#UXRConf With Hexagon UX Education Grant Recipients
Hexagon’s Education Grant recipients share their experience on attending #UXRConf virtually last month
The Hexagon UX Education Grant
Earlier this year, we announced our first ever Education Grant. We believe that our members should be able to access courses, workshops, seminars, and conferences with the primary goal of developing both personally and professionally as a UXer. Thanks to our partnership with the team at UXRConf, we were able to support additional grant recipients with tickets to UXRConf Anywhere; a two-day online conference for anyone who loves UX Research. If you’re interested in learning more about our grant program, visit us here!
In this piece, we’re highlighting the takeaways from a few of our Education Grant recipients that attended #UXRConf virtually last month.
Our featured Education Grant recipients
Meet Kiara Stewart, a Freelance Designer. Stewart is based out of the Dallas/Forth Worth Area in the United States, and describes herself as an Undergraduate Researcher turned ‘UX Team of One’. After attending #UXRConf, Stewart shared:
“I am looking forward to creating a seat at the table for others. Again, thank you Hexagon UX for your tremendous support!”
Srishti Mathur, User Experience Researcher at JCPenney. Mathur is also based out of the Dallas/Forth Worth Area in the United States. Reflecting on her learnings from #UXRConf, she shares:
“I’ve heard the phrase “representation matters” before, but I hadn’t realized how much of an impact it would make until I saw researchers presenting at this renowned international conference were similar to me.
It was especially empowering to hear ideas and necessary truths from women in the field who take a stand for what they believe in beyond their own careers, for the betterment of UX as a whole. ”
And lastly, we introduce Nina St. Peter, UX Designer at Scientific Games who shared with us:
“In my case, I have zero budget at work and personal funds are tied up because I’m raising a young family whose needs come before my own. I’m no longer a student eligible for student discounts.
The #1 reason I applied for the Hexagon grant for the UXR Conference was to attend the UXR Team of One track. It seemed tailor-made to my current career dilemma! The conference itself was a sea of knowledge. I’m still going through the recorded sessions that I missed. And while the talks were short, they were filled with great nuggets of wisdom.”
Diving Deeper Into The Professionals
At UXR Conf Anywhere, the talks of Roy Olende, The Five Dysfunctions of a UXR Team of One, Sekai Farai, The Impossibility and Irrelevance of Empathy, and Noam Segal’s Banish Your Impostor Syndrome amongst others were powerful catalysts for our grant recipients.
The UXR Team of One
To start, St. Peter is the sole UX researcher at her company, and was excited to find support and gain valuable insight from UXR Conf’s Team of One track. She is currently playing the role of being a UX-unicorn — wearing both the designer and researcher hat and reflects:
While I love wearing the UX Designer and UX Researcher hats, it is imperative to find support and gain knowledge from sources outside of work.
St. Peter further alludes to other facets in her career which push her to continue to find support and knowledge outside of her 9–5; she is a “career shifter”, who transitioned from Industrial Design to UX. Further, she alludes to her challenges in finding consistent advocates:
“In my experience, it seemed much more difficult for women, and particularly for women of color, to find and keep mentors, which often leaves them to develop their careers on their own. I’ve seen over the years how different my work relationships are from those of my husband. I’m not sure if it’s just that I’ve always been in companies or departments that are disproportionately men and that either made them or myself uncomfortable. Unlike my husband, I didn’t have access to mentors that helped me grow in my career which made me feel like I was paddling a kayak by myself against the wind.”
Grants, like the HexagonUX Education Grant, help bridge the mentorship gap as they enable growth opportunities that would otherwise be difficult to obtain.
— St. Peter
An Important and Critical Perspective on Empathy
Stewart shared,
Before The Impossibility and Irrelevance of Empathy, I believed developing empathy was an individualistic practice, carefully curated by challenging your own biases.
Now, after Farai’s call to action, I realize that empathy must not only be curated but cultivated, both within ourselves and within the industry. Failure to do so will inevitably produce apathetic outcomes and products.
Stewart shares that she was utterly enamored with Sekai Farai’s talk from the start, which began with the following statement:
I am here to call bullshit on empathy and design in research; with love.
Stewart further elaborates: “After exploring developing ethical checklists to examine the dangerous shortcomings of empathy in research, attending UXR Conf 2020 helped me feel empowered to implement positive changes in my current and future work.
“My career is just beginning, yet many professional conferences are inaccessible to me due to minimal financial support. Through the HexagonUX Education Grant, I had the unique opportunity to attend UXR Conference Anywhere and I was excited to finally have the proverbial seat at the table. I look forward to furthering the discussion and most importantly doing the empathetic work our industry so desperately needs.”
Beyond the UX Professional
Beyond creating a space for striking topics, the UXR Collective also prioritizes their attendees’ ability to engage with conference content through thoughtful design. Their highest priority to remaining inclusive and accessible, and respecting their attendees.
Mathur shared the following about her experience:
“As an entry-level UX researcher navigating the ever-changing world of e-commerce, I had thought that my purpose for attending #UXRConf would be to learn about new methodologies and make sure that I was up to speed with the latest trends in UX. Specifically, I found Noam Segal’s talk on “Banish Your Impostor Syndrome” really reassuring, seeing as how I’m in my first UX research role after college!”
In sifting through the conference program details, I gravitated toward topics that I thought would help me edge out over the fierce competition that dominates my industry.
What I didn’t realize was that this conference would completely change my outlook on what a UX research conference can be — an opportunity for self-reflection, critical evaluation, and even friendship.
Inclusion & Diversity
UXR Conference has partnered with a number of organizations to ensure they support a diverse, representative lineup of speakers and welcome a diverse array of attendees. This includes veterans groups, and free tickets for indigenous folks learning about design and technology looking to move into UX research, and other marginalized communities.
Mathur commented,
“The sense of togetherness that came about from the conference, no matter where in the world we joined from, showed me that the strength of the UX community transcends borders and even time zones. There is always something that we can learn from each other’s diversity of perspectives, a lesson that I will carry with me well beyond the end of the conference.”
To Our Friends at the UXR Collective
Thank you to our friends at the UXR Collective for partnering with us (again!) to help Hexagon UX members attend UXR Conf Anywhere In The World 2020.
UXR Conf Anywhere was hosted by the UXR Collective — an organization dedicated to creating a space where everyone who cares about research feels that they belong.
For more UXR goodness, give the UXR Collective some love and follow them on Twitter! Click here for their account.
Elbow bumps and air hugs all around! Stay safe everyone.
Written by Julia Meriel and Julianne Burke.
✍️ Interested in writing for Hexagon on Medium? Check out our post here.
Hexagon UX is a global community built to empower women and non-binary folks to bring their whole selves to work — building confidence, balancing the ratio in the UX industry, and effecting change on a greater scale while fostering personal and professional growth.
Join us on Slack, where we will be continuing the conversation.
