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Talk UX | All Genders Welcome Talk UX started back in 2015 as a conference where women could speak up and share their ideas and experience Back then, women were sorely underrepresented on the tech circuit and it wasn’t uncommon to see 100% male lineups and, perhaps worse, lineups with a token woman. The goal back then was to create the same atmosphere as a Ladies that UX meetup - informal, relaxed and welcoming. It’s fair to say the team achieved not only that but have certainly seen their hope that Talk UX would travel the world and be used by communities across the world as a tool for women to stand up and start talking, realised. But the gender conversation has changed since 2015. In many ways, we’ve seen progress - gender representation at conferences and talks…

Talk UX | Ladies that UX is 6! This August, it’s six whole years since Ladies that UX started. And it was in Manchester, home of Talk UX 19 that the story began We’ll be celebrating with the Manchester chapter’s social on the 20th (and do join us if you can). But how did it all begin? How does co-founder Lizzie feel, reflecting on what Ladies that UX has become? And what does it mean to the women involved across the world? Lizzie tells us, “Georgie and I started Ladies that UX because, at the time, we didn’t know any other women in the industry. We wanted to see who else was out there and be able to just talk to them instead of going to meetups where someone stood at the front and told you what to…

Partnership | InnovateHer and Talk UX Our latest announcement is something a bit special... We’re guessing you’ll know that Ladies that UX sprang from the desire to connect and give visibility to women. Talk UX aimed to take that a step further by giving women a platform from which to share their expertise, at a time when it was the absolute norm to see entire manels, and minimal female representation in conference lineups. And so, it’s with no small degree of delight that we announce our partnership with InnovateHer. The organisation may be familiar to some of you, especially if you’re based in the North West. Indeed, earlier this year, Talk UX Co-Organiser Llara was a mentor for InnovateHer (and tells us she’s keen to be involved again!). But, why Talk UX and InnovateHer? It’s simple really. InnovateHer…

Interview | Sue Irving | Ladies that UX Liverpool And so our Women of Ladies that UX series draws to a close. And we’re delighted to be wrapping up with Sue, founder of the Liverpool chapter Having been a regular participant at Ladies that UX Manchester, Sue recognised that there was a gap for the movement in the ever-growing tech scene in Liverpool and decided to take things into her own hands. She set about gathering a core team and launched Ladies that UX Liverpool in March 2018. Let’s find out more… So tell us Sue, how did you get into UX? My background is in visual design and 4 years ago I was working as a Design Manager for a high street retail company. I wasn’t enjoying the role and felt bored and creatively stale. I began…

Interview | Sophie Mitchell | Ladies that UX London We come back to the UK for this week’s Women of Ladies that UX series, with Sophie from London. Sophie is founder of the London chapter (which she's run for over 5 years now) and Lead UX Designer at Whitbread PLC, the UK's largest hospitality company. You may be familiar with their brands, including Premier Inn, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Bar+Block. Sophie, we always love to hear about the varied ways in which people came to UX - what’s your story? I got into UX in a bit of a roundabout way. In a nutshell, I did a Web Design and Development Diploma at Birkbeck College and discovered my inner geek. After a long stint of working in a variety of senior admin roles at The Royal…

A weekend in Manchester | Talk UX Thinking of coming to Manchester for Talk UX this September? Great decision. While one of Manchester’s great benefits is its accessibility (2 hrs by train to London, just over 3 to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol), it’s got so much more going around that you should really make a trip of it. Especially as Talk UX is on a Friday! So why not come spend a little time in the UK’s coolest city ;) The city centre is delightfully compact, which makes it really easy to get around on foot. There are also free buses in the city centre, as well as the Metrolink tram network if you need a little help getting around. Music Everyone knows (you know, right) about Manchester’s musical heritage. Bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths…

Event Review | Ladies that UX Manchester | Collaborative Ideation Last week, we went along to the Ladies that UX Manchester meet up at optimisation agency User Conversion. The UC research team did a talk on demonstrating the value of user research in optimisation, followed by an interactive workshop on collaborative ideation and problem solving. Senior Researcher Hazel kicked off by taking us through how she’s shown clients why research matters. And she shared some top tips on getting research signed off and how to do it on the fly. She started by sharing this quote from Werner von Braun: “Research is what I do when I don’t know what I’m doing” - essentially, if we don’t know why a problem exists or how we might solve it, we do research! Simple, right? But it’s not always enough…

Interview | Sabrina Couto | Ladies that UX Amsterdam In this week’s post on the women of Ladies that UX, we hear from Sabrina of the Amsterdam chapter. We’d love to hear about your journey into UX Sabrina... I studied Graphic Design in Spain and, when I graduated, I started working as a freelancer doing all kinds of projects - designing brands, flyers, posters and websites. After a while, I realised that I prefer working on websites and digital experiences. Two years ago I moved to Amsterdam with my boyfriend, and I decided to quit freelancing and to look for a job in UX/UI design. I did an internship at Bloomon and after that, I worked for 6 months in a startup in the logistics field. After this startup, I started working in my current company, Coolblue, where…

Interview | Isabel Novais | Ladies that UX Lisbon This week, we welcome Isabel from Ladies that UX Lisbon Isabel is a Product Designer at Nuxeo So how did you get into UX Isabel? I studied Product Design. As in everything is a Product, passing through a Design Thinking process. I started out working mainly with printing and branding originally, gradually evolving into web design, and always looking for the best GUI principles. Over time, my work became more and more digital and UX started being a very recurrent keyword. Now I love thinking about things and looking for user-centric solutions. In future, I hope to lead a team, and motivate and inspire people. Don Norman is definitely someone I look up to, for inspiring so many people to do things in the right way To anyone looking…

Interview | Gema Gutierrez | Ladies that UX Madrid Gema Gutierrez runs Ladies that UX Madrid and is Chief Design Officer at HETIKUS. Here’s what she had to say when we had a chat… I think I found Ladies that UX through facebook or someone told me about it - I started going to their meetings from the beginning. A few months ago Emmanuela asked me if I could collaborate with her and Pat, since then I am responsible for recording the meetings and creating the podcast for Ladies that UX Madrid. So tell us Gema, how did you get into UX? I started working in web design when I was only 21 years old. Throughout the years I worked in different companies, one of them had a great team of ux designers. My boss at the time…