Improving gender diversity in the UX industry
This post was originally featured on the ‘Be good to your users’ blog following my #UXchat on diversity in UX — read the original article here.

I’m a firm believer that the user experience thinking can be used to improve every aspect of your life and the UX of gender diversity is at the top of my agenda.
Theres no question that gender has been a big topic through the last year or two; with the American election, the success of Wonder Woman and normalisation of various androgynous celebrities. In relation to work, the conversation has been more around the gender pay gap and more recently that infamous Google memo.
So what a perfect time to ask the world of UX about how they feel about gender in their own field…
The current landscape
Taking a look at the latest survey from UserTesting the landscape looks pretty even; 51% female and 48% male (1% preferred not to say).
That being said, the selection of people asked was quite bias in favour of age 26–45, USA based and more than half were not in a senior role. So whilst the initial results looked promising, it may not be descriptive of the landscape overall.
Let’s take a look at what other UXers see in their daily lives:
Do you feel that women are well-represented in UX? If not, why not?
From my personal experience and the experience of lots of other people on the chat, women are not well represented — especially in senior roles. Also there is massive variation on non-cis women or androgynous genders.
1/ So often, I see people turning discussions of diversity into men vs. women. It’s more complicated than that. #uxchat
— Ian Fenn (@ifenn) August 10, 2017
One of the other common themes throughout the chat was that women tended to be in more research based roles and far less technical roles.
There are plenty of women in #UX, but what about UX leadership? Needs to be equal representation there, or it’s not true equality. #uxchat
— Stacy Holmstedt (@StacyHolmstedt) August 10, 2017
From observation research seems to be dominated by women and design by men. Would definitely be interested in seeing stats on this. #uxchat
— Hazel Ho (@Hazel_Ho) August 10, 2017
The responses to this question generally fit in the above categories but the most interesting response we had was from Tom Adams…
Having recruited for UX people in the past, I’d say that we got more men applying for roles, but more of the good candidates were women.
— Tom Adams (@sonofswiss) August 10, 2017
I couldn’t possibly comment ;)
What can we do to improve gender diversity in the workplace?
So many great responses for this question, it was excellent to have such an open conversation — I hope some of these help in your own businesses:
Apologies as this may sound generic. Have to make #diversity the goal AND satisfy other workplace needs. Stanford Law did this.
— Dan Callahan (@amicusergoest) August 10, 2017
So standards don’t *need* to change for the sake of #diversity, we just need to expand them to a wider pool of people? #uxchat
— OJ Quevedo (@OJQD) August 10, 2017
We need equal standards for all people but that are considered WITH empathy #uxchat
— Jessica Lovegood (@lovegooddigital) August 10, 2017
And make admin/clerical tasks everyone’s responsibility (or the appropriate admin), not female UXers. Watch for that. #uxchat
— Stacy Holmstedt (@StacyHolmstedt) August 10, 2017
Also, this is important — if a woman gets talked over in a meeting, circle back to her, giver her the floor, let her speak. #uxchat
— Stacy Holmstedt (@StacyHolmstedt) August 10, 2017
Not just women. Men that fail to meet male gender stereotypes are treated identically in hetro male dominated workplaces. #uxchat
— Ian Fenn (@ifenn) August 10, 2017
I can’t say enough about pairing men and women on projects. Grateful that I learned so much from @uxinaz early on. #uxchat
— Stacy Holmstedt (@StacyHolmstedt) August 10, 2017
Encourage more men to take paternity leave and flexible working hours. Neutralise away the key ’reason’ to worry about employing women.
— Tom Adams (@sonofswiss) August 10, 2017
I also think Ian Fenn is raising an important point here around the difference between physical gender, gender stereotypes and identified gender. These are different things and the sooner we stop labelling people and start treating them as individuals, the sooner chats like this won’t be necessary!
Stacy has some awesome points around how men can support women and Tom has some great ideas re: levelling out the playing field to get rid of the ‘reasons’ that are used to explain the lack of hiring women.
Can you name some women in UX you look up to and why? Any events for women you’d recommend?
I’ve added the list of ladies mentioned in the chat below; got any more? Comment away, because…
We need to stand on each other’s shoulders and elevate our coworkers. Celebrate our success and empower one another to be ballsy. #uxchat
— Ariel Pimentel (@LOUDCAPITALS) August 10, 2017
- @sallygrah – Sally Graham is WhatUsersDo’s UX research director, check out Sally’s recent AMA for loads of helpful advice
- @lauraklein – Laura Klein is principal at Users Know & author of ‘UX for Lean Startups‘
I second @lauraklein – understands need for continuous improvement/adaptation to make sure teams are focusing on right problem at right time
— Astrid Paris (@astridparisUX) August 10, 2017
- @EChesters – Elizabeth Chesters is a UX consultant whose specialities include inclusive design and accessibility
- @lovegooddigital – Jessica Lovegood is a UX designer/developer, speaker and empathy advocate
- @alex_andr_a – Aleksandra Melnikova is the experience design director at Radley Yeldar
- @intrepidleeloo – Lisa Angela is a senior UXer at RevUnit
- @sarahdoody – Sarah Doody is a UX designer and founder of The UX Notebook
I really enjoy the stuff @sarahdoody comes up with! Great tips and quite inspirational. #uxchat
— Hazel Ho (@Hazel_Ho) August 10, 2017
- @laurlaurmay – Laurie Tiojanco is a UX consultant at Code Computerlove
- @Alt_digital – Lisa Barron is lead UX designer at Common Good Ltd
- @sara_ann_marie – Sara Wachter Boettcher is a content strategy consultant and author of ‘Design For Real Life‘
- Kathy Sierra is programming instructor, game developer and author of ‘Badass: Making Users Awesome‘
Kathy Sierra — “Badass” changed the way I thought about the role of #UX. And she has been strong in the face of adversity. #uxchat
— Stacy Holmstedt (@StacyHolmstedt) August 10, 2017
- @abby_the_ia – Abby Covert is the staff information architect at Etsy and author of ‘How to Make Sense of Any Mess‘
- @leahbuley – Leah Buley is an independent design consultant and author of ‘The User Experience Team of One‘
As for events for women that you should try and attend…
I cannot recommend @LadiesthatUX enough, and not just the London or Manchester chapters#uxchat
— Elizabeth Chesters (@EChesters) August 10, 2017
I wholeheartedly second @ladiesthatux events. They’re not frequent but I look forward to them every time! #uxchat
— Hazel Ho (@Hazel_Ho) August 10, 2017
Hi! I am Jessica Lovegood — User experience consultant. I wrote this article and many others, if you’d like to know more, check out my website — https://jessicalovegood.co.uk/
