We had an amazing time at Disco Conf 2022—thank you to everyone who attended and made Maze’s first-ever conference an unforgettable event!
In case you missed it, Disco Conf is a global virtual conference dedicated to discovery, design, and research. Over two days from October 25 to 26, Disco Conf united thousands of minds across the globe. It brought together people and ideas for an exploration of what it means to have a discovery mindset, and to embrace the power of curiosity, collaboration, and continuous learning.
Disco Conf 2022 may be over but fear not—we’re here to give you a round-up of everything that happened. If you couldn’t make the live stream or want to rewatch the sessions, you can now access all the conference recordings in the Maze Community—for free.
Product announcements
At Maze, we believe that products are never really finished, and that a live product is just an iteration of the next solution. During the Opening Keynote, Maze Co-founder and CEO, Jonathan Widawski talked about the paradigm shift happening in research, moving towards continuous product discovery, and shared what our team is building to bring the Maze vision to life.
One core pillar to that vision is our Live Suite—a bundle of upcoming features that help you collect insights across the entire product development cycle. Here’s a quick summary of what’s coming:
- Live Website Testing: You’ll finally be able to close the loop and usability test your live websites—the same way you’ve been doing with prototypes. With a simple import process, you’ll be able to create paths, send tests to your testers or our panel, and get actionable insights post-development.
- Maze Widget: You’ll soon be able to share your maze surveys and tests as pop-ups via the Maze Widget on websites or browser-based products. With this, you’ll be able to collect feedback as testers experience your live product, providing more contextual responses and relevant insights.
- Recruiting: Finally, the Maze Widget will introduce a new way to recruit users via your product analytics tool. So you’ll be able to put mazes in front of your unique behavior or demographic based cohorts, increase exposure, and drive up responses.
These Live Suite features are coming to every Maze user in the next few months. In the meantime, stay tuned for updates or watch the full keynote.
The 4 key themes discussed at Disco Conf 2022
Disco Conf included 15 presentations that spanned the topics of discovery, research, design, and data. Speakers from across these industries joined us to share their ideas, frameworks, and stories that sparked conversations and ignited curiosity. We all learned a lot—and we hope you did too.
Here are the four key themes discussed at Disco Conf, and the list of talks you can watch now to catch up.
1. Research—more impactful than ever
Research—both as a craft and an industry—was the main topic of discussion at Disco Conf 2022. Our speakers addressed top-of-mind ideas from across the research industry, such as measuring research impact, to building organizations that learn, and spotting opportunities for high-impact research.
Featured talks:
- Building Organizations that Learn: What creating Maze has unveiled about the future by Behzod Sirjani & Jonathan Widawski
- How to Spot Opportunities For High Impact Research by Sara Sodine Parr
- Measuring Research Impact: Beyond Hard Metrics by Srishti Mehrotra
2. Discovery: the driving force behind product development
In product development, discovery is a mindset and a tool. Leveraged right, it’s one of the most effective instruments that product teams can implement during the product development life cycle.
Unsurprisingly, at Disco Conf 2022, discovery was the talk of the town. Our speakers talked about misconceptions around discovery, prototyping as a learning tool, how to create a strategic narrative for creative discovery, and the common types of discovery to adopt in order to build organizations that learn.
Featured talks:
- Product Research, From Insights to Code by Adilice Sanches
- Strategic Narratives for Creative Discovery by Dan Singer
- Prototyping Towards Outcomes: An Expedition in Learning by David Hoang
3. Data (and intuition) is at the heart of all product decisions
Data has long been the tool product teams leverage to make informed decisions. But today, data is not the only tool. At Disco Conf, our speakers highlighted the need to cultivate storytelling, intuition, and ambivalence, and transform them into strategic advantages. Only through embracing these traits and tools can we correctly question assumptions, devise testable experiments, and build successful products.
Featured talks:
- Necessity, a Legacy of Self-Exploratory Work by Tiziana Alocci
- Act Like a Scientist: An Introduction to Design Science by Dr. Megan Pirrung
- Cultivating Ambivalence as a Strategic Advantage by Victoria Cao
4. Curious by design: Mastering the research craft
A discovery-focused conference would not be complete without satiating our curiosity and need for constant learning. So we invited top-notch experts to share their know-how and make us all better practitioners as a result.
Featured talks:
- The Art and Science of Asking Questions by Dan Brown
- Inclusive by Design: Creating Equitable Futures in Design by Wendy Johansson
- Moonshot Explorations: Concept Testing for Breakthrough Products by Chloe MacKie
- Research for World Wide Products by Rüya Ince
Made special by our global community
One of the best things about organizing a global conference is bringing together curious minds from around the world to discuss ideas, share stories, and connect around the same passions. We were absolutely thrilled to see this many amazing folks from over 80 countries adopt a discovery mindset during—and beyond—Disco Conf.
💙 Here are some community reactions we loved:
We hope you enjoyed Disco Conf 2022 as much as we did. To revisit all the sessions and catch up with the community, check out the conference space in the Maze Community and #DiscoConf22 on Twitter for other attendees’ experiences and thoughts. See you next time!
