Sparkbox UnConferences: A Platform for Learning and Sharing

Back in 2020 when COVID first interrupted our lives, there were suddenly very few opportunities to connect with our communities and share knowledge with each other. So we decided to host our first UnConference. We have since hosted multiple UnConferences each year. These free virtual learning events are made to highlight many different topics within the web industry—especially topics we were exploring and excited to share. Take a look at all the talks given by our team.

Design Systems

A design system touches everything from company culture to technical assets, empowering teams to balance creativity with consistency, efficiency, sustainability, and accessibility. We have spent years interviewing hundreds of teams to give us deep insight into industry trends and opportunities.

The Anatomy of a Design System

Learn each part of a design system to give you and your team a shared understanding of how these systems connect core brand elements with digital interfaces, enable consistent brand expression, and much more.

The Anatomy of Design Systems In-The-Wild

Understand how the Anatomy of a Design System applies to the systems of some of the world's most successful companies and how to carry these ideas to your design system.

Introduction to the Design System Maturity Model

In this session, understand Sparkbox’s Design System Maturity Model and its potential impact on the four stages of maturity. Learn to identify where you are now, and how to evolve your system.

Design System Culture

If you feel like you’re swimming upstream with your design system, it may be the result of a cultural problem—not a technical one. Learn more about the link between design systems and company culture.

Selling Design Systems

If you can’t sell the design system to your internal stakeholders, you’ll never get it off the ground. Explore how to respond to key pain points and highlight opportunities to get your executive team on board.

It Takes a Village: Building Organizational Buy-In For Your Design System

In working with clients on design system projects, we understand how building buy-in across an organization is one of the greatest challenges that organizations face with their design systems.

Let’s Talk about Design Systems and Designing for Them

Explore the difference between design systems, style guides, and pattern libraries and learn how design and development teams can work together to build more than just components.

User Experience Design

Every web product exists to serve the end users. But how can we do that if we don’t even know what they need or how they use the product? Enter user experience and design. They focus on user-centered thinking to do the research and best serve the needs of each specific project.

Putting the “User” in UX

To create digital products that truly serve the user, you have to verify assumptions about what those users want. Understand easy ways to incorporate first-person user research in your project.

Getting to the Heart of Your UX Issues

Look at ways to problem-solve when your organization lacks a UX team or when the team is too small for the work—or worse yet when few even value UX where you are.

Staying in Sync

Learn how you can identify and solve the gaps between design and development by identifying the common issues and focusing on collaboration.

Copacetic Collaboration

Dive into specifics on how design and development teams can have a successful collaboration through communication, confidence, and experiments.

The Ladder of System Thinking

Watch an introduction to using systems thinking that will help you make highly effective deliverables that your stakeholders will appreciate.

How to Begin Remediating Your Website’s Inaccessibility

Take practical steps to diagnose accessibility issues on your legacy site, and embrace inclusive solutions with some helpful starting points.

Auditing What Issues You Have (or Don’t Have)

Figure out where your site is confusing users and understand how to see through their eyes and make usable navigation, forms & flows, and content.

Need help with your digital project? We're here for you!

We've found that we deliver the greatest value to our clients when we establish ongoing relationships that allow us to materially contribute to their long-term success. If you are interested in a collaborative partnership, Sparkbox might be the right partner for you.

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Development and Process

Web development has many different steps and processes: building, testing, iterating, fixing, planning—the list goes on and on. Each step is unique and requires different processes and learning to be able to be successful.

Understanding Accessibility: WCAG’s 13 Guidelines

WAccessibility is critical, but it can be confusing. Let’s demystify the 13 WCAG 2.1 guidelines and show examples of each guideline in action—empowering you to improve accessibility in your projects.

5 Ways to Advocate for Accessibility

You know accessibility is important, but how do you advocate for accessibility on your team? Learn how you can prioritize and integrate web accessibility into your process.

Foundations of Sustainable Software

Creating effective software requires planning, insight, architecture, and cross-discipline collaboration. Let’s uncover strategies for maintaining a software solution’s shared vision.

A Project Manager’s Best Friend: The Technical Lead

Learn how the project manager and technical lead duo can impact the technical vision, empower other team members, and add value to everyone.

How to Build a Zero-Maintenance Web Application

Imagine launching a web project that you never have to maintain. Is it even possible? Learn what it takes to build a zero-maintenance web application and the trade-offs you have to make.

Product and Project Management

Some of the biggest challenges that our partners face aren’t technical, they’re human. It can be easier to write code and test products than it is to motivate people and run an effective team. That’s where project management can shine and help to keep the project on track and manage constraints.

Unlocking Competitive Advantage as a Project Manager and Product Owner

Project managers and product owners carry similar but very distinct roles in completing a product. Learn the difference and how they can work together to build the right thing the first time around.

Using a Product Roadmap to Unify a Team

Understand how to drive consistency towards your business goals by building a flexible, long-term product vision with a product roadmap.

Nailing the Mechanics of the Day to Day

Build efficiency through project cadence and micro-actions that can help project managers nail the day-to-day needs of a successful software project.

Product Champions: Leading Products for the Win

If you’re responsible for the success of a software product, you’re a Product Champion. Learn what this role means and how you can avoid (or mitigate) some of the challenges that come along with it.

How a UX Team Can Support a Product Champion

As a product champion, learn how UX pros can lighten your load by unlocking their potential for research, generating concepts, and evaluating customer feedback.

Supporting Developers as a Product Champion

If you’re the Product Champion on a software development project, that means working with a development team. Understand how to support your development team, enforce scope, and ensure the quality of your end product.

Join Us In Future Learning Events

As we continue these UnConference events, we hope you join us in exploring the many different disciplines and experiences that go into building a web product. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter to stay up to date with upcoming events and recent Foundry articles. If you think Sparkbox can help you or your team, contact us to get the conversation started.