When Remote Events Had To Keep The Human Element

Early 2020, the SmashingConf team had a full calendar of new speakers, workshops, and cities. COVID-19 changed the scope of that year within days. The team had to decide what SmashingConf would be when nobody could be in the same room. Publishing talks alone was not an option. The core value always was togetherness and learning from one another via shared struggles and achievements. That goal shaped the search for a platform.

After months of testing, the team settled on Hopin. Its Session Rooms made intimate Q&A sessions possible. Attendees could turn on video and audio, ask questions, and have real conversations with speakers. Some speakers went further and ran audit sessions, sharing screens to get instant feedback on accessibility, performance, and design. Party duties were handled by Charis and Jarijn, who hosted a quiz show with prizes that attendees competed for on-screen or via chat.

Making Serendipity And Chatter Work Online

The spontaneous hallway conversations were the hardest to replicate. Hopin's "Networking" feature helped: an attendee signals readiness and the platform pairs them with someone else for a three-minute chat. At the Holiday Meets event, attendees combined this with Bingo cards and solved clues by talking to strangers.

Not everyone wanted to share video, and chat options were limited. While Hopin offers multiple chat channels and a toggleable direct-message feature, the team wanted richer expression. They opened a Slack channel alongside the event and used Get Emoji and native Mac emoji to add reactions. Hopin has said it plans to bring its own emoji deck in the future.

Accessibility was the biggest concern given the community focus. Hopin said accessibility had been a priority since its start, and the company has since added full keyboard integration and improved screen-reader reports. Captioning lagged. It can be integrated into the mainstage when using the RTMP streaming function, and the team confirmed native captioning is in development. Until then, Smashing partnered with two services:

  • White Coat Captioning: a human transcriber works live, feeding text into StreamText so the audience sees a transcript in a separate window. More expensive, but human accuracy.
  • Thisten: an AI transcription program of the same kind, with a cost-friendly option that lets selected users edit text so the AI learns as it goes.

Broadcast, Whiteboards, And Hybrid Events

Hopin offers a dedicated backstage area that allows streaming directly from the platform. For more control, the RTMP feature lets you route through Open Broadcaster Software to mix screens, captions, and other sources. Early streaming quality was a limitation: Hopin runs in the browser only, works best in Chrome and Firefox, and places demands on bandwidth and CPU.

StreamYard joined the Hopin family in late 2020. Smashing used it for enhanced production quality, including titles, lower thirds, audience questions, and other labels. That opened up more personalization and more locations for streaming. The Miro integration also stands out. Vitaly Friedman had used the remote whiteboard to build design-and-code challenges where teams collaborated on storyboards. Hopin now embeds Miro directly, so users do not have to juggle separate tabs, and Miro's free tier means no added cost.

Hopin has announced an app designed for hybrid events. In-person attendees can interact with remote attendees. Vendors can present in person but also talk to the online audience. Someone who has to step away mid-session can watch a live stream, and anyone who cannot travel but belongs to an in-person company event can still participate remotely.

Hybrid As The Path Forward

Even as in-person events return, plenty of attendees may be reluctant or restricted from traveling. Online events carried real advantages this year. The Smashing team learned remotely, workshops brought experts to home offices, and community members who could not travel before got to participate. Hybrid may become the future format even as in-person events resume.

Recordings from past Smashing conference events, including the Smashing Meets series, are available through the membership area. The online workshops split in-person session energy across several days, leaving room to digest the material, with videos typically uploaded the next day and moderators in every session to handle technical problems.