Summary
After 7 years of working in UX Research Leadership roles, Lisanne left the field behind to return to education. In this talk, she will discuss the significant challenges she faced as a Black woman in UX leadership that ultimately culminated in a leave of absence and then subsequent decamping from the field. The retention rate for WOC researchers is low in the field, and there is an inherent need to understand what are some of the root causes and what can be the potential solutions to retain and potentially re-engage more WOC researchers whose perspectives, experiences, and expertise are needed in this field.
Key Insights
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Early mentorship and diverse teams significantly enhance UX researchers’ professional growth and impact.
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Large tech companies often have low diversity, limited mentorship, and unclear career progression for researchers of color.
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Microaggressions, pay inequity, and biases favoring white colleagues contribute to dissatisfaction and attrition among POC UX researchers.
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Founding community groups like Black UX Austin creates vital support networks and promotes visibility for underrepresented Researchers.
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Startups may posture about diversity but still harbor favoritism, microaggressions, and exclusionary hiring practices.
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POC researchers frequently do unpaid DEI work, leading to emotional exhaustion and role overload.
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Continuous and consistent bias training is critical to creating inclusive, equitable research environments.
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Managerial training focused on empowering diverse teams is necessary; promotion alone does not guarantee effective leadership on DEI.
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DEIB goals linked to annual reviews and bonuses cultivate organizational accountability for inclusion.
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Centering the most marginalized users results in better design outcomes and more widely beneficial products.
Notable Quotes
"The best job I ever had was with two female VPs who believed in me and gave me a chance."
"I realized I wasn’t going to have the same diverse team and mentorship, so I had to leave Dell."
"At Visa I experienced microaggressions like people assuming my white junior colleagues were leading meetings instead of me."
"I learned about a gross pay equity gap between me and my white counterpart despite doing more work."
"Startups promised limitless opportunities, but I encountered favoritism and a lack of genuine diversity."
"I was asked to come up with a diversity hiring plan, and I realized I was doing someone else’s job on top of mine."
"Sometimes my ideas would be shot down in meetings and then validated later by higher-ups, making me question reality."
"Every day, you’re performing calculus trying to figure out where you can be your authentic self."
"You can’t make assumptions that just because someone is promoted, they know how to empower diverse teams."
"We need co-conspirators who actively use privilege to counteract microaggressions and support marginalized colleagues."
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