Jaime Levy

The author of UX Strategy talks us through her rollercoaster career, from the dotcom era to the present day, ahead of her much-anticipated appearance at Generate London

- Tom May

These days, most people know Jaime Levy from her book UX Strategy, widely regarded as the definitive work on the subject and published in six different languages.

But there’s much more to the American author, university professor, interface designer and UX strategist’s career to date.

Her journey began back in 1990, when she was working on her master’s degree at New York University (NYU) in Interactive Telecommunications. It was an exciting time, as she recalls.

“I was surrounded by people who were trying to really push technology. Even back then we were doing stuff with virtual reality, reading cyberpunk books… It was a really good time to get fully engrossed in a mindset where ‘Hey, I’m not going to be afraid of technology even though I’m a girl, even though I’m not a programmer.’”

Despite being born in Hollywood and going to college in San Francisco, Levy had no interest in staying put in California. “When I left San Francisco, it still felt like a hippy dippy scene,” she explains. “Apple was starting out but they were floundering. Silicon Valley wasn’t anything like it is now. So I moved to New York because that’s where artists lived who wanted to make a big statement and I could be part of a scene that had so much energy.

“If you look at film, say, it was the lame Hollywood films that would come out of California, while New York had the people I admired, like Jim Jarmusch or Spike Lee,” she continues. “A big reason that drew me there was experimental industrial music, so I wanted to live where Sonic Youth lived. People like Patti Smith or Allen Ginsberg… it was like, I can do anything because these are the people I’m surrounded by.”