Date:
Location: Silver Lake, California
On Saturday, September 27 join Victoria Lautman as she explores “Putting the Human in Designing for Space” with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)’s Krys Blackwood.
NASA’s JPL may be associated more with rocket science than design, but Krys Blackwood forges a bridge between both daily. As the Principal User Experience Designer in JPL’s Human Centered Design Group, Blackwood has spent a decade attached to innumerable space missions including the recent launches of the Europa Clipper probe and the NISAR Radar, plus past projects like the Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, and the Earth-based Deep Space Network array. Her expertise combines the architecture of information, visual design, psychology, and human/computer interaction, and she says her biggest challenge at JPL is to explain to scientists and engineers why they need a designer in the first place. Whether it’s creating a storyboard, a complex dashboard, or updated software, Blackwood is on it.
Krys Blackwood is a principal User Experience researcher and designer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she leads the Human Centered Design Group. Before joining JPL in 2015, Krys spent 20 years in Silicon Valley, designing ecommerce and healthcare experiences with a variety of companies ranging from tiny startups to industry giants. She has written often about her experience at JPL and is also an author of speculative science fiction.
Come hear more about the burgeoning field of UX, the role of design and creativity in risk-averse environments, and why NASA has come to rely on it.
VISUAL WORLD with Victoria Lautman: Putting the Human in Designing for Space — Saturday, September 27th, 2025; 11 AM Pacific; $5 in person or for Zoom link. In-person attendees should go to the Neutra Office Building, 2379 Glendale Boulevard in Silver Lake. Light refreshments will be served. Go to www.sahscc.org and pay via PayPal; or mail in order form with check; Zoom link sent upon registration.
