Config just came to an end and I wanted to quickly share my takeaways, mixing text and images, two formats that I like to play with.

The venue (Moscone Center) is huge, I was surprised with the scale of the event from the beginning, for some reason I was expecting something a little smaller. The branding was on point, plenty of colour, playful shapes and video everywhere, and strong brand presence on every little experience I had during the event.

There was a bit of a block party happening outside the venue that was really nice to hang out, enjoy the sun and connect with other attendees

There were a couple of playful installations; a playful synth music machine, a FigJam stall recreating the FigJam experience in real life, and a series of booths from other awesome companies, like Atlassian, Github, UserTesting, Bolt, Ditto, amongst others. I found Ditto very interesting, it’s pretty much a CMS to manage UX content in the product.

The talks

Opening talk – Watch the talk

This was awesome, they announced so many good things, new languages (spanish, portuguese and korean), they announced grids (FINALLY), and then they went through awesome announcement after awesome announcement, I was literally asking my friend Tiff “When do you think Figma will take on the generative AI coding tools?”, and they announced Figma Make, it was incredible. I felt like Nostradamus. They announced:

• Draw Mode, you can paint, custom brushes, create dynamic patterns, text curves and progressive gradients – Taking on Illustrator
• Figma Make introduces AI into workflows, generating designs and expanding user flows instantly – Taking on Replit, Bolt and Lovable
• Figma Sites lets you design, manage breakpoints, and publish interactive web pages seamlessly. With a built in CMS – Taking on Webflow, Wix and WordPress
• Grid Layouts
  

This announcement proved that Figma is redefining design workflows with a strong belief in an awesome future for the designers, I truly felt like I was witnessing a historical moment.

My favourite talks I attended

I couldn’t make it to any of the Atlassian talks, but you can watch them here
Config 2025: Maturing your teams & your leadership
Config 2025: Rediscovering design collaboration with Atlassian with Christina Nguyen White

Crossing the chasm between quality and performance – Watch the talk
by Ricardo Vazquez Director, Product Design @ Dropbox

This was a very interesting deep dive about the UX designing of high performing experiences and the principles behind it. How to put guardrail to performance metrics and how to align cross functional teams around performance metrics.

Some of his principles are: Don’t make me wait (Leveraging progressive disclosure), Make it snappy (Making sure that the user know what to do as soon as possible), Smooth like butter (How to really fine tune animation frame rate to add emotion and delight to interfaces)

Writing is designing – Watch the talk
by Andy Welfle Content Designer @ Glean

Andy took a deep dive into the world of content design, highlighting just how crucial it is to the overall design process. He shared his personal journey as a content designer, walking us through the various roles he’s embraced over the years. One key takeaway? Fostering a “love for words” within the teams he works with is essential, along with ensuring that content is Usable, Useful, and Responsible.

In a fun exercise, he envisioned a product created without any words, which really brought to light the challenges users would face in figuring out how to navigate or grasp its purpose. This led to a rich narrative on the impact of content on user experience at every step, from those early wireframes all the way to the final touches of microcopy. We’ll explore how terminology and verbs serve as crucial building blocks, how voice and tone tie the product to the brand, and how elements of UX writing elevate the overall experience.

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Designing for play and friction in a fast-paced world – Watch the talk

by Michelle Lee, Partner & Managing Director @ IDEO

One of my favourite talks featured Michelle, who explored the transformative power of play in designing for friction. This counterintuitive yet profound approach encourages us to slow down, allowing for the creation of more meaningful and joyful experiences. She emphasized how play can harness friction to foster deeper connections and richer experiences.

Through insightful examples drawn from research on Gen Z and Generative AI, she illustrated the importance of embracing authentic, imperfect moments rather than opting for streamlined solutions. Michelle challenged my perception of friction, prompting me to reflect on our dependence on technology’s shortcuts. Her insights inspire a re-imagining of how we live, work, and play.

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When products must die – Watch the talk

by Subham Agarwal, Director of Product @ Ramp

This talk dove into a thought-provoking topic that really gets you thinking: “When should we consider discontinuing a product, and how can we do so gracefully?” Subham shared some interesting examples of products that once flourished but eventually faced challenges, along with her own case study of a product she developed and had to retire. She laid out a helpful framework for sunsetting even our beloved products, guiding us on how to spot the warning signs, make those tough calls, and transform the tricky aftermath into opportunities for future success.

Pitch perfect: how to present ideas to cut through the noise – Watch the talk

by Wojtek Dziedzic, Senior Product Designer @ Nord Security

I think this was my favourite talk, or at least, the one that I enjoyed the most, it was pretty much a presentation about presenting, which was quite meta, and on top of that Wojtek threw a lot of things to the mix, from childhood memories from his early days in Poland, stories about old cars, neuroplasticity, Nord VPN ads, and a UX case study, it was like a storytelling patchwork. Very entertaining.

Crafting quality that endures – Watch the talk
by Karri Saarinen, Co-founder & CEO @ Linear

I’ve been following Karri for a while, both for Linear and also for the narrative about quality that he has created with “Conversations on Quality”. This talk was beautiful, it went all the way to the origin of quality in the era of handcrafted goods, and following the story about how as technology progressed, quality and craft was compromised. The narratve about going back to the craft, and balancing the typical metrics of speed and revenue, with metrics of quality was very refreshing.

My main take away: Craft is the input, quality is the output.

Augmental MouthPad^: redesigning the computer mouse – Watch the talk
by Corten Singer, Co-founder & President @ Augmental & Ryan Hudson-Peralta, Creative Director & Disability Advocate @ Rocket & Equal Accessibility

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This is the type of talks that gives you a deep sense of hope for technology, the MouthPad is a device that helps users control their devices with their mouth through Bluetooth, and the capabilities are quite impressive. They are competing with solutions like Neuralink, but this is a much cheaper and less disruptive solution, there are people with different disabilities using with success. There was a demo where Ryan, renowned Creative Director, hat collector and early adopter of the MouthPad gave a demo of the product

My main take away: Craft is the input, quality is the output.

Breaking and entering (and building culture along the way) – Watch the talk

by Jeff Staple, Founder & Executive Creative Director @ STAPLE / Reed Art Department

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I was looking forward to this one, I was a big fan of HYPEBEAST and this talk didn’t disappoint, he talked about his journey, dropping off uni twice, and sneaking into the screen printing workshops at uni as his t-shirt business was growing, I could relate with his story being raised in skateparks with punk and hip-hop music in the background. The way he told the Nike Pigeon Shoe story was hilarious, a true historic event in the sneaker culture.

Design at the speed of startups – Watch the talk

by Gabriel Valdivia, Fractional Founding Designer @ Valdivia Works

I have been following Gabe’s work for some time now, and I find his transition from in-house designer to fractional design leader for early-stage startups particularly exciting. In my view, the most exceptional designers possess an intrapreneurial spirit; they utilise design not only to create experiences but also to align the business with the value of those experiences, inspiring enthusiasm among stakeholders.

The three pillars to lead the conversation as a designer: The artifact (to trigger reactions and get people excited), The oversharer (continuously sharing your work to make people feel part of the journey) and the storyteller

Gabe discussed how prioritizing rapid iteration and visual artifacts can significantly transform the design process for early-stage startups. He emphasized the importance of leveraging design as a tool for speed, alignment, and impact in the high-stakes environment of startups.

The different roles of a designer according to the stage of the company

Work in progress – To be continued

This article is an early draft, intended to share my early impressions of Config 2025 with my team