Ladies that UX Atlanta: A Conversation about Ethics in Design and Tech

****THIS EVENT NEEDS A VENUE****

Please let us know if you or your company or organization can host!

6:30-7:00 PM: Setup & Networking

7:00-8:30 PM: Event

In the wake of high profile stories on the lack of ethics in tech companies, we’re seeing a firehose of information, websites and manifestos calling for a more ethical design and tech industry. Let’s talk about it all and how our work affects the world. As people who have the power to create and bring new things into the world, what is our responsibility as UX professionals and designers? What happens when someone asks us to design a dark pattern, and how should it be handled? How have the discussions around ethics in tech and design affected you?

There will be lots of time for Q&A, so have some discussions with your co-workers and friends beforehand and bring your thoughts to the meet up!

Our Panelists

Kaela Burns is a creative swiss army knife with an insatiable curiosity and a passion for designing delightful products. She has a degree in journalism, taught herself basic coding, took an online course in web design, and went through the full-time UX design program at General Assembly. After graduating she went on to be the instructional associate for the next cohort. She is driven by her desire to improve lives. Kaela is also a research addict, a crazy dog mom, and stickler for ethical work.

Riana Dawson, User Experience Designer at Suntrust
Riana Dawson is a UX practitioner and a purveyor of thoughtful, collaborative design. She credits her elementary school science fair with her love for design, for it was there that she created her first product: a cardboard chair.
Riana holds a B.S. in Industrial Design from Georgia Institute of Technology where she also minored in computer science. These days, she is working in the technology industry, and is currently a UX Designer at SunTrust. In her free time, she enjoys watching films, eating sushi, people watching, and answering design-related questions on Quora.

Sarah Massagee, QA at Tripwire Interactive
Sarah started her UX career in 2014 creating a mobile app game. She focused on UX in games and VR ever since. She has worked on games including: Hanako: Soul of the Samurai, Ears the Astronaut, Killing Floor 2, Killing Floor: Incursion, and Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. She is currently working at Tripwire Interactive.

Julie Taylor, Freelance UX Designer/Front End Developer
Julie is a UX Designer/Developer with 18+ years of industry experience. She has designed and built UIs for Amazon, Web.com, and the United States Digital Service. Locally she has given back to her hometown as a Chapter Leader for Girl Develop It – Atlanta, and an Event Organizer for Atlanta Web Design Group. (Optional) She loves nothing more than a book, a hot cup of tea, and a kitty.

Host

​Jenn Downs is the Director of User Experience Design at Points of Light and adores the web and what it can do for the world. She got her start in the industry with MailChimp and just celebrated 10 years of working in tech.

​Jenn is also a mentor for Code for America and invented the slightly awkward, yet truly helpful, Laptop Hugging Method for remote mobile testing. She recently created and is an organizer for Atlanta Tech Citizens.