🤓 Interaction Nerds by UXA | S25.10
Ups & Downs: The Future of UXA, UXA Senior Advice, Strava Mules, Duolingo Streaks, The Fall of Formality
Hi Interaction Nerds! Our first issue described HCI “Ins & Outs” for 2025. Now, with semester soon coming to a close, we’d like to discuss the “Ups & Downs” of both UXA and the design industry: reflecting on what was great and what we could improve on. This will be our last issue of the semester — thanks for sticking around :,)
👋 Announcements — Goodbye Gabi!
Gabi — one of our amazing writers — will be graduating this May. We wish you the best of luck with Duolingo, adult life, and everything beyond! We’ll miss you! 👵
UXA Board 25-26!
Please welcome our beautiful new board for next year! Stay tuned for many cool changes happening in the fall 😉
Co-Presidents - Sander Vonk and Rong Yuan
VP of Content - Kaitlyn Ng
VP of Design - Amy Choi
VP of Events - Emma Tong
VP of Finance - Vicky Chen
VP of Marketing - BrookeLynn Acevedo
VP of Outreach - Sanjana Kadiyala
🦄 The Future of UXA: An Interview w/ Next Year’s Co-Presidents
Written & edited by: 🍳 Evelyn Lui
UXA was really founded with the purpose of being a place where people can get to the resources they need and get into those little niches of UI/UX as well as just general HCI concepts. So I think that casting a wide net is still a big part of our purpose.
🧑🎓 UXA Senior Advice
Written & edited by: 🦖 Gabi Howse
It’s hard to believe that the seniors have just two weeks left of college. Seriously. But we grandmas learned so many lessons during our time at Carnegie Mellon and UXA that need to be shared :)
📈 Performative Progress: Strava Mules & Duolingo Streaks
Written & edited by: 👽 Joelle Lee
When times are dire (or the vocabulary gets complicated), people will do almost anything to save their Duolingo streak. Same applies to maintaining an image on social media — even on platforms that focus on self-improvement.
This begs the question, how do apps that aim to be mediums for education and productivity end up becoming platforms where social identity matters more than individual growth?
👔 From Fashion to UX: The Fall of Formality
Written & edited by: 🐥 Grace Conard
Since the dawn of mobile devices and social media platforms, informality has crept into our communications. Letters became emails, and emails became texts. How did this phenomenon come about? How can informality in fashion inform informality in UX?
[Special thanks to the reader who recommended this article to us]
🤔 Who’s behind the scenes?
The editors behind this week’s issue are 🐥 Grace Conard, 🦖 Gabi Howse, 👽 Joelle Lee, 🍳 Evelyn Lui, and 🦑 Kaitlyn Ng
✍️ Have Thoughts?
We are always looking for topics of interest to you and ways to improve our content! Let us know your thoughts/suggestions about our content via the google form below.
🌱 Join the Community
Join the UXA Slack channel to get updates on upcoming events, learn about cool resources and opportunities, ask questions about anything HCI, and much more.
🥰 Follow UXA!
Instagram | Facebook | Linkedin | UXA Website
awwwww thanks @gabi!!! really love ur work!!! plz keep us posted wherever u write & share next!