Reginé Gilbert: UX Designer/Professor
Episode Description:
Reginé Gilbert is a distinguished user experience designer, educator, and author with over a decade of experience in technology. As the holder of the prestigious James Weldon Professorship at New York University, she seamlessly weaves inclusive design principles into her corporate teaching and mentorship. Author of "Inclusive Design for a Digital World" (2019), she advocates passionately for shaping inclusive and accessible digital landscapes.
Globally recognized, Reginé delivers keynote speeches worldwide, sharing profound insights on accessibility and technology. Her pioneering research in inclusive and accessible Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) transcends borders, with presentations at esteemed institutions like Stanford, MIT, and Design Matters Denmark reaffirming her commitment to making technology inclusive for all.
TRANSCRIPT:
Fanshen: [00:00:00] Hi, do you know what time it is? It's Sista Brunch o'clock. That was terrible, but I don't know, ChatGPT recommended that and I thought I'd try it out. You are now joining us for another episode of Sista Brunch, because it is Sista Brunch o'clock. We're the podcast sharing the stories of Black women and gender expansive people thriving in entertainment and media.
Each week during our regular season we share some time with a person we think that you should know and whose work we think that you should know and support. And after four seasons, Sister Brunch is starting to move beyond our little at home podcast studio and get out into the world. You can catch us at Sundance, you can catch us at the Essence Festival.
film festival, and you can keep up with all that we have happening on our Instagram account, at CysterBrunch Podcast. You [00:01:00] can also sign up for our newsletter, read the transcripts, listen to all of our previous episodes on our website, CysterBrunch. com. For today's guest, I am so honored to welcome the distinguished Reginae Gilbert to CysterBrunch.
She currently holds the James Weldon Johnson Professorship at New York University, which recognizes scholarship with far reaching impact in the areas of social justice, inequality, and criminal justice reform. She's also author of the book Inclusive Design for a Digital World, and she is a pioneering researcher in inclusive and accessible Augmented reality, AR, and virtual reality, VR.
And we're gonna really dive into those things because, um, we haven't talked about those on this podcast. And so I, as soon as I met Rejane, I was like, this is somebody that we should have on. So welcome, Rejane Gilbert.
Reginé: Thank you. [00:02:00] Very happy to be here.
Fanshen: So what we'd like to do with our guests is to ask you, um, for our first question to go back as far as you would like, could be your great, great, great, great grandparents birth, could be your parents birth, could be your birth, or could be later in life, however far back you'd like to go that brought you to this moment that we're in now.
Reginé: Well, it's very interesting that you ask that question because just yesterday I was teaching my user experience design course, and I decided to share my story with them, uh, and I talked for 45 minutes.
Fanshen: Perfect. Ok. Then that could be the whole episode. Yeah. I
Reginé: mean, I basically told my story of, uh, going to college, uh, I really wanted to be a photographer when I was younger, but my parents were like, absolutely not.
What are you thinking? You're going to study business. I ended up getting a [00:03:00] degree from Arizona State in communication. I studied human behavior in particular organizational and in our cultural communication and I got a minor in international business. And so after college, actually, I graduated in 2001.
Uh, from college, and I was working at the Four Seasons Hotel at the time, and I had a job. I had gotten a job in London, uh, to start in January of 2002. But we all know what happened in 2001 and, uh, unfortunately, 9 11 happened. Uh, many lives lost, many lives changed, uh, including mine. Uh, my job that I had gotten in London because I was working in Arizona at the time, uh, got eliminated, uh, because business slowed down.
And so my plans to move to London just went away and my life went on a different path
and
I ended up staying in the United [00:04:00] States. I went and got a master's degree. I got a master's degree from university of Phoenix. Some people think it's positive. Some people think it's negative. It doesn't matter because I have a master's.
I have an MBA
Fanshen: in marketing
Reginé: and I absolutely did nothing with it. I, I ended up moving to New York to pursue fashion design in part, because I had Uh, an ex boyfriend, now ex boyfriend, who had a sister who went to Parsons, and he told me a story about her. And how she had studied fashion, but she ended up leaving New York and regretted it.
And so that kind of stuck with me, and it made me apply to Parsons, and I got in on my first try.
Fanshen: Wait, wait, wait, but we, okay, okay, because already you, you've gone off on these different, all these different paths. How, how, how did you apply to Parsons without having, at least that we know of so far, any background in fashion?[00:05:00]
Or did you?
Reginé: No, zero. 0. 0 percent experience.
Fanshen: I have the feeling there's going to be a pattern in your story is that you don't and then you did and then you like, okay, okay. No
Reginé: experience in fashion. I just love fashion. I put together a nice piece that I presented. I wrote a nice essay. I expressed my passion and I got into the fashion studies program at Parsons and I moved to New York in 2005.
August 26, 2005 is when I moved to New York and that changed everything for me. I Went to Parsons for a year, uh, during that time I worked different fashion shows. I experienced so many different job interviews. I actually wrote about my 1st year in New York. I went on over 100 interviews and got rejected over 100 times.
Uh, and most of the jobs were in the fashion industry. You name a fashion office. I was there. [00:06:00] I have interesting stories to tell about Vogue, but I won't tell it here. I, um, I, I, I tried so hard, um, and eventually I ended up getting a really cool opportunity through from Jones, New York, which some people may know Jones, New York, and some people may not.
They offered, uh, free classes after work. So I was actually working as a temp. For JP Morgan and their securities division. Don't ask me what I was doing. I don't even remember, but I was really wanting to work in fashion and after I dropped out of Parsons, but it wasn't really happening. And I saw this opportunity.
That Jones was offering to take free classes to become a technical fashion designer and technical fashion designers focus on the fit of a garment. So, everything that everybody wears has probably been fit on some model before you actually wear it. And if it's not an actual model now, people are doing 3D modeling, but I [00:07:00] was a, I took a class for 4 months after work.
And after those 4 months, they gave you an opportunity to interview for the job and I got the job. I ended up working as a technical fashion designer for Jones, New York collection actually, um, for 2 years. And I stayed with Jones. Um, I went from being a technical fashion designer to becoming an IT trainer, an information technology trainer.
How? Okay. I didn't like my boss. I mean, that's the story. I didn't like my boss. And I expressed to one of my friends who worked on the information technology team, like, I'm really not happy. I want to leave. And he said, don't leave the company. It's a great company. Why don't you come work with us? Yeah, we need a trainer.
So, and you're good on the system. So, that's what I ended up doing. I ended up becoming an it trainer from it trainer. I became a business analyst from business analysts. I became a project manager. I ended [00:08:00] up going back to school because my company Jones at the time reimbursed for classes. And so I said, let me take advantage of this.
So I went back to school. I went to NYU school of professional studies and I studied, uh, project management. I ended up becoming a certified, I got a certification.
Fanshen: I'm sorry, because when our guests are sharing their backgrounds, one of the things that I'm constantly thinking about is like, I want to connect these women, right?
Like the, our guests who don't know one another, I'm constantly in my mind thinking like, okay, so, and I think, I feel like I could connect you with every single guest we've ever had because these skills that you have are useful, obviously. You're building business skills. I mean, well, I hear two things, right?
It's like there there's fashion, but there's business and tech, which are two things that, you know, certainly, first of all, in our packages of the guests that are on our [00:09:00] show, black women, gender expansive people, there aren't a whole lot of, you know, And here you have these incredible strength in these skills that you're building.
Sorry, I just had to say that cause I'm thinking I would imagine you are quite the uh, hot commodity. Um, okay. Okay. So, Okay. Sorry. Sorry. So
Reginé: I ended up getting a. Certificate from NYU, I also became a certified project manager through the project management Institute. So I'm a certified PMP. I also became a certified scrum master.
Uh, so what is that 1 certified scrum master? It's a way it's, um. It's, it's a methodology for, um, managing projects, uh, through like the agile Institute. So it's a very, uh, the tendency is that you'll manage projects like on a, this is 1 example, like a 2 week basis. So, every 2 weeks, you'll build out something new for a system, and there's a methodology [00:10:00] behind how to manage that.
And it's a little bit different than a traditional, like, what they consider a waterfall. Way of managing a project where you like, you know, you build everything at once, whereas something that's more agile, you'll build little parts at a time to it. So there's different ways of managing projects.
Fanshen: So, so you get an expertise within a particular way of doing project management is scrum.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right.
Reginé: So. I did that. And then after six years working at Jones, I decided to make a change in part because I was grossly underpaid and I just was not appreciated. So I started interviewing and I ended up getting a job with a company called ice off stone, which, uh, it's a consulting company.
And they were working on site at coach. So I was working at coach and [00:11:00] I, I worked on a system there for a year. And after that year, a friend of mine had left, uh, we were working together, had left and had gone to Michael Kors and said, hey, You want to come to Michael Kors, they need somebody for three months.
And I said, you know what? Yes. Uh, at that time I was doing, uh, more like product management. And so I came into a consulting role as a senior product manager at Michael Kors managing supply chain and working with the business intelligence team. And I did that for a year. And it was during that year that I started to say, I don't really think that this is my path.
That there's something different for me. And I started taking one, one of the things that professor told me a long time ago, it was like, keep taking classes, never stop learning. And that way you'll always have a job. So I was like, yeah, you know what? I really think that I want to try some different things.
I do a lot of, I, a lot of the work I had done [00:12:00] within the fashion industry was. Internal systems specifically related to supply chain. And so I was like, I really want to do something more digital, more outward facing, like, um, something different. So I started taking different classes. I went back to NYU, took the school of professional studies.
I built a website and three weekends where I learned some basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Fanshen: Okay.
Reginé: I took classes at general assembly. I think I went to the flat iron school. There were all kinds of places where I was taking classes and I took digital marketing. I took user experience design. I took product design.
I took all these classes and something about user experience design stuck with me. And so I ended up. Going while I was at Michael course, I ended up taking classes at night. Where I was, I took a 14 week user experience design course, and during that time, I came up with an [00:13:00] idea that was actually for Michael course.
They tried to build later on, um. And I enjoyed the course. And so when my time was up at Michael Kors, when my contract was up, I took a break. I went and traveled to Europe for some time.
Fanshen: Okay, I'm going to stop you there because my next question was, or is, asking you to kind of do a breakdown of UX, AR and VR, because these are going to be terms that we're talking about.
And, and UX is, is user experience, right? Is that right? User experience, which is what, what, what you've come to at this point in your story is like, you got you, you're drawn into designing systems around that. So since we're here, and this is where you started, that up? Will you just tell us what does user experience mean?
What does UX mean?
Reginé: Well, you can ask five different people what user experience [00:14:00] design means and they'll tell you five different things. Yes. My, my definition of it is either people can use what you make or they can't. And that determines the user experience. So this is a specific,
Fanshen: yeah, go ahead. Okay. And it can be
Reginé: something digital, so it can be a website.
Um, we've all faced frustrations with websites and that is what you would consider bad user experience. When things are nice and they flow and you can buy that thing on Amazon, it's pretty nice user experience. Right? So. Again, for me, it goes back to either I can use your thing and I feel good, or I can't use your thing and I feel frustrated, and that's my definition of user experience because we've all had the, oh yeah, that was so easy to do, or wow, I had to step away.
And I came back to it later because it was so frustrating to me. That is an example
Fanshen: of bad user experience. And I [00:15:00] know you, you also just said that this is in, you know, where we'll hear that terminology, user experience or UX is mostly in tech, but, but with your broad definition, it's also, and, and we'll talk about this, I know, because of your focus on accessibility, we can talk about that with like, A user experience of somebody who doesn't have a ramp to like, when the academy awards, somebody didn't have a ramp to get up to the stage to accept their award.
Right. Is like, so can physical experiences also in your, in your definition, that's included in UX?
Reginé: 100%. Okay. When one time I had to kind of try to convince people to adopt more accessibility. Things like in the way that we were working in particular, I was talking to a marketing team and I didn't know how to approach them and my boss at the time was like, well, maybe you could show them this comic and it's a [00:16:00] comic by Michael Jan Greco and it's from like 2000 or something and the comic shows a scene of a snowy day outside of a school.
There's a person who is shoveling the stairs. And there's a ramp that's also covered in snow and there's a group of kids who are waiting for this person to clear the snow, including a person who's in a wheelchair. And the person in the wheelchair says, could you clear off the ramp and the person who is cleaning up the snow from the stairs says.
I'm clearing these stairs. I'll get to the ramp. And then the person in the wheelchair says, but if you clear the ramp, we can all get it.
And when I showed that to the marketing team about why we should make things more accessible for people with disabilities, they got it. They understood it. When I've shown this to [00:17:00] students, when I've shown this in my presentation at different corporations, they get it
Fanshen: right, right, right.
Reginé: And it's just something like, I feel talking about accessibility and thinking about it is something we need to constantly remind ourselves of as individuals.
Each and every one of us is going to experience disability at some point or another in our life, every single person, either through time with aging or through accidents. Or whatever, it happens to us all
Fanshen: and why not make the world a place where we all can take the ramp. Yeah. Right.
Reginé: This is
Fanshen: brilliant and brilliant, important.
And sometimes it's frustrating when we feel like. I mean, it's amazing and wonderful when there's like a meme that, that we can use to say, this is what I'm trying to say. I can do all the scholarship. I can do all of the, you know, all of these different things. And here's this meme at the [00:18:00] same time, if it helps to, to, to plant it into people's brains, like this is now this makes sense to us.
Right. Um, Amazing. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. And then I'm sorry, cause I interrupted your journey story. So you, you started to turn it to your focus into user experience. Yeah.
Reginé: So I, yeah. So I decided to leave, uh, product management behind my working. I had worked so many years in information technology in the fashion industry with some of the biggest, best companies.
And the world, and it was cool. I just didn't want to do that anymore.
Fanshen: And
Reginé: so, so then I ended up actually working, doing, being a lead UX person at Ralph Lauren of all, of all places, which was such a wonderful experience. Really? Wow. Yeah. So that's where I ended up after doing about a year of freelance user experience design work.
I ended up at Ralph Lauren. They [00:19:00] liked my previous story. Experience in fashion and it was fun. Like I, I really enjoyed my time there. And after that, I ended up in a senior manager of UX role, uh, that I didn't love as much, and, uh, then I decided I want to do my own. Thing and I started my own consulting business and it was cool because my first client was huge and so anybody who starts a business knows like, Hey, I got my first client.
They're a big client and everything's going to be smooth sailing. And and in the interim back in 2015, I started teaching user experience design. I started as a, like, a teacher assistant, and then I became a lead instructor, primarily working at general assembly. And then I went on to be an adjunct professor at Pace University, and then I became an adjunct at [00:20:00] NYU.
Uh, back in 2018, and that was, uh, another turning point because that was also around the time that I, uh, started, uh, my business. So,
I
My business was okay for a while. I actually
Fanshen: Tell us exactly kind of what was the, what was the submission statement of the business? What was the name of the company? Yeah.
Reginé: Yeah, sure. So, uh, it still exists actually my company, but I don't
Fanshen: Oh, I'm sorry. I removed the past tense. What is the Yes.
Reginé: Yes. So my, the, my business is, uh, Gilbert Consulting Group. And, uh, it was a small like boutique user experience design. So we would help people make their websites. We work with, like I said, business is big and small.
We were like subcontractors as well for like bigger agencies. So there were a lot of different work, uh, that I did a lot of it under MBA that I can't discuss. And [00:21:00] I. Really enjoyed it. And it was also very hard, uh, being like a one, one woman show to like, you know, try to bring in the business, doing the work itself, trying to market myself, trying, you know, Joining the Manhattan chamber of commerce and trying to like, get involved with other businesses, telling people how important accessibility is to their business.
Because one of the things that I did. With my job, it's like, once somebody maybe potentially got sued or something like that, I would go in and help them plan how they would. Go about addressing the issues and then how the design team could. Possibly like making plans, like part of my project management came into play to like, how much training are people going to get?
What teams need to be trained? Um, how long is it going to take to fix these things? Like talking with the. The, the product managers [00:22:00] talking to the developers, talking to the chief technology officers and finding out, like, what is the runway that we have, um, in order to get this done? Is there a timeframe, all these things that I, that I helped do
Fanshen: and all these things that are take a lot of time when you're also a marketing person and, you know, business manager and everything else.
Yeah. Yeah.
Reginé: And then I brought on two other people and. That was also challenging. And then business started to not be so great. Um, and in 2020. 19, I was, uh, approached about, uh, applying for a job, um, at NYU as a visiting professor, um, which is a one year role, uh, as a, a professor and I said, well, I have my own business.
And they said, well, you could still do your own business. This is a visiting professor. Like if you were a full time faculty, you can't have your own business.
But
I said, okay, so this happened to be the 2019, [00:23:00] 2020 academic year. And so I was still doing my business. And I was teaching, uh, as a, a visiting faculty member and then the pandemic hit.
And when the pandemic hit, it hit my business as well. And I really wasn't sure as to what to do next. I enjoyed my teaching role here, but I was at NYU, but I was like, I don't know. And they happened to have a role open up. And I applied for it and I got it. It's
Fanshen: okay.
Reginé: Uh, I ended up staying and I am now, uh, three years in.
As to working as a full time faculty member, uh, and I teach user experience design and I also teach assistive technology. I co teach an assistive technology class called Looking Forward, typically in the spring with Gus Chalkias, and we teach students about the assistive tech that [00:24:00] blind and low vision people use.
And I also have taught a voice user interface class. I teach a class called human spatial computing, which is more about the human side of AR and VR and having students think about things from an ethical lens, thinking about the mind, thinking about bias. thinking about the stuff they're making and not just making stuff and then thinking about it later, which is what I often find with technology.
It's like, we are not thinking about the risks. And when I was a person
Fanshen: saying that with AI right now, right. And, and I feel like that's probably. Some of the controversy around Sam Altman is that that's his name, right? That did, uh, open AI that, that he got fired and then went back on. And it's this whole, you know, conflict around those of us who are thinking about.
The potential negatives to this, and then those of us who are also embracing it as [00:25:00] something that can make the world better. Anyway, yeah, right, right, right. So, and this is the media literacy for, for, for digital or for tech, right? It's right. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Reginé: And, and let me just go back to 20. 18, 2017, 2018 time, I was actually working out of a, we work in Harlem and I sat next to an augmented reality company.
And you know, you get to talking to people in your office and they were like, what do you do? I said, Oh, I'm a UX designer. And I said, we need you some UX help. And I said, Oh, cool. Like I'm, you know, I'm willing to help. So getting to talk to them and, and exchanging ideas with them. prompted me to want to learn more about augmented reality.
So for people in the audience who may not know augmented reality, you do know it, but you don't know it. Um, if you've ever watched a sporting event and you see overlays on the screen, that's augmented reality [00:26:00] through your television.
Fanshen: Hi, family, this is Sista Brunch, the podcast that shares amazing Black women and gender expansive people with you weekly during our regular season, with all kinds of fun bonus episodes as well. Stay tuned for more of our conversation with our guest, Rejane Gilbert. And, you know, I have to ask, if you love our show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast, and share it with your friends, colleagues, nieces, nephews, children, grandchildren, grandma, grandpa, all of the above.
Anybody who wants to learn about working in entertainment and media.
Reginé: For example, if you watch football, which I have three brothers and a father who all watch football.
Fanshen: Oh. Mm hmm.
Reginé: If you watch football and you see a line on the field but then you don't actually see the line on the [00:27:00] field, that is augmented reality, and you're seeing it through your television screen.
The way that we see augmented reality today, but we don't call it augmented reality, is through Snapchat, Instagram, and anytime you put a filter on your face, that is augmenting the reality, right? So, the Generic term is that it's a digital overlay to a physical object.
Fanshen: Thank you. So it's, so if you're looking at the object in person, you don't see these things.
If you're looking at it through some kind of screen, you see, you, you see things appear there. So the filters is such a great example because I feel like everybody uses them.
Reginé: Everybody uses them. Everybody wants to be beautiful. Yeah. And you are beautiful without filters.
Fanshen: Exactly. Exactly. Say that a hundred times, especially our guests.
We need to hear it. Need to be reminded. Yes.
Reginé: So I, yeah, I got interested in, in augmented reality and [00:28:00] learning more about it. And then I actually started incorporating it into my. Classes because of my, my, um, the, the colleagues who worked in the coworking space, they introduced me to people who were doing no code AR stuff that I brought into my classroom, uh, because I thought it was really cool for students.
So I got it. I got to stop you there.
Fanshen: So you said no code VR or AR stuff. So what, what would that, what does that mean? No code.
Reginé: So that meant students would download an app. And then they would, um, pick some augmented reality character. A lot of them chose things from like Star Wars and like Jedi Knights and stuff to be like, you know, in our classroom, right.
And using a mobile device. And at that time it really was burning the battery out of people's mobiles and mobile devices really badly
because,
uh, [00:29:00] this is a while back. Right. Uh, so. But it was cool, uh, bringing, bringing that into the classroom and other than putting like a dead eye night in the classroom, there wasn't really much.
Else to do
with that,
however, I, I told students to keep an eye on this. I think this is the future of where we're going. And then at the same time, I started, uh, attending different events, like New York City media lab would have these events. Where VR and I just got really interested and it's funny. I found a sketch.
Uh, and my sketchbook from 2017 actually that has like ar vr, ai, wearables, like all this stuff that I sketched out that's like happening and I said, was I, like, I didn't even realize, I mean, uh, I. That I would be working on this stuff. So one of the things that happened in 2019 was that NYU approached me about creating a user experience design class for AR and VR.[00:30:00]
Fanshen: And so I was So now that we've included
Reginé: VR,
Fanshen: let's make sure we know, we talk about the difference between AR and VR.
Reginé: Yeah. So typically virtual reality will involve some sort of headset. Um, but not always. I think that's an assumption that people Should get away from because virtual reality can also be on your computer.
Uh, so 1 of the things that people, you think of VR or virtual reality, and you think of somebody putting on this headset and you have to be within this thing, but there's also a thing called web VR. And so web VR is typically like a 3 D environment. Uh, 1 that I have my students work with is Mozilla hubs.
It's a free. Um, area and like this in my human spatial computing class that I teach, I had them work on a web VR project that was related to music. [00:31:00] Because I love music and I was going to have them do something for the hip 50th anniversary of hip hop. But I was like, that's selfish. I need to let them choose.
Fanshen: Oh, no. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes.
Reginé: And so they, they each created a different world. Like, for example, and this is. All on a computer where you can navigate with your mouse or your keyboard and one of the more powerful environments that someone created was a home that asked questions and played kind of some melancholic music, but then the music became upbeat because it was about somebody's journey through depression.
And so it was like walking through this house and you're, you are. This avatar moving through
Fanshen: so, so augmented reality, we, uh, something all of us are kind of experiencing a lot because, you know, most so many [00:32:00] TV shows, sports games, et cetera, and then the filters and then virtual reality feels to me a little less accessible.
Like, it's not something we're. Holding on to in our, you know, daily lives, like we have to get something, whether it's the headset, headset, like an Oculus, or now, when you're saying that it could be on a screen, does that also mean that I'm physically in a space that where, or, or you're saying that, that for the student who created this one of the house,
Reginé: looking at it on your computer,
Fanshen: just looking directly on the computer.
Okay. So, because, and then, so then I don't, uh, it feels a little bit like what my understanding of AR was because it's looking at a screen.
Reginé: Yeah. Let me, let me, let me clarify and differentiate. Also, uh, a researcher named Pablo Cardenas says 97. 81 percent of the world has not tried virtual reality yet.
Fanshen: Okay. Okay.
Reginé: So there's a large, [00:33:00] large, large population that has not Tried for
Fanshen: even tried it. Okay.
Reginé: So augmented reality is a digital overlay to a physical environment.
Fanshen: Got it. Yes.
Reginé: Virtual reality is where you are immersed. Into an environment. Either by putting on a VR headset or by viewing it on a screen such as a computer.
Fanshen: Okay. Okay.
Reginé: So the difference between AR and VR, and then there's a, there's a mixture of where you could have both.
Fanshen: Oh, I'm sure.
Reginé: Called mixed reality.
Fanshen: Okay.
Reginé: And this is where like the Apple's new headset does a mix.
Fanshen: Okay.
Reginé: Um, I actually have the meta. I have
Fanshen: Wow. The Meta Request Pro right
Reginé: has, has, uh, where it's a dig.
You could see a digital overlay or you could be immersed. [00:34:00] Fully.
Fanshen: Okay. In an experience. Okay. Okay. So there is a difference. So it's you inside of the world almost. I mean, if that, if that, right, as, as opposed to there, there's a bit of a separation with AR, which is like, you're looking at it like you, you, if you're watching a sports of football, you're looking at it, but you're not playing football.
You're not on the field, whereas virtual reality, even if it's through a screen, the point is that you are. Inside of that world.
Reginé: Right.
Fanshen: Okay. Okay. All right. Got it. Got it. Yeah.
Reginé: So I became passionate about this area. And when I became a full time faculty member, one of the things I was told was like, you need a research focus.
And I was like, what should I focus on for my research? And I thought I would like to look at inclusion and accessibility in the AR and VR space, because I think about using this stuff when I get older.
And will
I be able to?
Fanshen: Okay. [00:35:00]
Reginé: And how much stuff is being made for folks with disabilities now? And so I first started by looking at the tools that are being used in industry and seeing what the accessibility and inclusion was of those tools.
So, did they cost money? Right, because that's a barrier to entry for a lot of people. Do you need to have a certain type of computer? Uh, because that's also a barrier to entry. Are there any, is there any mention of accessibility or doing anything with disabilities? You know, so, uh, my research assistant and I ended up creating huge, huge spreadsheet that nobody wanted to read.
It's like, nobody wants to see this. So we, from there created a subway map of the different tools that can be used and for what, and we put this out in the world and. [00:36:00] 2020 and nobody really saw it and people are like, why don't you push this out more? And I was like, well, at this point it's old, so I'm not going to, but, uh, it would be fun to update it if I had more resources and people.
Um, but there are also other people who work on doing that kind of stuff as well. So, uh, yeah, so I, I started, um, Researching in 2019, accessibility and inclusion and they are in VR. Um, this also during the 2019 year, I applied for a design residency at falling water, which is the Frank Lloyd Wright home and the design residency was specifically for people who work in immersive technologies.
And the design residency was only five days, but those five days were offline and you were, we were with other, uh, creatives. So designers, developers who all worked in AR and VR and the idea behind this design residency, which was co [00:37:00] created by Doug Northcook, who will later come into the picture in my life.
The idea was to be offline. You get more creative and we immerse ourselves in architecture and in nature and specifically Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture and his home falling water, which some people may or may not know about, but it's a home that is built on top of a waterfall. And, uh, used all a lot of the things that were used to build the home were actually from that area.
So the stone and things like that, and really thinking about how. Can nature and architecture influence your create, you know, your creative process and being offline actually helps people be more creative, I think, and it did for me. And so, during that design residency, I met Doug Northbrook, who at the time was a professor at Chatham University, and I later worked with [00:38:00] him on co creating a human centered design course for Chatham.
And then. I told them, oh, I have these ideas, like, for a book and I, uh, had already written a book, which I didn't even talk about, but I'll, I'll talk about that in a minute. And so Doug and I started brainstorming and we came up with an idea for a book called human, like, human spatial computing for the future.
Earth and. Ultimately, we landed on the title Human Spatial Computing. We put the book proposal out there to a few publishers and then eventually Oxford University Press said, yeah, we want to publish your book. And so this is a book that Doug and I just wrapped up. Um, we thought it would come out this year, but it's likely to come out in 2024.
It is, uh, published through an academic, uh, publishing company. However, it is a book that I do feel like if you have interest in augmented [00:39:00] reality, virtual reality, or mixed reality, and you want to get an understanding of what do I need to think about? Thank you. Right? What do I need to think about from an ethics perspective, from a universal design perspective, storytelling perspective?
Uh, this is the book that Doug and I have put together.
Fanshen: Hey, it's Fanchin, and you're listening to Sister Brunch. We'll be back in a minute, and while you jam out to this theme song, If you haven't done this already, head on over to our Instagram and follow us at Sister Brunch Podcast and head to our website and sign up for our newsletter, sisterbrunch.
com.
Reginé: I want to just go back a little bit to, I'm going to go back to 20.
17, 17
ish. I was asked to do a talk at a conference, a graphic design conference. And I said, yes, because at that point I had started talking about [00:40:00] accessibility. And so I did a presentation at a graphic design conference and it didn't go well.
Uh, in part because I had really tiny. Fonts, and the people in the very back could not
see it.
And it was a good learning experience for me. And I also felt really awful. Like, one of the things that I Here, here you are focused on inclusion and I focus on inclusion and accessibility. This is what happens, right?
It's inaccessibility. Yeah.
Fanshen: Right. Right.
Reginé: People were not nice. I got some mean tweets. It was a thing. And so, I Was really kind of devastated from it, but what, I don't know who was there or what, but a few weeks after that, I got approached by somebody from a press publishing saying, would you be interested in doing a book on a, you know, on accessibility?
And I was like, sure. And then I was like, what [00:41:00] could I call it? And I was like, Oh, inclusive design for digital world. Yeah, I think I was calling it a digital age. But it ended up being inclusive design for digital world. So in 2018, 2019, I wrote the book and it came out very late, uh, 2019 and I thought, Oh, 2020, I'm going to.
I was doing my first keynote in 2020. I was like, Ooh, I bought, I bought 250 books because I was like, yeah, I'm going to,
Fanshen: so many plans, so many plans that have still not been fulfilled. Yeah. Yeah. And so,
Reginé: um, yeah, my book ended up being. Uh, a number one bestseller, like before we released bestseller, so I can call myself a bestselling author because for one day I was, I was a bestselling author on Amazon.
So I was really happy that, um, I got a lot of support for my book and it did, it did all right. You know, it did all right. And people liked it. So not everybody did. [00:42:00] Um, and that's okay too, because I think one thing that people need to realize is that Some people are going to like what you do and some people aren't, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do that thing.
Fanshen: And to, to your point about the lesson that you learned in, in giving that keynote, we must allow ourselves and others to evolve that like, if there are aspects of the thing that people don't like that you also don't like, or that you also, Have grown to see actually might be better than allow us to grow, right?
Like all of us need to be able to grow and particularly I think in the inclusion and accessibility space Because because this is systemic, right? We haven't there are things that we have not addressed fully and when we address them, we're Consistently experimenting with what is the best way [00:43:00] and that so, you know, and then, and then we keep realizing who we've left out, you know, like that.
I think about that all the time is like, my inclusion language is growing. Like, I didn't include D, you know, A in the D E I, right? And it's like, okay, no, this should have been there all along. It wasn't. And now we include it. And now, you know, like those of us who aren't thinking about so all to say, um, I think it's such a good point.
I'm, it's one of the reasons and for younger listeners, please consider. Things like cancel culture, first of all, because you could get canceled tomorrow. So there's the karma aspect period, but also consider that we're human beings. Now, some folks continually repeat their oppressive systems and behaviors.
That's different. But for those of us who are in this work, let us learn to grow so that you can also learn and grow. So anyway, that's my, my little PSA on that. Okay. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Go [00:44:00] ahead. So you do the, you do the. Book in 2019, 2020 happens. But meanwhile, you are getting you're getting attention for the book.
People are reading this and it sounds like it is one a very unique Approach that and not enough people are paying attention to right like an important unique Viewpoint of how we do digital how we do tech and like who needs to be Included and all of that and in the design of it and yes Yes. Okay. So we come to 2020.
You've done the book, by the way, this is the Sister Bunch podcast record for the longest journey story, but it's perfect because all along the way I have stopped you and asked questions and these are the questions that I would have asked you later in the interview. But we do have to wrap up too, because, um, these are really seedlings planted for our guests.
I can tell you personally, I will be in touch with you on oh, so many projects that I have happening, both at my company [00:45:00] and for Sister Brunch. I hope we can collaborate together. Um, but I want to make sure we wrap up with anything you want to wrap up with. Then I have our social media. Signature sister brought to question that I will ask you, and then we will have you back on as well as have you hopefully in person with some of the things that we're doing in person.
So, I want to make sure that your journey, anything that you want to add about your journey that you get that in.
Reginé: Um, well, I just want to thank you for having me on the show and I, the, the question I would want to have the audience think about is when you are creating anything, whether it's film, whether it's literature, whether it's music, think about who your audience is and think about who you might be excluding from the start.
Yes.
Fanshen: Yes. And, and build the ramp so that everybody can be included. I love it. Okay. And, [00:46:00] and that, that's likely going to be part of your answer to this next one, but also feel free to expand on that or add different things. So our, our, uh, sister brunch question is that you Reginae are sitting down to a sister brunch with your younger self.
And, uh, what are you both eating? What are you both drinking? And then what do you tell her?
Reginé: Oh, so we would be eating tacos.
Fanshen: Tacos are popular! Yeah, because they're delicious. They're so delicious! You're on the East Coast, so I wasn't a big taco fan on the East Coast, on the West Coast, but you were in Arizona, so anyway, okay.
Reginé: I'm a California girl, born in Englewood and raised in Oxnard, so I Wait a minute! You didn't, we didn't even know that! Yeah, we didn't even go there.
Fanshen: Favorite taco? Favorite taco for you and did it change since you were younger? Was she having a different flavor of taco? What's your favorite?
Reginé: Carne asada.
Fanshen: I got it.
Got it. Okay. [00:47:00] And drinks?
Reginé: I love sparkling water.
Fanshen: It's good. Deep flavored or no flavor?
Reginé: Flavored.
Fanshen: What flavor?
Reginé: Flavored. Limoncello. La Croix or La Croix. I don't know how
you say it.
I
Fanshen: don't know either, but I know it's good. Yep. Yep. Okay. I love it. Okay. And what, what do you tell her?
Reginé: I would tell her everything's gonna be okay and you are enough.
Fanshen: Beautiful. Beautiful. Ah, Reginae, again, just the beginning, just the beginning of Sister Brunch with you. I hope you will come back on. Um, there's so much more to share. As I said, you are a unique guest for us and, um, and an important one. And, and all of us in entertainment and media need to be thinking in these ways, and so Um, we're so grateful for your time and, uh, [00:48:00] we will be in touch soon.
Thank you.
Ah, it has been such a joy sharing this time with Rejane Gilbert. I learned so much from having her on. As you can tell, we could have gone on and on and on, but we had to Finish this one, uh, to be able to do the rest of ours, but we will have her back. And also so much gratitude to all of you, our listeners, your support truly means everything to us.
As I sign off, remember that you are still. Stories are as powerful and important as our guests. So keep on sharing them with the whole world. You can read the transcript of every episode of Sister Brunch and find show notes on our website at sisterbrunch. com. If you prefer to see our faces and our guests are so beautiful, I.
[00:49:00] strongly recommend it. You can watch the video, the full video interviews on the Trujillo YouTube channel, youtube. com slash Trujillo media. That's T R U J U L O media. We deeply appreciate your support by subscribing to our podcast. Leaving us a great review and sharing the podcast with your friends, family, colleagues, and community.
Season five of Sister Brunch is brought to you by Trudelow Productions. Our show creators are Anya Adams, Christabell Nsidane, Brittany Turner and me, Fanshaun Cox. Sister Brunch is a women make movies production assistance program project. We acknowledge that the land I record the podcast on is the original land of the Tongva and the Chumash people.
Take good care of everybody and we'll see you next time.
