Philly-based Jessica Ivins will feature at UXcamp 2012

We’re absolutely thrilled to announce the UXcamp Ottawa debut of Jessica Ivins at our 2012 edition.

What Everyone Needs to Know About Designing for Women
Oct 13, 11:00am / 45 MINUTES

If you’re reading this, you’re probably male, since the majority of people in the Web design field are men. But did you know that the majority of your user base is probably female? And are you sure you’re designing for them in a way that’s effective and not insulting or dismissive? Women are an important audience, and not one to be ignored. Understanding them and designing for them effectively is difficult, but it can be done.

Women have become the digital mainstream. In the US market, women make up just under half of the online population, but they spend 58 percent of e-commerce dollars. Women are online gamers, shoppers, bloggers, and social media consumers. And yet, we still don’t quite know how to design for them. The immediate impulse when designing for women is to “shrink it and pink it”, meaning products are splashed with the color pink, and content and messaging are dumbed down. But women want what’s relevant to them. They want products and online experiences that are intuitive, not insulting to their intelligence. They want function, not frills.

This session reviews the historical and contemporary landscape of designing for women. We’ll review misguided, yet well-intentioned designs based on assumptions and stereotypes that have flopped. Likewise, we’ll review success stories of well-designed products and experiences that truly meet women’s needs. We’ll also look at when gender should factor into your design and when it shouldn’t. Ultimately, when designing for women (or men, or both), you’ll want to get it right.

Speaker Bio: Jessica Ivins

Jessica is an independent multi-disciplinary experience designer in Philadelphia, and has previously worked at Happy Cog, Perficient and G2 Interactive. As a college double major in Fine Arts and Arts Education she took a class devoted to HTML and CSS, fell in love with technology, and never looked back. She began her career as a front-end developer, and while working in the real world, she fell in love again with the principles of user-centered design.

A strong advocate for universal usability, Jessica is the first to admit that she’s befuddled by a lack of clarity in everything from road signage to food packaging. She’s passionate about making things easy and enjoyable to use and regularly contributes her time and experience to the UX community. From 2008-2010, she served as an officer for PhillyCHI. She has also organized meetings for the Philadelphia UX Book Club. She has spoken at a variety of conferences including Wharton Web Conference, The IA Summit, Midwest UX, and SXSW Interactive.

A bookworm and wellness enthusiast, she busies herself with cooking, reading, and exercising, and is hard at work designing an experience that combines all three activities into one. She’s also mildly obsessed with the TV show Forensic Files.

You can find out more about Jessica at jessicaivins.net or you can follow her on Twitter at @jessicaivins.