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Home / Sessions / Who’s not in the room? Build better products by engaging hard-to-reach users

Who’s not in the room? Build better products by engaging hard-to-reach users

IAC 2020

Time(s)

May 4, 2020

Description

As technologists, one of the hardest things to remember is that we’re not our users and our assumptions can easily extend into our work. If we aren’t careful, we can easily end up designing products based on our assumptions and biases rather than insights from the actual audience. If we want to build better products, we need to include our target audience in the creation process and listen to their feedback every step of the way. In this talk, I’ll share what my team and I learned from a project where we worked directly with teens experiencing various forms of bullying.

Key takeaways from the session:

You’ll learn what types of biases to watch out for, how to challenge your own assumptions, how to engage hard-to-reach audiences, and how the user-driven insights we gained uncovered the struggles unique to their community and informed our design decisions and product iterations. Whether or not you work in UX design, this talk will help you create solutions that will ultimately be valuable for all humans.

About the speakers

Ariba Jahan

Ariba is an innovation, design and UX strategist who builds inclusive and ethical products, empowers teams and facilitates dialogues where curiosity and experimentation can flourish. As a woman of color thriving with hearing loss, advocating for marginalized voices and communities means a great deal to her. She believes in designing for inclusion, prioritizing accessibility, building with an ethical code and being mindful of whose experiences we are excluding.

She is the Director of Innovation at the Ad Council, where she is focused on scaling design thinking and agile practices, keeping an eye on emerging tech trends, creating digital products for social good and nurturing a culture of innovation.

In her spare time, she teaches UX Design to NYC high school students through the NYOT Program. She is a member of Women in Innovation, IXDA, Within, Global CFP day and Shine Bootcamp. She enjoys lifting, knitting and exploring the outdoors.

Sponsor IAC

We’re looking for organizations who share our commitment to building and sustaining programs that drive a more inclusive industry. Learn more on the Sponsor IAC23 page or contact us directly at info@theiaconference.com for more information.

Thanks to this year’s sponsors!

Logo for sponsor Optimal Workshop
Platinum sponsor
Optimal Workshop
Logo for sponsor Factor Firm
Gold sponsor
Factor Firm
Logo for sponsor Last Call Media
Silver sponsor
Last Call Media
Logo for sponsor Design for Context
Scholarship sponsor
Design for Context

Logo for sponsor A Book Apart
In-Kind sponsor
A Book Apart
Logo for sponsor Balsamiq
In-Kind sponsor
Balsamiq
Logo for sponsor MURAL
In-Kind sponsor
MURAL
Logo for sponsor Rosenfeld Media
In-Kind sponsor
Rosenfeld Media
Logo for sponsor UX Camp DC
Community sponsor
UX Camp DC
Logo for sponsor World IA Day
Community sponsor
World IA Day

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