Jessi Shakarian
Jessi Shakarian got her start in tech as a developer, but found that she loved everything that happens before it’s time to code. She works as a freelance UX and accessibility consultant, and is currently the accessibility lead at DIA Design Guild. Jessi is currently writing a book about accessibility and games.
When she’s not working, she enjoys cooking, catching up on the newest Marvel event, and hanging out with her cats, Lucy and Ollie.
For more, keep up with Jessi at jessishakarian.notion.site or on Twitter as @JessiShakarian.
Presentations
UX Camp Summer 2021
How The Evolution of Usability in Chess Can Influence User Experience Design Today
What does an old game like chess have to do with user experience? It’s a great example of long standing user experience and design—it transcends time and languages, and moved across empires. A player in the 1600s would be able to play the same we play today. In this post-Queen’s Gambit world, chess is even more popular than ever online, in part due to the pandemic.
UX continues to evolve as technology quickly develops, but there are still mental models that users expect online. Similar to chess—we all know what the pieces look like, the ways the pieces move, but how a player gets to their goal is up to an individual player. We’ll examine the history of this great game and explore the many attempts to modify and customize the game over centuries as popularity grew, but there is always a return to its original form—and what user experience designers can learn from this and apply to our work today.
