Catt Small keynote speaker
- Beyond Gamification: Lessons from Game Design for Engaging Users
- Feelings and Frameworks: Designing and Building Emotionally Impactful Software
- Like a Phoenix: Becoming a More Resilient Designer
- Ship It Sooner: How to Get More Done in Less Time
- UX for Games
Catt is a product design leader, game maker, and developer. She is currently the Director of Product Design at All Turtles, a globally distributed product studio solving meaningful problems.
With a design career spanning over twelve years, Catt has done design work for companies of all sizes including Asana, Etsy, SoundCloud, and Nasdaq. She started coding around the age of 10 and designing at the age of 15. She graduated from SVA with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2011 and later received an MS in Integrated Digital Media from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in 2016. She was a member of Rosenfeld Media’s editorial board from 2018–2019.
An observer at heart, Catt focuses on ways to improve the lives of people through design. She is interested in ways to increase empathy through interactive media. Many of her personal projects center around the human experience and tackle issues related to interpersonal relationships, self-expression, gender, and race.
In addition to her product design work, Catt makes video games by herself and with friends. She is co-organizer of the Game Devs of Color Expo, an annual event that amplifies the creative power held by people of color in games. She previously co-founded Brooklyn Gamery, a Brooklyn-based game development studio that also organized diversity-focused game jams and events, and Code Liberation, a non-profit organization that teaches marginalized genderfolk to program video games. Since then, she has continued to reach marginalized communities in tech through a variety of speaking engagements. In her spare time, she writes about professional development and draws artwork of all kinds.
Catt’s work has been covered by many publications including Net Magazine, VentureBeat, BuzzFeed, and Black Enterprise. She has spoken at schools and events across the world including guest lecturing at Yale, Columbia University, AIGA Design Conference, Beyond Tellerrand in Germany, UX Week, Microsoft’s Codess Seattle, Google’s WomenTechmakers NYC, and TEDxFoggyBottom. Her games have been in a variety of exhibitions at venues such as Babycastles, IndieCade, and the Victoria and Albert museum in London.
