Our deep-dive cohort based course

Build Inclusive
Products & Services
with Women-Centric Design

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

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.

• 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.

This course is for you if:

  • 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.

    Product Mangers & Global Head of Gender at an agri-tech non-profit: embedding gender in their product process.

    Research & Impact Associate at an accelerator in Africa: increasing women’s participation in entrepreneurship

COURSE
OUTCOMES

__ 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.

__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.

__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.

__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.

COURSE
SYLLABUS

Note: We offer a version of this course for organisational teams and tweak the syllabus according to organisational needs. Interested in hosting this course for your team? Contact Us.

_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 + POSITIVE MASCULINITY

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 & 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

Note: we will update the final dates and times when we announce the next cohort. Interested in joining? Make sure you’re signed up to our waitlist to secure a spot.

SIX SESSIONS OVER THREE WEEKS

We meet over live 2 hour zoom sessions, usually hosted on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30PM IST | 5pm CET | 11am EST.

LIVE SESSIONS

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

Students are invited to sign up for 1:1 time with the instructor to help move their women-centric design practice even further.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

In addition to the live sessions, we provide homework exercises and workbooks for those looking to spend more time learning.

Mansi Gupta

Founder of Unconform

MEET MANSI, YOUR
INSTRUCTOR

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 spent the past decade deepening my expertise in women and design by engaging in deep research with 80+ 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 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 Women-Centric Design to help design practitioners overcome overwhelm and actually practice inclusive design methods in their day-to-day. Our introductory workshops that have trained hundreds of design and impact practitioners have received a 4.4/5 value rating.

I created this course our workshop attendees always leave wanting a deeper-dive, more peer-to-peer knowledge exchange, and an opportunity to practice their learnings on a real project. Our deep-dive course does exactly that: my hope with this course is that you can feel confident and excited to navigate a space & practice that can otherwise feel overwhelming to get started with.

Let’s learn women-centric design together!

What practitioners are saying about it…

  • ❝ 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!

    Karen Patwa, Leadership, Education, DEI

  • ❝ My time on the women centric course was amazing. I had the opportunity to learn about women centred design, networked with an amazing peer group and I can easily say I am ready to make impact with the practical tools, techniques and concepts I have picked up from the session. I would definitely recommend this to everyone looking to gain a practical sense of the women-centric design, this course will definitely set you on the right path.

    Mica Woode, Research & Impact Associate & MEST Africa

  • ❝ 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.

    Jessica Weaver, Social Impact & Gaming

  • ❝ 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!

    Lies Benjamens, Service Designer at Koos

  • ❝ 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!

    Pip Bennett, Feminist Research PhD

  • ❝ 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.

    Sarah Hughes, Research Designer at the Partnership for Public Service

  • ❝ This course was eye-opening in many ways. It validated some experiences we sometimes can't quite find the words to describe. Mansi offers a fantastic framework to use as we think through women-centric products/services. In addition, it helps uncover some of the biases we have. If there's a Part 2 of this training, I would be happy to join and dig further. Thanks, Mansi, for creating this course.

    Nathalie Niyonzima, Program & Learning Lead at the Mastercard Foundation

  • ❝ The course was very enlightening, perception broadening and engaging. It gave me a chance to learn and be more aware of the blind spots that we encounter everyday.

    Chewe Bwalya, Lead People Manager at Good Nature Agro

FOR ORGANISATIONS

Interested in bringing this course to your team? Send us a message!

FOR INDIVIDUALS

Interested in joining the next cohort of this course? Sign up to the waitlist.

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, over 3 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 hi@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!