When entrepreneurship student Flower Hua started her UX reading group on Meetup, she figured it’d be a way to keep the learning going outside the classroom. Today, the group has more than 100 members and has drawn the attention of UX professionals and students alike!
Tell us about your Meetup group, Flip Through UX Book Club. What kinds of events do you host?
The group is a user experience (UX) reading group. Each meeting, we talk about a book we’ve read on a topic related to UX like design, research, and writing. We plan our group meetings to occur about every four to six weeks. That way, group members have plenty of time to get the book and read it.
When I started the group, it was before COVID-19 had fully hit the U.S. I didn’t expect the reading group to be online, I thought we would meet around Seattle and get students from other universities nearby and a few UX professionals to join the group. By meeting online, we’ve been able to reach a wider audience—people from Silicon Valley and parts of Canada have attended too.
We’ve even had some author participation. Once, when we were reading a book by Justin Dauer, Justin heard about it and reached out to see if we had any questions about his work. He joined our meeting and we were able to ask him questions in real-time. It was such a great experience!
What made you decide to start organizing a UX book reading group on Meetup?
I wasn’t always a user experience (UX) person. In undergrad, I was a pre-law student. But I had recently joined a research group related to UX at the University of Washington, and I wondered if there were any UX book groups. There weren’t any, so I asked my instructor Mike Berg if he wanted to start a book club with me.
We turned to Meetup because it’s a good place to get people from lots of different backgrounds involved. We purposefully didn’t create the group as a university club because we wanted to be able to get people from other universities nearby involved, as well as professionals working in UX. About half of our group are members of the UXPA, a professional organization for people in the UX industry.
It was really important to me to have UX professionals along with students in the group. We could learn from each other, but also create opportunities for students looking to start their careers.
Tell us about your work as a graduate student. Are UX topics related to your studies?
I have a somewhat unusual background and set of interests. I still have a strong interest in law. At the same time, I’m now in a master’s program for entrepreneurship at the University of Washinton’s Foster School of Business. I’m really interested in the ways that lawyers can make the process of finding and vetting new clients more efficient.
Lawyers cost a lot per hour, so if there’s a way to cut down on the amount of time they have to spend with a new client in a consultation, that makes it easier on the client and the business. For me, this is where UX comes in. Intuitive interfaces on the website will make onboarding new clients easier. Learning more about UX has given me lots of ideas for how law firms can benefit from the principles. I’m still learning, which is why I like having UX book club. It’s a way to get new ideas.
What advice do you have for other students who are interested in starting a Meetup group?
The best way to lead a Meetup group is to follow your passion and not give up. Between classes, assignments, research, and everything else, students have many demands on their time. If you aren’t totally passionate about the topic of your group, it will be hard to stay motivated enough to keep up with it. But if you are passionate about the topic, running a Meetup group is so rewarding. This UX group has exposed me to new ideas and people.
What’s great about Meetup is how easy it is to bridge the gap between education and industry. Both students and professionals will join your group. It’s a great way to meet people and learn how to get into the field. Plus, the people who join your events are nice and many are really interested in becoming friends. It’s a supportive environment to learn and share your thoughts.
Last modified on January 11, 2022
