When the first event was planned for 2016, the first thing we put up was a Code of Conduct. We knew it was important to have one. Unfortunately, we just put up the boilerplate most everyone uses, because we thought it well-written. Thanks to some thoughts by Karolina Szczur, we know now that this wasn't enough.
So we’ve now written our own, though it still is largely inspired by the previous one we had copied and pasted. But it now is in our own words, and addresses how it’s enforced.
View the latest Code of Conduct.
We try our best to make sure Clarity is accessible to as many people as possible. We want as many people to have the full Clarity experience as possible.
If there are additional ways we can provide a more inclusive event, please share! And as always, let us know what you need to have a full experience and we’ll do everything in our power to provide it.
Starting with the second year, we began a scholarship.
Students or people who work at non-profits can request a discount by contacting from their organization’s or school’s email. There can be other factors in requesting a refund; these are given out on a case-by-case basis if the reason makes sense.
At registration for in-person events, we offer three badge lanyard colors to choose from to indicate your choice:
We ask that all photographers, videographers, and attendees respect this.
We will also provide stickers so you can add your pronouns. We encourage everyone to use these.
As of 2018, we began having gender-neutral bathrooms. We will try our best to make this happen going forward, wherever possible, depending on the event and venue location.
A note from Jina —
A ton of folks reach out about speaking at Clarity. However, I noticed a trend. About 90% of the people who reach out are cisgender straight white men. If I only relied on these requests, this would not make for a very diverse or inclusive event.
Also, many people who reach out want to talk about why and how they built a design system at their company. I think it’s safe to say that most people attending this event (especially those who have attended previously) are looking for something more than a show and tell.
I made the decision at the very beginning that I will personally curate a diverse range of perspectives — not just for race and gender — but also in subject matter expertise, experience levels (I love inviting people who are brand new to speaking), healthy differences in opinions, and many other factors. My ideal line up mixes all the things I love about design systems.
I want to create an experience that covers a wide range of topics like accessibility, branding, design best practices and operations, engineering, and more — all within the context of design systems, of course. So it’s very likely I will select someone you’ve never heard of, or who works on a design system that isn’t publicly shared, but they bring a really unique perspective to the event. That is what excites me about curation.
There are zero sponsored presentations during the main event. There are only 12 talks total, and I don’t think it would do a good service to the attendees.
I’m proud that people have called Clarity a very diverse event. But I must admit, I didn’t have to try that hard. The Design Systems community is a very diverse one, and it’s not difficult to find people from all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives!