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Many UX practitioners learn by doing and researching on the fly. This approach can also help those who want to develop their careers, who feel stuck in a narrow role when job postings seem to be looking for unicorns. Kate draws on her own experience and that of her peers.
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UX circuit trainingFor any fitness level
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@katewilhelm*
Logistics
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@katewilhelm*
What we’ll cover
Who are we?
The UX bits
Owning your career
UX resources
Leaving with a plan
How we’ll work
Informally
In groups
Toward a plan
Metaphor alert!
Metaphor alert!
No metaphors were harmed
…but a lot were used
…and mixed
Try to count them
Collect the whole set!
What you’ll have at the end
Ideas, resources, and strategies
A playbook with your game plan
Some energy and momentum (I hope!)
Who are we?
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@katewilhelm*
Who are you?
How much UX?
New?
Repositioning?
What draws you to it?
What do you want to get out of this?
Information architect at BlackBerry for 7 years
Led User Experience group
Love UX (there, I said it!)
Do this career stuff myself
What about me?
Recipes tested in the Kate kitchen!
http://www.thekitchn.com/
Little exercise
Make a title page for your book
Write down a statement that captures what you want
Share it with your group
Here’s an example…
I want to work in a role that is
Collaborative
Challenging
Strategic
And lets me learn
In an environment that is open and decent
The UX bits
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@katewilhelm*
UX is a house
elezea.com
Rian van der Mervwe (via Garrett): Structure with research foundation
Nope, it’s a honeycomb
Peter Morville: Aspects of UX as facets
semanticstudios.com
Here, let’s try this one…
benmelbourne.files.wordpress.com/
benmelbourne.files.wordpress.com/
UX designers
Ben Melbourne:
UX Designers focus on the structure and layout of content and how users interact with them. They don’t normally (but can) try to be perfect from a visual perspective.
Trip O’Dell:
We solve problems for people with technology or services.
Another way to look at it
Trip O’Dell framed it nicely:
Storyteller
Artisan
Storyteller
Radical generalist who is really curious and likes to engage with stakeholders, users, and develop a vision:
Empathetic
User-focused
Strategic
Research
Artisan
…sweats the details whether it’s the easing in an animated transition, the polished comp, or the pixel-perfect CSS and assets that go from prototype to final shipping product:
Intensely focused
Passionate about craft
UX deliverables
Again from Mr. Melbourne:
The types of deliverables they produce include site-maps, user flows, prototypes and wireframes.
These depend on the problems you’re solving
Activity: If any of these are new to you, write them in your book
Discussion:
Where do you fit?
I fit in research and design
I influence visual design
What interests you?
Activity: Get it on paper
Take a minute to write it down:
Where you fit
What interests you
Example: Here’s what I did
Research
Myers-Briggs
Skills Inventory
Overkill?
Maybe
But it reinforced my decision
Career
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@katewilhelm*
What do recruiters want?
Someone is likely filtering on keywords
Looking for
Experience
Deliverables
Accomplishments
Not surprising…
What do recruiters, managers, & peers want?
Objectivity, openness, and self-awareness
Ability to present ideas clearly and confidently (good client manner)
Willingness to collaborate and listen to ideas
Ability to speak to the process
People who are…
People who aren’t
Arrogant, egotistical
Deceptive
Dramatic
Unwilling to compromise
Put simply…
Care and be interested
Communicate well
Keep a sense of humour
Don’t be a jerk
Career strategies
Own it
Formalize it
Document it
Stay current
Work with crushes
Don’t get comfortable
Career strategies
Lather
Rinse
Repeat
Own it! Strategies
Who do you want to own your career?
Define what you want
Done! (for now)
Create a plan
Use strategies
Create opportunities
Or my mantra…
Make your own sauce
www.theoatmeal.com/
Create opportunities
At work
Find gaps, identify needs
Get stretch assignments
Outside of work
Volunteer
Make your own assignments
Example: Here’s what I did
On a few occasions
Saw a need
Asked for a mandate
Did the work
Built credibility
For IA and UX work
Opportunities: Examples
Pro bono: Charity or cause
Your resume and portfolio
Make it a design problem
Include the career book you’re working on
Tackle something that has always bothered you
Create stories
Think about your process
Keep the artifacts
Have a story to tell about
Successes
Challenges
These are things you can share
Join before you even worry about your resume
Get inspired by other profiles
Find jobs that are only posted there
Be there for recruiters to find
Letting it percolate
Which strategies look good to you?
What might get in your way?
Internal
External
Activity
Write down a few strategies that you could start next week
Resources
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@katewilhelm*
Activity
As we go through these resources:
Write down the ones that feel like a fit
Mention ones that you’ve found useful
Education
Cognitive Science
Human Computer Interaction
User Experience
Information Architecture
Information Science
A note on education
Attack of the feral professionals
The Unicorn Institute
www.aledlewis.com/
The Unicorn Institute
Skills gap:
Presenting
Facilitating
Critiquing
Storytelling
Sketching
Professionalism
Leadership
* Sound familiar?Soft skills!
Training
Adaptive Path UX Intensive
Cooper UX Boot Camp
Follow the UX Leader (CanCon!)
Human Factors International
Nielsen Norman Group Usability Week
Conferences
Adaptive Path UX Week
IA Institute IA Summit
IxDA Interaction
User Interface Engineering UI 18
UXcamp Ottawa
UXPA Conference
Conferences
And Fluxible, of course!
Organizations
UXPA
IxDA
IA Institute
uxWaterloo
CHI (in Toronto in 2014!)
Mentoring
Through a group
At work
Local
Remote
Be one too
Good things happen
Websites
A List Apart
Bill Buxton
Boxes and Arrows
Johnny Holland
LukeW Ideation and Design
More websites
Nielsen Norman Group
Smashing Magazine
UX Magazine
UX matters
Whitney Hess: Pleasure and Pain
Lots of conversations
Can see who others follow
Can use lists
Example: I have lists of
Local web and UX
IA and UX
Twitter is useful
Twitter is a conversation
It’s easy to forget it’s a conversation….
Twitter: A sampling
Steve ‘Doc’ Baty@docbaty
Livia Labate@livlab
Dan Saffer@odannyboy
Kris Mauser@krismausser
Patrick Neeman@usabilitycounts
Christina Wodke@cwodtke
Jeff Parks@jeffparks
Peter Morville@morville
Twitter: A further sampling
Alan Cooper@MrAlanCooper
Whitney Hess@whitneyhess
Eric Reiss@elreiss
Beck Tench@10ch
Steve Portigal@steveportigal
Luke Wroblewski@lukew
Dana Chisnell@danachis
Kristina Halvorson@halvorson
Books: Cognitive Science
Books: Interaction Design
Books: Sketching and iteration
Books: Design
Books: Usability
Books: Process/activities
Activity
Which 2 books do you go to?
Defend!
Discuss!
Here’s my UX starter kit:
Leaving with a plan
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@katewilhelm*
Activity: Set goals
Write down 3 goals for
Next week
Next month
Next year
3 years from now
Activity: Define activities
Write down what you should do
Weekly
Examples: Read websites, record accomplishments
Monthly
Quarterly
Yearly
Example: Revisit and refine goals
Activity: Quick check
Look at your activities
Look at your goals
Make sure your activities get you there
If they don’t, you need to rethink something
Suggestion: Get meta!
Planning, researching, and prioritizing are part of UX
Treat these as deliverables:
your book
your planning and learning process
Same with your resume
Speaking of meta
Part of my process for this presentation
Could share as a portfolio piece
What now?
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@katewilhelm*
Let’s ruminate
What was
New
Surprising
Bad
Useful
www.friendsofkootenay.ca
Parting thoughts
@katewilhelm*
Own your career
It’s what you do and how you do it
Process
Artifacts
Relationships
Soft skills really matter
Not just what, but how
It’s worth repeating…
Care and be interested
Communicate well
Keep a sense of humour
Don’t be a jerk
Final thought
@katewilhelm*
Cory Lebson
It may be scary—Do it anyway
References
@katewilhelm*
Cory Lebson: These are my people: The Value in UX Organizations
Monique Valcour: Craft a Sustainable Career
Nick Finck: Starting a Career in User Experience Design
Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman: Lone Geniuses or We Intentionality?
Peer support shout-outs
@katewilhelm*
Trip O’Dell
Kimberley Peter
Diana Wiffen
Kristina McDougall
Mary Pat Hinton
Steve Baty
Mark Connolly
Susie Simon-Daniels
Larry Cornett
