From what I experienced, the Nordic countries have their own design research tradition, with a particular taste of participation and political involvement. Consequently, many of the presentations during the conference addressed these topics in one way or another, ranging from hands-on interventionist projects to critical reflections on design activism. It might be due to this common tradition that the conference theme and presentation were somewhat coherent without necessarily dealing with the same topic.
Regarding the organization, it was beneficial to have relatively few participants (compared to bigger conferences like EAD or DRS), making it easy to stick to the schedule and unnecessary to divide the presentations into too many parallel tracks. Full paper presentations were mostly very well prepared, interesting (and sometimes controversial in a refreshing way). So apart from the usual stuff that travellers might complain about (like the unfulfilled craving for teatime cookies), the conference was a very pleasant experience.
Apart from the organization and overall quality, it was also a nice example of design community building. I met the PhD candidates I first got to know one year ago at the NORDES summer school again at the pre-conference doctoral consortium. In my point of view, the biannual conferences and summer schools are a good example of how to encourage PhDs to present their progress and an opportunity to get to know each other. The doctoral consortium as well as the conference provided a friendly but critical forum for the PhD candidates to present their ideas and get feedback, and we might need some more of that.
