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? 

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.