My first experience of the Leeds Testing Atelier and curiosity about notetaking

May 20, 2025

Create Memory
Collage image of handwritten notes on the left and a crowd of people listening to a talk on the right.

Last week, I took a trip back home to Leeds to attend Leeds Testing Atelier for the first time.

What a truly great event that I can't believe is free to attend!

Talks about psychological safety in the workplace, the importance of customers when building software and the ethics of AI are just a flavour of what this amazing conference has to offer.

There was also a live recording of the What A Lot Of Things podcast that was really fun. They gained a new listener in me that day!

I really recommend people check out the conference next year. Great community feel and very informative.

As an aside, here's a pic of my notes from one of the talks (as well as a pic of me taking some notes, rocking that Bug tee - shout-out to Ministry of Testing).

I'm curious to hear how people take notes at conferences and talks.

I like to quickly scribble down things from slides but also, write down things directly from the speaker if they stand out to me.

QA Engineer
He/him
QA Engineer working for Two Circles
Simon Tomes
Note-taking at events is such a powerful tool and one we shouldn't underestimate. For sure we're fortunate that a lot of talks are recorded and can be revisited later. One might think, "Ah, I need to concentrate on listening, I don't need to take notes as I can come back to the recording later." Yet there's something in the act of taking notes — hand-written, typed, drawn – that plants a seed in our learning. Watching back later joins the dots with the notes.

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