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Competence, compassion, and confidence

Diana
November 19, 2016

Competence, compassion, and confidence

A talk for Wildhacks 2016 hackathon on building confidence, how compassion and competence play a role, imposter syndrome, and being a designer and a women in tech.

Diana

November 19, 2016
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Transcript

  1. I work on design systems at GitHub (CSS Architecture, UI

    patterns, style guide documentation etc.)
  2. I’m a designer I write code I’m a women (in

    tech) I’m an alien About me
  3. Design is very accessible (lots of people have a friend

    or a cousin that build a website for $200) Everyone has an opinion
  4. This doesn’t look so hard FREE websites templates! Minimal Portfolio

    Menu theme Fashion site Notebook Hacker theme Many services to use (and for free)
  5. Most people can look at something and say if they

    like it or not Everyone has an opinion
  6. Dinosaurs Humans Invent the wheel Roman Empire Land on the

    moon Product Design Computers (Not to scale) Sliced bread iPhone
  7. How does this same interaction work elsewhere? Prototype and iterate

    in design & code, see how it feels. Seek feedback & critique: your colleagues may have insights you don’t. Always be researching & testing
  8. Leverage the tried and tested methods that already exist How

    do you build your confidence & competence?
  9. Obvious over clever CSS makes it easier for everyone to

    have confidence in what the CSS is doing Boring CSS
  10. “If I’m reading HTML, I want to know what the

    CSS is going to do.” Adam Morse CSS and Scalability
  11. Bossy Over emotional Probably lowered the bar to hire a

    women Too sexually distracting Overreacts Probably wants kids soon Won’t be able to handle the pace Will have to mansplain everything
  12. Women are more likely to have their pull- requests merged

    if they hide their gender* *Study is not yet peer-reviewed California Polytechnic State University North Carolina State University
  13. “Everyone should be able to merge, no matter what the

    vehicle.” Danielle Leong https://youtu.be/0CLYWi8wSyk
  14. All that does is make it harder for other diverse

    people to be accepted Don’t be a chameleon
  15. And you might be hiding some of the best parts

    of yourself Don’t be a chameleon
  16. New to the company, new to being remote, and then

    I started building a new team I still struggle with confidence sometimes
  17. I am already enough, before 
 I take action When

    you don’t feel confident, remember:
  18. Make an agenda & share Rehearse Walk through your work

    & check it Make a list of talking points Set context Preparation is your friend
  19. I don’t know but I’ll find out. When you don’t

    have the answer, it’s okay to say:
  20. Is there repetition? If so, figure how you want to

    respond. Give yourself time to absorb, then ask yourself
  21. Don’t sweat the one-off feedback too much, just take it

    into consideration and be mindful of other occurrences If not,
  22. Don’t forget to turn back around and help the next

    person in line. When you get to where you’re going
  23. When you get to where you’re going, Tim McGraw A

    country singer (I’m not really into country music) I just copied this quote from someone at ElaConf Don’t forget to turn back around and help the next person in line.
  24. Thank you. Diana Mounter @broccolini Thanks to Space Invaders and

    Loren Schmidt for design inspiration, and to the speakers at ElaConf 2016 for all their inspiring talks.