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Hi, {{first_name | UXer}}!
Happy Halloween!
This is where the real updates live, but it can also get lonely over on the socials. Share what you’re working or what’s piqued your interest over on LinkedIn and Slack.
In the meantime, let’s get into the month ahead.
What’s cooking at Experiencing UX?
📣 Super exciting news! Join us online Wednesday, Nov. 11, from 12 to 1 PM for “How I AI,” a virtual show and tell.
Not sure how to use AI day to day? Or whether it’s worth your time? Come watch three people show you.
Each speaker gets 10 minutes to demo how they use AI in their work, stopping for Q&A after each one.
You’ll hear from:
Desarae Veit, State Manager with the State of Iowa, who spent the last 2.5 years as a Capture Manager at General Dynamics Information Technology and is actively pursuing her PhD in HCI.
Sarah Heilman, Senior User Experience Designer at Workiva, who has spent 7+ years designing B2B SaaS platforms.
Kathryn Downing, Sr. Product Designer at Tractor Zoom, who also previously led UX teams at Hy-Vee, Shopify, and Gap, Inc.
Can’t make it live? We’ll record the session and post it on our YouTube channel.
Other events around town
There’s always something happening in Des Moines. Here are some of the meetups and gatherings you might be interested in …
November 2 (Monday), 7:00–9:00 PM EST: Agentics Foundation – Des Moines – Agentics Foundation Meetup
November 3 (Tuesday), 11:45 AM–12:01 PM: Lean TECHniques – “Is This Intentional?” Using AI to Close the Gap Between Design and Code
November 3 (Tuesday), 12:30–1:30 PM: Technology Association of Iowa – Startup Roundtable
November 5 (Thursday), 11:00 AM–12:00 PM (virtual): Designlab – Chat, Workflow, or Agent? Finding the Right AI Approach for Your Work
🎟️ November 5 (Thursday), 5:00–9:00 PM: Technology Association of Iowa – 2026 Prometheus Awards
🚨 November 6 (Friday): Renae Ruschill takes the stage at Enterprise UX 2026 in the Netherlands! The talk: “Designing Data for Mission Critical Applications.”
November 9 (Monday), 6:30–8:00 PM: DSM Web Geeks – What a Grasshopper Taught Me About Listening to Customers
November 11 (Wednesday), 11:30 AM–1:00 PM: Greater Des Moines Partnership – AI Ready: Learning Lab (session 2)
⭐ November 11 (Wednesday), 12:00–1:00 PM: Experiencing UX – “How I AI” show & tell with Q&A
November 12 (Thursday), 8:00–9:00 AM: Technology Association of Iowa – TechBrew – November 2026
November 12 (Thursday), 11:00–11:45 AM: Greater Des Moines Partnership – DSM Intern Connection: Unwritten Rules in Business
November 17 (Tuesday), 8:30 AM–4:30 PM: Greater Des Moines Partnership – Iowa Angel Investor Summit
November 17 (Tuesday), 4:30–6:00 PM: ProductTank Des Moines/Ames – November Meeting (Topic TBD)
November 17 (Tuesday), 5:30–7:30 PM: Des Moines Artificial Intelligence Group – DSM AI Group Monthly Meeting (Speaker TBD)
November 18 (Wednesday), 3:00–5:00 PM: Technology Association of Iowa – Iowa Women in Tech Happy Hour
November 21 (Saturday), 10:00–11:30 AM and 2:00–3:30 PM: Greater Des Moines Partnership – Winter Porch Planter Make-and-Take
Member spotlight: Debra Kumar, UX Research Manager at Wikimedia Foundation
Get to know Debra, a UX research leader based in Ames who manages the UX Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit behind Wikipedia. A former Googler and Iowa State HCI professor, she taught graduate courses on qualitative research methods and responsible tech for three years.
Have someone in mind for our next feature? Want to volunteer yourself? Hit REPLY and tell us why! 📣
What are you working on right now, and what part of it is actually hard?
I lead the UX Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia. We're a fully-remote organization, so I'm glad to be able to work from Ames, Iowa in this role.
Wikipedia is more important than ever these days (some call it the 'last best place on the Internet') but also faces more challenges than ever, as AI models pull from it and have gained popularity in serving users answers without needing to click through to the site, threatening the volunteer and reader ecosystem that keeps it running.
So our challenge is how to get readers to want to visit Wikipedia directly, and continue to become volunteer editors. My team is doing our best to light the path on this by spotlighting what users' unmet needs and pain points are, that we can solve for.
What's changed most about how you work in the last year?
For us, it's not AI — yes, we've been using AI for some research tasks, but thankfully we don't have an organizational mandate forcing us to use it where we don't see value.
I'd say what's changed the most is just the feeling of urgency we have around solving the organizational challenge I named above.
What have you read, used, or watched lately that's worth other people's time?
Two of my former colleagues from Google are rising writers on Substack who I highly recommend:
Saeideh Bakhshi, now at OpenAI, writes about qualitative and quantitative research with really insightful and fresh takes, especially around how AI is reshaping research.
What should someone new to UX in Iowa know that nobody tells them?
This is a tough one for me to answer since I didn't start my career here in Iowa — I lived in California for most of my career.
I do think it's really important to have mentors and a network of other UXers to learn from when you are early in your career. If you don't have that at your company or available locally, online is another option.
I used to offer mentorship office hours via UX Coffee Hours while I was on my career break, and there are other online options too.
What's something you'd be happy to get stuck talking about?
While I love my work, I have a lot of interests outside of work too — I could talk your ear off about my husband and kids, volleyball, strength training, meal planning for hitting daily protein goals, books I've read recently, home exchanging, or non-profit board governance, off the top of my head!
Who’s hiring? A few jobs around town:
Open positions worth knowing about, whether you're looking for a new job or know someone who is.
Front End Designer at Road Media Group, Des Moines
Experience Journey Mapping Analyst at Farm Bureau Financial Services, Hybrid
Senior Product Designer, Design Systems, at Open Loop, Remote
Senior Designer, Accenture, Remote
Hiring? If you have an open role, or you know one that should be on this list, send us a link! We'll share it with our community and make sure to include it next month if it’s still open.
One thing to read this month
User Friendly by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant
Why? Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant trace how user-friendliness became the standard we expect from everything, from the early days of human factors to the products in your pocket.
Good design didn’t happen by accident. People fought for it, and most of us inherited their work without knowing it.
It’s the history of our field, and it reads like a story. Captivating, well-researched, and hard to put down.