Conferences are a great way to learn about a field, gain insights, and network with fellow professionals. I highly recommend attending 1-2 conferences per year. Here are a few you may want to consider attending in 2019.
UXPA
UXPA (User Experience Professionals Association) continues to be among the better practical conferences. The program this year looks great. The sessions Standing on the Shoulders of Giants featuring people like Tom Tullis, Ginny Redish, and Chauncey Wilson should be great. A session with Danielle Cooley, Jen McGinn, and Steve Krug on usability test moderation styles looks promising. And there are others on UX benchmarking, storytelling, survey analysis, and more. http://uxpa2019.org will be June 25-27, 2019 in Scottsdale, AZ.
HXDA
If you design in the healthcare space, you should consider attending https://healthexperiencedesign.com which will be April 2-3, 2019 in Boston, MA. I attended last year and found the content to be interesting and inspiring. One of the best parts was the invitation only Leadership Forum. In this session, design leaders had the opportunity to work together and do some deep thinking on improving the healthcare experience. There are also some good pre-conference workshops available.
CONFAB
People developing products and experiences often don’t have enough knowledge of content and content strategy. CONFAB is a conference dedicated to content strategy while still including great information on core UX topics. April 23-26, 2019 in Minneapolis, MN. https://www.confabevents.com
UX STRAT
I haven’t yet had the chance to attend UX STRAT but it looks promising. A conference intended for more experienced professionals in UX, CX, and service design. Boulder, CO August 26-28, 2019. https://uxstrat.com/usa/
MORE
I just hit the highlights of the possible conferences to consider. One source that looks like it has a pretty comprehensive list of conferences is UX Collective https://uxdesign.cc/the-best-ux-design-conferences-2019-events-bcd7b28f722d
You might also want to check out the list of events put on by the CXPA https://www.cxpa.org/events1/cxpa-conferences