Inclusion is still a relevant and widely-debated topic within the product design and development community. Lately, the conversation around inclusion has revolved around workplace culture and team composition. Often undiscussed are the design stereotypes and the unconscious gender biases that influence our product design. This month, MistyWest is proud to bring together a diverse array of perspectives ranging from academia to game design to help us unpack what "gender neutral design" means, and how we can design gender-inclusive products that can appeal to a broader audience. Speakers:
Keynote ~
Dr. Margaret Burnett - Oregon State University
DR BURNETT is a Distinguished Professor within the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. She began her career in industry, where she was the first woman software developer ever hired at Procter & Gamble Ivorydale. A few degrees and start-ups later, she joined academia. She was the principal architect of the Forms/3 and FAR visual programming languages and co-founded the area of end-user software engineering, which aims to improve software for computer users that are not trained in programming. She pioneered the use of information foraging theory in the domain of software debugging and leads the team that created GenderMag, a software inspection process that uncovers gender inclusiveness issues in software from spreadsheets to programming environments. Burnett is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, a member of the ACM CHI Academy, and an award-winning mentor. She currently serves on three editorial boards and has served in over 50 conference organization and program committee roles. She is also on the Academic Alliance Advisory Board of the National Center for Women In Technology (NCWIT).
Panelists:
Melody Copeman - EatArt
MELODY COPEMAN volunteers for the eatART Foundation, a collective of artists and engineers that focus on creating large scale kinetic robots that run on renewable energy. They graduated with a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design with a focus on Interactive + Social Media arts, and have been a practicing UI/UX designer for over five years with companies like Capcom, Adbusters Media Foundation, Pressboard and as a freelance web designer.
Stephanie Philips - KPU
STEPHANIE PHILIPS has been working in the field of Textile Design since 2003 and has been teaching Design since 2010, having taught at OCAD University prior to moving to Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2014. Her work has been exhibited at Tent as part of London Design week, as well as The Munich Craft Council's Exhibition on Craft & Innovation. She has worked as a trend forecaster with WGSN, and has run workshops with Subtle Technologies, IDEO and The University of Toronto.
More panelist TBA