In Through the Side Door – Fifty Years of Women in Interaction Design

IN THROUGH THE SIDE DOOR

Fifty Years of Women in Interaction Design

The vital story of how women designers and researchers pioneered the field of interaction and user experience design for software and digital interfaces.

Framed against the backdrop of contemporary waves of feminism and the history of computing design, In through the Side Door foregrounds the stories of the women working in the field of computing and the emergent discipline of interaction design as the graphical user interface was developed.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Thursday March 27th
6-8pm PDT
Double Union
650 Florida Street Suite M - SF CA 94110

Bay Area Wikipedia Editathon: Special Women in IXD edition

Celebrate Women History Month by adding the biographies of interaction design pioneers to the encyclopedia. Working from my Women of IXD project (https://womenofixd.com/), we will improve existing biographies and write new pages on this history.

This event will be hybrid (link will be sent to registered participants) and is open to existing and new contributors. Training will be provided for new editors. Editors working on similar pages are welcome to join the event.

RSVP on eventbrite (free)

PAST EVENTS

In Through the Side Door: Fifty Years of Interaction Design
Pioneers Panel & Booksigning

Five pioneers from the book introduced themselves with some imagery and background context about their careers, then we held a Q&A with questions I had and from the audience. The event was followed by a booksigning.

California College of the Arts
San Francisco, CA

February 10th, 2025
4:15 - 5:30pm PST

10 Lost Women in the Emerging Discipline of Interaction Design

A short overview of the emergent discipline of interaction design during the late 1970's through the emergence of the personal computer and the creation of the graphical user interface. I set the stories of women in the field against the backdrop of the 2nd wave of feminism and the changing landscape of women's rights.

Co-hosted by the Seattle, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco chapters of Ladies that UX.

November 15th, 2024
5:30-6:45
Virtual

MakeSenseMess 2024

In my presentation I shared my story of how I wrangled an overwhelming amount of information about women in the field of IXD/UX/UX Research to eventually become the book and the series of Deep Cuts at this annual event of sensemakers.

November 1st, 2024
12:00-3:00pm ET
Virtual

Watch the video

Understanding the Past to Prepare for the Future

A short talk and discussion with Rosenfeld Media Community. We discussing the emergence of the new personal computer and some of the women involved in defining these new experiences, and I review the disruption this new tool made to the world of graphic design and publishing with tools like the Macintosh, Adobe Photoshop, Quark Express and Adobe Illustrator. It was a time of existential change to an industry. I show the trailer for the documentary Graphic Means - which is about these changes to the printing industry. This is not unlike what we are experiencing today with the emergence of AI in all our tools. What lessons might be learned from the past as we look to the future? How might we future-proof ourselves in this new world?

Must be a Rosenfeld Community member to see the video.

Lost Women of the Internet Era – Dot com boom to Social Media

Presentation of a new talk on the Women in IXD from the Internet Era 1992-2000. Short 1/2 hour version done for Chicago UX Camp May 20, 2023

The Lost Women of Interaction Design: Early Women in IXD

Stanford's Human-Computer Interaction Seminar
February 24th, 2023

Corrections to the talk: Terry Roberts graduated within the CS program with the first HCI focused PhD and finished in 1979, officially graduating (walking) in June 1980. She worked on her dissertation from 1977-1979, not 77-78 as I mention in the talk.

Xerox in Palo Alto contained both PARC and a product division. Doris Wells-Papanek worked for the product division and not PARC but interacted with PARC people regularly. Terry Roberts spent time in PARC while working on her dissertation but was hired into the product division to work on the Star after she graduated.

Watch on YouTube

Lost Women of IXD

Design History Society
Hidden Histories: Gender in Design Seminar Series
Selected paper for presentation
April 2022

Women of IXD talks given at private corporate meetings and at universities

Internal User Experience group at a major Silicon Valley company

East Carolina University School of Art, User Experience Design group.