Ain’t none of y’all safe!: Achieving social justice in digital spaces

Ebony Kenney
UX Analyst, Ripefruit Creative, Ripefruit Foundation and a Federal Government Agency
Maryland, United States

Speaker bio:

Ebony L. Kenney is Graphic Design, Market Research and Usability Veteran, excelling at the art of inquiry. Said to be a "clear wifi signal” with her ear on the pulse and insights to elevate any conversation. She draws from a scientific approach which yields itself to facilitating discussions that inspire thought and action. She holds a BA in English and MA in Design. Having most recently served as a User Experience Product Lead for applications and Data Analyst for workforce morale efforts at a federal agency.

She is also the founder of Ripefruit Foundation, a non-profit effort dedicated to identifying and strengthening peripheral skills as they appear along the spectrum of neurodiversity, and Ripefruit Creative, a design agency dedicated to the realm of education and equity.

Talk description:

As Usability professionals, our focus is often in the details. We might be focused on the elements of a page, an interaction or a specific user path. As a result the mind-blowing potential and the grandeur that gets us excited and ignites our passions for the project gets foggy in the rear view mirror. Constraints on timelines, product owner personality, and the powerless loop of minor details distracts us from the hint of a higher purpose. That’s when we begin to miss the microaggressions. Those happening in the standup between developers, coming from project leaders and managers, and the assumptions between creative teams that appear to be potholes in the creative visioning process rather than anything we really need to pay attention to. As a result we build something that feels familiar, impersonal and “Blah”. Who is daring to ask, if we’re building something new, as designers, as citizens, how can it be a nurturing, protective, and supportive environment that encourages engagement! How do we evolve from our obsession with base level content engagement and use our raised awareness to help usher culture into the flat, transparent environment we’ve observed a peak in over the last 2 years. Join me for a presentation that uses a working, iterative User Experience research method as a vehicle to ascend the levels of social justice work from reality, to justice. You will discover how you can use this toolkit to empower yourself and impact your projects, making them more conscious, more equitable and evolved.