The conference team has worked hard to make this a great conference for you.
As a pay it forward to the next years conference team, we'd appreciate some comments on the exceptionally good and could be improved aspects so they can make next year better.
If you particularly like someone else's suggestion edit the page to add a '+' character at the end of the line. Then the organisers can get a rough idea of the interest in different suggestions.
I really loved:
The conference could improved by ... to achieve ...:
Website - the registration process for newcomers is too hard. There is no guidance. It's not intuitive. Is it really necessary to sign up on LA first? Could this be automated afterwards somehow? With years of usability research establishing better patterns, this needs work. Requiring a deploy for every change a speaker makes to their abstract is also clunky, I overheard some grumbles that this didn't happen in time for attendees to get preparation material,
Earlier notice regarding Uni accomidation. Was announced almost 2 months after earlybird rego. +
There was a only a single line at morning tea for food. Took a long time for everyone to get through
If a session is not being recorded could this be announced in advance so people have time to adjust their schedule +
A page on how to use Matrix
A physical board in the hallway to suggest BOF or hallway track ideas. Bit hard to do everything online while participating in talks
The website template could be improved with a glossary page (like Glossary and terms) to explain common terms for newcomers, without re-writing a new list each year. (Perhaps something like Unusual references section PyConAU has?)
Seeding wiki with information about some things that are likely to generate questions - Conf meals, social media channels, local area, announcements requested by attendees, sharing transport to get to and from venue, suggested accommodation, ...
Announcing talks before earlybird closes (and well before main ticket sales close) for those who need to justify funding
Greater marketing/inclusion of new attendees - need to foster new people into the Australasian open source community.
"No photo" pins to facilitate an intrusion free photographer ability
Better management of AV for remote speakers:
Info ahead of time so speakers know what technology to expect
A chance to test the remote presentation tech at least 24 hours ahead of time in case of problems
If possible an earlier to start to remote connection in case of last last minute problems (I lost 10m off the front of my talk -- which was tough and not great for the audience)
Signs You can't have too many. linux.conf.au Sydney 2018 did a great job of this. During the first intro, Miles gestured that morning tea was in UCX "downstairs". I knew from walking into the uni that UCX was a separate building, my partner remembered the downstairs bit, so we were in some doubt. Turns out we were both right! Signs will take load off the volunteers.
Would like to see a conference charity.
See https://lessobvious.cc/ for some suggestions.
Introductions from volunteers varied. Say something to introduce the speaker, make sure you get a nice round of applause and not an anticlimax.
I think these things could offer benefits and/or have worked well for other conferences but have trade-offs
Having a form for booking seats at Penguin Dinner tables so like-minded people can eat together.
I miss the mini-confs.