Tent Talks Featuring: Natalie Dunbar

Here are the main points from the Tent Talks session with Natalie Dunbar titled, "Health, Wellness, and Self-Care: Maintaining a Strong UX Practice Core":

Health, Wellness, and Self Care in UX Design: Natalie defines health in UX design as how a system is performing, similar to the way heuristic evaluations are done. Wellness involves having the freedom and control to accomplish tasks without unnecessary obstacles. Self-care involves the flexibility to fulfill individual needs, which she relates to her yoga practice by asking, "What do I need in this moment?"Parallels between UX Design and Healthy Lifestyle: The practice of asking what one needs at the moment serves as a personal heuristic in her UX practice, helping to assess situations, course correct if needed, or keep going if things are working well.Incorporating Health and Wellness Principles in UX Practice: Natalie advocates for slowing down to assess situations when things seem to be getting out of control. This approach involves taking a step back, evaluating the status, and determining the next course of action.Influence of Hatha Yoga on her UX Practice: The idea of making yoga and UX design accessible to everyone, regardless of their physical abilities, shapes, or sizes, is a key influence from her yoga background. Natalie compares this to the principle of universal design in UX.Principles of Wellness in UX Projects: The principle of wellness involves recognizing the humanity in her team members, identifying the primary challenge or "monster in the room," and collaborating to overcome it without causing harm to each other.Themes of Health, Wellness, and Self Care in her book**: The book stresses the importance of maintaining a strong practice core with people at the center. It emphasizes the need for self-care, vulnerability, setting boundaries, and managing burnout.Self-Care Tips for Stressful UX Projects: Natalie suggests practicing self-care, fostering vulnerability, setting boundaries, and realizing the power of saying no. She advises creating a practice space that feels secure and building trust within the team. She also recommends establishing a practice charter as a living document to codify these principles and guidelines.

About Tent Talks

Chicago Camps hosts irregularly scheduled Tent Talks with people from all across the User Experience Design community, and beyond. Who really likes limits, anyway--If it's a cool idea, we'd love to hear about it and share it!

What is a Tent Talk? That's a great question, we'd love to tell you.

Tent Talks are short-form in nature, generally lasting from 10-20 minutes (ish) in a recorded format--we like to think of them as "S'mores-sized content" because that's pretty on-brand. Tent Talks can be a presentation on a topic, a live Q&A session about the work we do, or the work around the work we do, or really just about anything--we don't want to limit ourselves, or you.

You should send along an idea or topic of your own so we can learn from you, as well! You don't have to be a published author or a professional speaker on a circuit to be good at your job, so please, put yourself forward, and let's have some fun, talk, and share your experience with others!