A cohort based course on Women-Centric Design

Level up your design research and strategy with our Women-Centric Design Methodology to meet the commonly overlooked needs of women.

Upcoming Cohort: Fall 2023

 
 

Designing for "everyone" often leads to one-size-fits-men solutions, creating unintended consequences for women. Embedding women-centricity into our design process ensures that our solutions actually serve women as equal users.

This four week course brings together practitioners in design, gender, and impact to learn key women-centric tools, frameworks and themes.

 

Want to learn a bit more about the course? Watch the info session recording→

Interested in upcoming cohorts? Join the course waitlist →

Many employers offer L&D budget to cover the cost of courses. Here’s a reimbursement template to help you get started →

This course is for you if…

  • You are a design practitioner who shapes products, services & programs via research, insights & ideation.

  • You conduct design/UX research; build programs, user journeys or user experiences; craft narratives; practice design thinking, human-centered design, or other creative problem solving processes.

  • You are sick of talking about "why inclusive design" matters — you want to get started, but are unsure of the how.

  • You dream of a world that also designs for women and you want to actively help create that future.

 

  • Project / Program Manager at a non-profit: increasing access to menstrual products in the Global South.

    Service Designer at an agency: building an education arm for their community.

    Researcher at a government organisation: designing research methods and projects to create a better experience for women civil servants in the US Federal Government.

    Program Lead at a foundation: increasing women’s access to educational services.

    Digital Training Associate at a non-profit: increasing women’s interest in and access to agriculture.

 
 

COURSE OUTCOMES

👁 Activate your internal inclusive and women-centric design eye

Through a repository of examples and thoughtfully designed exercises, practice how products and services serve or overlook women. Evaluate the world's experiences as offensive, impartial, informed, or holistic with our foundational "Women-Centric Eye" framework.

🔍 Embed key women-centric lenses in your design process + practice

Incorporate women-centricity into problem scoping, research and ideation by engaging in our 'Six Non-Negotiables Framework.' Use the themes to apply your learnings on a real project during the course.

🛠 Facilitate inclusive design sessions to get your teams aligned, energised, and engaged

Inclusive design conversations can be hard. What's more, it can feel like they never lead to action. Our tools and frameworks are designed to help you shift the discussion from the why to the how with your teams.

🙋🏽‍♀️ Join a community of like-minded practitioners committed to women-centric design

Each module will allow you to apply what you've learned in small, supportive groups. You will not only expand your women-centric perspectives and understanding, but also build relationships with fellow inclusive design enthusiasts.

 
 

COURSE SYLLABUS

01 Orientation

Meet your classmates and get to know your working group for the course. Nail down the project you’ll be working on through the course. You’ll learn more about the course objectives and syllabus.

02 Activation

Explore our fundamental women-centric eye framework to evaluate the world’s experiences through a women-centric lens. Identify opportunity areas in your product, program or service.

03 Themes: Safety + Non-linearity

Diving into two of our six non-negotiables, evaluate your project with the lenses of safety and non-linearity. Experiment how these themes might change your research and ideation phases.

04 Themes: Trust + Community

Diving into two of our six non-negotiables, evaluate your project with the lenses of trust and community. Experiment how these themes might change your research and ideation.

05 Themes: Lifecycle + Role of Men

Diving into two of our six non-negotiables, evaluate your project with the lenses of lifecycle & role of men. Experiment how these themes might change your research and ideation.

06 Converge, Reflect, Close

Reflect on which exercises, examples and non-negotiables most resonated with you. Re-construct your problem scoping, research and ideation methods with women-centric design and chart a plan to get your team onboard.

 
 

COURSE SCHEDULE

⏳ 4 hours per week

📆 Dates: April 11 - May 2, 2023

  • Six two-hour Sessions over four weeks

  • Our next cohort runs this spring – come reflect on your product, service, or program and get set up to drive inclusive design action next year.

👩🏾‍💻 Live Sessions on Tuesdays & Thursdays at 5-7pm CET

  • Our live sessions will take place Tuesdays and Thursdays

  • April 11, 13, 18, 20, 25 & May 2 at 5-7pm CET | 11am-1pm EST | 8-10am PST

  • Each live session includes content sharing, small group exercises, time to work on your specific project, and ample time for Q&A.

💼 Optional Office Hours

  • I offer 1:1 time to help move your women-centric design practice even further.

 

what Students are saying…

Jessica Weaver, Game & Social Impact Designer | Winter 2022 Cohort

❝This course was incredibly well-executed. Mansi provided a compelling & grounded framework, examples and exercises so we could apply as we learned. Her lens was global, intersectional, and just pretty freaking brilliant. I thought I knew a fair amount about women-centric design. Turns out, I had absolutely EVERYTHING to learn.

 

Lies Benjamens, Service Designer at Koos | Winter 2022 Cohort

❝I learned a hands-on approach to implement design for women — this was exactly what I hoped for. Mansi cared for all students and made me feel safe during the course. What’s super cool is that I won’t look at another project without the non-negotiables. Usually frameworks don’t translate into easy to use steps which this course and you did!

 

Victor Udoewa, Chief Experience Officer & Service Design Lead, NASA | Women-Centric Design Workshop Client

❝Mansi delivered a brilliant mix of teaching, discussion, and collaborative activities that made us think. She introduced a framework that people felt they could back and use in their projects. The most wonderful thing is that even though it was focused on women, we are able to see how to apply the framework to other marginalized groups.

— Karen Patwa, Leadership, Education, DEI | Winter 2022 Cohort

❝Mansi's framework for women-centric design is based on extensive research, clear, simple, and easy to use. She shared the thought process behind the content, and set aside time for participants to process it using real-world examples. The framework is application to other marginalized groups as well. Thank you so much for this amazing course!

 

Pip Bennett, PhD Feminist Research | Winter 2022 Cohort

❝I really loved this course. Mansi is a master facilitator. She is knowledgeable, thoughtful, critical and action-focused. Her delivery of the course is professional, kind and very practical. The content is readily applicable to research and design work in real life. There’s something in there for everyone, I cannot recommend this course enough!

 

Sarah Hughes, Research Designer at the Partnership for Public Service | Winter 2022 Cohort

 ❝This course is an inspiration. I am excited about ways to craft services and products for women and I am now equipped with actionable and intentional frameworks to do so. Not only that, because of this workshop I feel connected to a larger community of change-makers who have women’s best interest at heart.

 

Meet the instructor: Mansi Gupta

Women-Centric Innovator & Founder at Unconform

After spending a decade leading women-focused projects I realised that the very design methodologies I'd been leaning on are biased against women.

I have since been on a journey to understand how our current design methodologies overlook women's key needs. At the same time, I find that many well-intentioned design practitioners struggle to get started with inclusive design.

I founded Unconform to help organisations incorporate a women-centric design lens across products, programs and processes. I facilitate teams through our signature women-centric design methodologies, have consulted on projects and trained teams at MIT Design Lab, IDEO, NASA, Booking.com, PVH and more.

I created Design for Women — a methodology focused on intentionally and actively designing for women — to help design practitioners overcome overwhelm and actually practice inclusive design methods in their day to day. Our introductory Design for Women Workshops that have trained hundreds of design and impact practitioners have received a 4.4/5 value rating.

I have spent the past decade deepening my expertise in women and design:

  • I have engaged in deep research with 100+ gender-design practitioners, which is the foundation for our key tools and methods.

  • I have led research, design and ideation for female financial inclusion, gender-lens investing, and reproductive health projects with organisations such as Women's World Banking, MIT Design Lab, and Final Mile Consulting.

  • I continue to advance dialogue at the intersection of women x design by curating the Unconforming newsletter; and leading Design for Women Conversations, a monthly event series bringing together gender and design practitioners. 

 

frequently asked questions

  • If you…
    conduct design/UX research; build programs, user journeys or user experiences; create narratives or campaigns; practice design thinking, human-centered design, or similar creative problem solving processes; work in finance, health, tech, social impact
    ...this course is for you!

  • We'd love for this course to be a chance for practitioners to move the needle on a real project they're working on. However, if you are unsure of what that could be, we will offer an example project that you can work on to apply your learnings along the way.

  • Absolutely not! We strongly believe that inclusive design must be a shared responsibility, and therefore all design practitioners are very welcome to join our learning space.

  • Although DEI and inclusive design are strongly related, this is not a DEI course.

    Inclusive design isn't binary, and there's always room to do more. Our expertise and lived experiences are best suited to focus on women. However, we find that many practitioners who engage with our methods can apply learnings to other minortised groups as well.

  • We do plan to offer more cohorts! Although we cannot guarantee the same time commitment and pricing, please sign up to this waitlist and we’ll notify you when we open our next set of cohorts.

  • Our live sessions run for 4 hours per week, for 2 weeks. We will provide other resources and thought exercises for you to practice in between the sessions, but these are not required.

  • Our live sessions are the best way to make the most out of this course, because each session allows the students to practice their learnings collaboratively in small groups.

    In case you cannot make a live session, you will be given access to the session recording and any other notes.

  • If your organisation offers learning, conference, or professional development budgets, you should be able to use towards this course.

    If your company does not offer these resources, you might still want to reach out to your manager in case there is a way to cover the costs.

    Either way, here's a document to help you make a case for the funding.

  • We have a few scholarships available to increase the accessibility of this course. You can fill out this form to learn more and apply for the scholarship.

  • You can apply for a refund up until 5 days before the first day of class.

  • We’d be happy to help! Feel free to reach out to mansi@unconformstudio.com with your questions. We also offer 1:1 calls to help you figure out if you’re the right fit for this course!

READY TO PRACTICE WOMEN-CENTRIC DESIGN WITH US?

Upcoming Cohort: Fall 2023

Our spring 2023 cohort is now closed for registration. We plan to host the next cohort in Fall 2023.