Reflections on IXDA Latin America 2019 — Medellín

Adey Salyards
Nov 7 · 4 min read

This weekend, around 2000 Spanish, Portuguese, and English speaking designers gathered in the beautiful city of Medellín to discuss the latest topics in UX. I was privileged to be one of them. Some thoughts:

Favorite Keynotes

Nick Finck — You need to hire junior designers

  • Nick made the case that a passion for inclusion means nothing if your company only hires designers from prestigious companies or universities. A commitment to diversity must include a strategy to recruit candidates from non-traditional paths.
  • He decried the trend of companies eliminating the junior designer role. He argued that companies who embrace a growth mindset are usually defined by two things: an expectation that their leaders teach and where junior designers aren’t seen as a liability.

Donna Spencer — Learn how to present your work better

Mauritza Guaderrama — The Future of Design, or Designing the Future

  • When Mauritza opened her talk, she shared her talk would focus exclusively on Latin American designers solving problems for Latin America. Immediately the entire room erupted in applause.
  • She highlighted examples of designers leading social change in Latin America through the power of thoughtful design. She challenged us to think critically about the problems we choose to focus on.
  • Because Mauritza is from Spain and has a vocabulary that reflects her impressive academic credentials, understanding her talk was a test of my Spanish skills. I think I’ll need to listen to it again to make sure I caught all the details!

Honorable mention: Jason Mesut: Shaping Designers

Most Interesting Talks

Francisco Pulido + Vinicius Dourado: When a user dies, what should happen to their social media accounts?

  • These designers interviewed those who recently experienced a loss of a loved one to understand what role the deceased’s social media accounts played in their grieving process. From this, these designers established a set of guidelines for how to handle this situations thoughtfully.
  • Fascinating to see design thinking applied to such a sensitive part of the human experience.

Richard Davy + Richard Swain: Bringing Design Thinking to Inner-City Youth

  • These two designers partnered with a local nonprofit to set up a fellowship for high school students to learn design thinking. Over the course of a school year, these students work in groups to choose a problem they want to solve, brainstorm solutions and create a brand to champion the cause. Throughout the process, they were exposed to different types of careers and problem solving methods.
  • Inspiring to see how design can teach a young person new ways to view the world. And I was so impressed that this was a side project for the designers, on top of client work.
  • https://www.hugeinc.com/curriculum

If you’re considering going…

I recommend it. Some of the best minds in design traveled from all over the globe to speak at this conference. I’ve been to design conferences where people clacked on their laptops most of the time. The vibe at IXDA ILA was the opposite: attendees were focused, punctual and filled all the front row seats for every talk.

If there were medals’ for attention to detail, these conference organizers deserve one. There was simultaneous translation to 3 languages for each major talk and the pace of the conference allowed for space to mingle and reflect. The conference branding was full of personality and executed flawlessly. If I had to describe it, I would use the words “dance party”, “color drenched” and “with a sense of humor”.

I would especially recommend it to designers that are used to attending conferences in the US or Europe. Sometimes it feels like these conferences draw from the same well. In contrast, IXDA ILA gave a platform for Latinx speakers to speak in their own element, in their own language, about problems that matter to them. It was powerful to witness.

2020’s location is Costa Rica. How can you resist?

Adey Salyards

Written by

Designer Manager at Walmart

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