Software Engineers help with COVID vaccinations, freelance tech work is on the rise, and UX meets AI. This is your weekly Kenzie news roundup.
Reimagining UX design for AI
Jarno M. Koponen, Head of AI and Personalization at Finnish media house Yle, is imagining a new era of AI. For Jarno, the focus should evolve from “user experience” design to “citizen experience” design. With this view in mind, AI creators move their focus away from the individual and, instead, put the individual in the context of wider society and all of the rights and responsibilities that identity comes with. Learn more about citizen experience design on Venture Beat.
Case Study of the Week: Robinhood
With the recent GameStop stock fiasco, startup trading app Robinhood found itself in some hot water. The company rushed out UX changes which ended up upsetting users. TechCrunch reporters break down each UX fail and how they could be fixed. The side-by-side screenshots included in this piece make it a great lesson for UX Designers. Find this case study on TechCrunch.
Defining information architecture
Need a refresher on information architecture? UX Designers share their rather poetic definitions as well as the benefits of well-designed information architecture and how to put them into practice. Read more on Built In.
(Up)work your way to $100k
The pandemic has caused a rise in freelance tech work with more than 2 million people joining the freelance workforce since 2019. If you’re considering becoming a freelancer yourself, you’ll be happy to hear that network and system administration, product design, and mobile development are among the highest-paid freelance jobs right now. Find out how much you could earn in this story on CNBC.
Beat your burnout
Did you know that 1 in 4 deadlines were missed in 2020? Meanwhile, 87% of employees reported working late. Piggybacking off of its recently released Anatomy of Work study, Asana will host a webinar on Overcoming Disruption in a Distributed World to discuss topics of burnout, deep focus, impostor syndrome, and more. Dr. Sahar Yousef, a Cognitive Neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, will share valuable insights and helpful tips for beating your burnout. The webinar will be held on February 25 at 1 p.m. EST. Register here.
Weekend Listen: Paul Davison on building Clubhouse
LinkedIn’s Hello Monday podcast recently featured an interview with Clubhouse founder Paul Davison. In the interview, Paul shares what it’s like to create a viral app that’s bringing real-time, audio conversations into the social media sphere. Listen to it here or on your podcast app of choice.
TLDR: “N.Y.’s vaccine websites weren’t working. He built a new one for $50.”
Software Engineers in New York were frustrated with the state’s vaccine appointment booking website. So, they used their tech skills to create digital solutions to help make it easier for people to get vaccinated. See what tech solutions these professionals created in this long-form story on The New York Times.
Meme of the Week: “Time to check your posture”
Ready to jumpstart your career as a UX Designer or Coder? Learn more about our Software Engineering and UX Design programs, or check out our free beginner’s coding program Kenzie Free.
