Women in UX

Mags Hanley 

What is a Senior Designer? And how do I get there?

Mags will be talking about career growth and things to consider when you are wanting to go to the next level. How might you ready yourself for the challenge? 

Nataly Tormey 
Meld Studios

Transforming Crisis Care Services Through Design

Nataly will talk about her work done with an overworked and stressed not-profit-organisation who provides crisis care for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness or domestic violence.

The not-for-profit realised that the frontline workers were unable to focus on the work they needed to do because they were too busy completing the “process”. They knew that if so much time was being spent doing the “process” that this meant less time serving the people coming to them for help. This could mean the difference between someone sleeping on the street or finding a safe place to sleep that night.

Nataly used a coaching model, working on-site with a core team for 8 weeks building the team’s capacity and capability doing research, sensemaking and reporting together. Through this work the team built a set of principles that delivered greater value than the original brief. Together they did not just solve a single problem but built internal capability that serves as the start of a culture shift towards being more user-centred for years to come.

Nataly Tormey is a designer, nurse, educator, and founder who believes that we have everything we need to solve some of our greatest problems. Yet, at its core, we still face significant discomfort sitting at the same table together. Nataly is on a mission to overcome that. She wants to bring all voices to the table and create time and space for people to design a socially just future, together. Nataly is currently working on the podcast 'This wasn't made for me' to help people navigate challenging conversations around the behaviours of exclusion and inclusion. She is also working on creating trauma-informed and trauma-responsive resources for designers.

Nitya Kumar
Meta

A comedian a day, keeps the users engaged: using stand-up comedy as a recipe for a better user experience

What do stand-up comedians and product designers have in common? We design experiences, they write jokes that make you create abs with laughter. However, in our hearts, we both care about building an emotional connection with our users.

This talk will detail theories, practical examples, and best practices used by comedians to help you improve skills in design thinking, problem solving, and storytelling. We’ll draw on case studies about everything from your favorite Netflix comedy special to jokes that connect people from all parts of the world. 

If you’re ready to gain a different perspective on how comedy theories such as David Chapelle’s anamnesis technique, Hasan Minhaj’s punchlines or Schitts Creeks use of euphemism can translate into Morning Brew’s content strategy, Tinder’s automated messaging prompts, and make the experiences you design better – this is the talk for you.

Nitya Kumar’s work on the intersection between design and comedy have been published in design publications such as It’s Nice That. She is currently a product designer at Meta designing strategies for Messenger and Instagram messaging experiences. Before Meta, she worked at The New York Times, where she helped build their first editorial design system. Nitya also served as a design judge at Boston University’s design competition, guest speaker at several universities including Parsons School of Design and NYU Tandon and has written for UX Collective and Bootcamp. When she’s not designing, she is providing mentorship on ADPlist and attending classes hosted by Saturday Night Live comedians.