrid event takes place four times per year: three in-person conferences are hosted in San Francisco, London, and New York City, and there's also a fourth online event for virtual attendees. ProductCon's stacked speaker lineup includes VPs and Heads of Product from companies like Salesforce, Sephora, Tinder, Netflix, and Spotify. Sign up by April 12 to watch online for free.
Clarity
Speaking of Jina Anne, you’re not going to want to miss Clarity, the premier design systems community conference. As founder of SF Design Systems Coalition and The Mixin SF, moderator for the Design Systems Slack, and author of Design Systems Handbook, Fancy Form Design, and The Art & Science of CSS, Jina Anne knows her stuff! Date for 2023 has yet to be announced, but Clarity 2022 was in November.
Github Universe
GitHub Universe is a prominent global developer symposium sponsored by Microsoft, which highlights cloud computing, security, community building, and artificial intelligence. The event features numerous unveilings of new cutting-edge tools and options, including AI-powered tools, innovative collaboration capabilities, and robust security enhancements. Date TBA.
AdobeMax
AdobeMAX is Adobe’s premier annual conference. Travel to Los Angeles for the full hands-on experience, or register for the free virtual event featuring 100+ sessions, keynotes, giveaways, and a sneak peek at things being worked on in Adobe labs. Dates for AdobeMAX 2023 are yet to be announced, but you can bet that Zeplin will be there! In case you missed it last year, you can watch Zeplin CEO & co-founder Pelin Kenez’s session on Improving Cross-Team Collaboration During the Tech Slowdown.
It looks like 2023 is going to be filled with amazing talks from top-notch design system conferences! Have you found a conference that suits you yet? Did I miss one from my cheat sheet? Feel free to share it with the Zeplin community on Discord or Twitter. I hope to see some of you at these amazing conferences!
Fin
