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We are the New Jersey chapter of the User Experience Professionals Association. We connect intense professionals to great content about user experience, user-centered design, usability and human factors.
Prossimi eventi (2)
Visualizza tutto- Making Good Trouble: At the Intersection of UX and ActivismLink visibile ai partecipanti
How does the intersection of UX and activism accelerate democracy while also providing new opportunities for User Experience professionals?
Certainly, the Founding Fathers did not envision the Internet, social media, and the bevy of technologies proliferated in recent years. As society has changed so have the tools and the “hard” and “soft” skills required to address the ways humans interact with those technologies. New disciplines like UX that followed ergonomics have grown to provide better, more intuitive experiences.
That body of knowledge has ironically, gone full ‘analog’, now informing more detail about how we learn about and interact with each other. This is particularly interesting when applied to activism and advocacy.
In short, the special UX skills such as design thinking, various research techniques and intentional collaboration opportunities across diverse groups, combined with our natural affinity for empathy, influence for the good, and respect for the truth, have primed UXers to lead, motivate and guide activists.
Chris believes UX professionals are "naturals" when it comes to the world of civics and championing human rights. The same guiding principles used in our work as designers and researchers can be applied to the variety of activities needed to succeed in preserving and protecting democracy.
So how do we transform our knowledge into activism?
Chris will present a brief overview and examples from her own personal journey, promising a few short bullet points, leaving us with lots of time for a lively, extended question and answer session.
About Our Speaker:
Chris Hawkins is a UX Consultant who has worked in the UX field for 20 years, adding activism to her portfolio in 2016. Chris is the founder of Voting for our Lives Indivisible, accessible via TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Threads and BlueSky by searching @votingforourlives. Find her private FaceBook group at www.Facebook.com/groups/votingforourlives and her personal profile at www.facebook.com/chris.hawkins.524 See her Reel People video “Shorts” at www.YouTube.com/@votingforourlives, which a set of short 30 sec stories about how people are feeling or affected by the administration (in beta, those more directly affected will be forthcoming. ) See also her Currents Playlist for her daily selection of independent media.
Chris’ passion has always been "to advocate for a better experience." During her decades-long career, she has worked as a UX researcher and consultant for such organizations as Dun & Bradstreet, United Airlines, California DMV, Inovalon, BioRoad, Facebook Ads, California Community Services & Development, and Healthline, among others. Chris' tenure included joining Care2.com, an environmentally and socially activist website, where she designed their first online petition.
Chris is especially focused on networking, educating and motivating citizens to participate in democracy. She is a continuous learner, always striving to apply the principles of “meeting people where they are” and active listening to find shared values for more meaningful interactions with all kinds of folks--including the voters at the grocery store. :)
Chris holds an AA degree in Computer Science, a BS in Anthropology and in Music, and an MS in HCI (Human Computer Interaction) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY.
Meeting Agenda
7:30 - 7:45 pm Welcome, announcements, job seekers/offers
7:45 - 9:00 pm Speaker presentation followed by extended Q&A
9:00 pm ClosingThank you to Professor Rupa Misra and Rutgers University for their sponsorship of this event.
Our UXPA NJ chapter is developing a sponsorship program for organizations, so that they can additionally support and assist our UXPA NJ chapter in serving our growing community. For more information about some possible ways that your organization can further support our mission, reach out to Josephine Giaimo at josephinegiaimo@gmail.com.