Great Web Design Conferences to Attend in 2014

NewsChristian Vasile • February 08, 2018 • 9 minutes READ

With 2013 being over now, we can look forward to an amazing 2014 which will be surely filled with amazing conferences on topics that interest us such as design, user experience, programming, social media and so on. The design industry gets bigger and bigger and these conferences and trainings are amazing ways not only to learn a lot, but also to network with others.

I thought it would be so easy if we could have a list of these great conferences ordered by date and then we could just bookmark the article and come back and visit it every once in a while. With this in mind, I browsed the web for a few days scouting for these conferences and voila, here’s the list for you.

Must-Attend Design Conferences in 2014

January

The UX Summit in Washington DC is a great way to start the year, but you will have to hurry. With user experience being vital for us in our work environments, you will be able to network a lot at this conference with fellow developers, designers, content creators, information architects and interface designers.

February

Interaction 14 is an event happening in Amsterdam showcasing lots of presentations and workshops where you will get a chance to share your point of view on different topics, as well as getting inspired from stories of others. There will be participants from all over the world and you definitely should be one of them if you are interested in experience design, visual communication and industrial design.

We want this to be a truly inspiring event, Awwwards Paris 2014. That’s why we have decided on a two-part conference: A practical session on Thursday led by Hello Monday and Ultranoir; and Friday will be a more theoretical, philosophical day led by Steph Troeth with talks from some of the world’s most relevant speakers.

Developer Week is one of the conferences you simply have to be at if you are into programming. Some of the keynote speakers are amazing, such as Andre Charland from PhoneGap or Doris Chen from Microsoft. The conference runs for a whole week, but its content is not something made just for the sake of being made. The workshops are very interesting and the whole content seems brilliant. The conference will be held in the great city of San Francisco, California.

In February you can also get the chance to visit New Zealand if you are interested in Webstock 2014. You will be able to hear from keynote speakers such as Josh Clark, Liz Danzico, Brad Frost and others. The conference will be about microinteractions, content strategy, emotional design, designing for touch and many, many other interesting topics. You just need to decide which one to choose.

ConveyUX is another conference that will teach you a lot about how to make software usable. You will learn about the latest techniques in research and design, communication strategies, interaction with hand gestures and voice and you will be able to network with bright minds of UX at this great event in Seattle.

The IUI Conference in 2014 will be held in the beautiful country of Israel and it is also something you might want to take a look at. This conference is for the ones interested in a bit more in-depth theory and the “why” behind user interfaces, what makes people act on call to action buttons and such similar concepts.

March

UX HK is an event in Hong Kong dedicated to bringing together product and service design disciplines. This means you will be able to hear about research, marketing, design or technology among others and will learn to create better products by listening to keynote speakers and being part of workshops.

Social Media Marketing World is an event that is held up every year in San Diego, California. Here you will have the opportunity of hearing some big names speak, representing IBM, Citrix, LinkedIn, Intercontinental Hotels, Marriott, Boston Celtics and Century 21. If you will pay attention, you will go home with countless tips and strategies on how to create a powerful brand on social media, as well as get the chance to network with some amazing individuals.

The Game Developer Conference in San Francisco would be a great way to network with people interested in developing games. You will hear about A/B testing for game design, adaptive music preparation, the player involvement model and many other topics that, for sure, keep game developers awake at night.

April

Future of Web Design is a conference at its 8th edition this year. It will happen in London and you will be able to hear from handpicked speakers in a two-day workshop packed with interesting content. You can expect four great workshops, technical and practical guidance, inspiration and networking opportunities.

Build 2014 is a conference held by Microsoft in San Francisco, where you will learn about the great opportunities in Microsoft products that developers can make use of. Registration opens very soon, so visit their website and check the conference out.

An Event Apart Boston is just one of the places where you will be able to hear Luke Wroblewski speak this year. Some other great speakers such as Josh Clark, Paul Irish, Lea Verou and Scott Berkun are also planning something great for the participants. Make no mistake, just as the name says, this is really a special event.

LeanUX NYC is going to be a kick-ass event where you will be able to hear from amazing keynote speakers such as Laura Klein, Kim Ballestrin, Johanna Kollmann, Tomer Sharon and others. There are a total of 40 speakers throughout the three days and 20 workshops on strategy, design, development, leadership, product and Lean UX. You will be able to learn so much about all these topics that I believe it would be a shame not to be part of this amazing conference.

The Next Web is another great conference held year after year. You will be able to meet more than 2500 attendees in Amsterdam where you can learn about the best business practices and meet incredible contacts. The conference brings together thinkers from all over the world, promising startups and great technology.

April seems like a very busy month and I will add another great conference to the list, this time for developers. If you are into PHP, then you probably don’t want to miss the International PHP Conference in Berlin.

May

Design 2014 is a great conference to be part of, which will take place in Croatia between the 19th and the 22nd of May. What you will be able to learn at this conference is simply amazing with design processes, engineering, computational design syntheses, design education, eco design, human behaviour in design and many other interesting topics being in the focus for the weekend.

June

UD 2014 is another interesting conference that you should attend, at least if you live in Europe. The conference will take place in Sweden and while there is not much information given out yet, I can already tell you that this is a great opportunity.

The Corporate Social Media Summit in 2014 is the fifth edition of the conference and takes place in New York and you can save a lot of money by registering early. There are many interesting speakers coming and many people from amazing brands all over the world. Hertz, MasterCard, Sears and FootLocker were just some of the brands that participated last year. This means you can learn a lot and also get the opportunity of networking with some bright minds.

July

UXMad is an event happening in Madison, WI, in the United States, where some other great speakers will tell you about why user experience is utterly important for your company and your product. You will hear about everything from well known concepts such as Lean UX to topics about empathy and meditation in design.

The UXPA Conference will also teach you a lot about user experience, this time in London. You can hear keynotes and be part of workshops on users, clients and motivation, as well as being able to network with some amazing people.

August

UX Australia will be an amazing event of four days filled with inspirational workshops. They will cover a broad range of UX topics from practical case studies to new approaches to how to fit UX in your company. More than 500 of Australia’s UX people will be there, so the networking opportunities are incredible. The conference will take place in Sydney in late August and registration starts 1st of May, so put the date in your calendar right now!

September

MobX Conference is a one-day event in Berlin that will happen on Friday the 13th. While for many this is an unlucky day, for the guys behind MobX it will definitely be a great day. The schedule for this year’s conference is not up yet, but you can get a good insight on the content by looking at last year’s topics. Some of them were designing for Windows 8, design principles and responsive design for Android and designing for Google Glass. These are topics up to the latest industry standards and I am really looking forward to see the schedule for this year.

MobileHCI is an event that I follow year after year with a lot of interest because it covers many of the topics I personally am interested in. I can tell you that this conference in Toronto, Canada covers topics as innovation in mobile, portable and personal devices among others. The conference brings together a bunch of interesting personalities in the HCI industry and will allow you to network a lot, as well as learn even more. You will not go home disappointed from there.

October

Conversion Conference will be in Boston and participants will be able to speak about the latest A/B testing tricks and practices with international experts and leading authors. A lot of interactive learning will be done during the weekend with landing pages, layout, website data analysis and multivariate testing being in focus for the conference days.

November

The App Developers Conference is one of the most exciting conferences on this list. It is one of the few where the focus is on creating amazing applications for tablets and mobile platforms and you will learn here about all kinds of apps as well as design & UI, business & marketing and programming & architecture. The conference will take place in Los Angeles.

Another event in November will be the Developer Conference in Hamburg, Germany, where lots and lots of developers and programmers will attend some kick-ass workshops. You will learn about some new technologies, speak about the amazing opportunities in Windows 8, mobile computing and about software development. You will definitely not leave empty handed from here.

This is the list that I thought would be most interesting for you guys. Sure, there are countless of other conferences around the world in 2014, but I believe the ones highlighted above are going to be extremely impressive. If you are interested in development or design, some of these conferences should raise your interest, so go now and check them out, maybe who knows, we’ll see each other at one of them.