UX Conferences

Not strictly a UX conference but invariably full of stuff relevant to UXers, dConstruct is a one day, very affordable conference in beautiful Brighton, UK. The guys at ClearLeft attract great international and local speakers and it's not unusual to see or hear people discussing something contentious from the conference days or weeks later. I also love The Dome, great venue.

I've never been to UX Australia but every year I wish I could be there - a great mix of local and international talent in a carefully curated program. I'll get there one year!

A great event from our friends at Adaptive Path - they always get great speakers and complement the learning sessions with some great exploration of the city and social outings.

If you've not been to a BarCamp/Unconference, you should definitely check it out. Much less formal and possibly even more fun, the schedule is formed in front of your very eyes as participants are also session leaders. You have no idea what you'll learn until the day, but it's almost guaranteed to be worth while, and at the bargain price of free!

I'm not much of a UPA gal myself... but this conference is one of the biggest and longest running relevant to our profession so if you haven't, you should consider it. If you can get your company to fund you, there's worse things you could do with your training budget. Although, Las Vegas... I don't know...

If you need an excuse to get to Lisbon (and you should, it's an awesome city), this is it. Bruno goes to great lengths to curate an excellent few days of workshops and talks from a wide variety of speakers, some well known, some emerging stars. And the food... omg.

CHI is another one that I don't get to regularly, although it's been on the conference calendar for decades. As the name suggests, it has Computer Human Interaction origins but now includes a typical range of UX topics and discussion. Large corps and academia are well represented at this conference. See also: UPA

London's premiere UX event brings the big names to town. Comes with a fairly hefty price tag but if you're not able to get to the States to see these guys on the conference circuit then this is your best chance. Nice mix of talks/workshop sessions. We also run a great UX Bookclub session one evening meeting the speakers which is lots of fun.

A feast of workshops and a multi-track conference overflowing with thoughts, opinions and reflections on UX and Information Architecture and a very warm hearted community. I'm looking forward to getting back to the IA Summit for the first time in a few years.

If you're looking for an excuse to go to SXSW, I'm going to give it to you. Not only are their plenty of UX sessions these days but there are some great cross over development, design, marketing and a million other sessions to help expand your mind (as all good UXers should continually be doing, right?)

Brought to you by the same people who do UX Australia, this promises to be a great conference on an important topic. If I was in the right hemisphere I'd totally be there.

The IxDA's conference makes its first European appearance with a plethora of workshops, talks and keynotes. Should be a great show.

'A one day conference looking at how ideas are designed to be more understandable.' - It doesn't get more UX than that right? Some of my favourite speakers in the line up. Can't wait.

I haven't attended NACONF personally (yet) but last years event received great reviews. Another carefully curated lineup with speakers encouraged to talk about something a little different to their usual spiel and something they really care about (not that speakers ever do anything else, right?!) - word is it's a gem of a conference. Not strictly UX but covers lots of topics we should be thinking about.

Might not look like a UX conference at first glance but a lot about Lean is very UX. The more we know about it, the better. I'm going.

After a patchy 2010 event, UX People really hit their stride this year - great speakers and great workshops and a different crowd of faces in the audience. A day well spent.

The inaugural UX Bristol was a great day of networking and learning with a good range of formats and new speakers/topics. I really enjoyed it and will be back for 2012.