user experience designer

How to Love What We Do… Again

Published on October 23, 2014

There’s something troubling that I’ve noticed happening with many people (not all, maybe not even you) in our industry over the past few years. It’s something that I want to bring to light in hopes that A. I can be enlightened to the necessity or trivialness of this thing, or B. I can help others to enlighten themselves and stop the thing’s progress. So what is the thing? Simply… that we are stuck in our ways, and if we don’t start moving, our industry will never change. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Newton didn’t lie…

Portrait of Sir Isaac Newtorn — Godfrey Kneller’s 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton (age 46). ~via Wikipedia

Our World, Today

The current state of where we are is not really a revelation to many of us. We are working doing design or architecture or web “stuff”. Some of us call what we do UX. Some of us claim UX doesn’t exist. Some of us wireframe. Some of us claim we don’t. None of this will be addressed in this piece, for this is what it is, and the arguments will rage on. Instead, I want to point out the bigger issue that I have seen. That is that many of us, no matter what side of the fence we are on in these arguments, HATE where our industry is. We hate our clients (“Two weeks for a complete overhaul of documentation that took us months to put together. #ClientsGottaLoveEm”). We hate our co-workers (“When can you get the UX wireframes done for this project? #UXIsntWireframes”). We hate our careers (“Hired as a UX Strategist, but they just asked me to make a screen ‘better’. #WhatsThePoint”). In short, we hate our state of being, and this causes us so many problems.

What’s the big deal?

First off, in many ways, we aren’t progressing as an industry. What does that mean? It means we spend so much time focusing on the negatives of doing what we do, that we don’t save brain space to focus on how to change the negatives into positives, and, therefore, change ain’t coming.

Secondly, all this negative energy actually zaps our ability to see that WE ARE THE TALENT THAT EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS TO SUCCEED. Obviously, we can’t do it alone, but come on guys, this is our TIME! Everyone wants to be the next Apple. Everyone talks about how facilitating great user experiences will make the business more successful. WE really are in control. But we have beaten the idea of our profession down so much that we believe that we can’t change our environments. We talk to our clients in words that mean nothing to them, and wonder why they don’t “get it”. We take jobs because they show us a glimpse of hope at being the real deal, instead of asking the hard questions that prove we’ll be doing the work we want, and turning down the gig if it’s not the work we want. We blame our lives, our clients, our coworkers, our cities, our companies for holding us back. And, we do this, simply because, we don’t have the energy and courage needed to do something about it.

Sign that reads "take courage" — Take Courage ~ via Nathan William on Flickr

Third, and perhaps worst of all, we isolate ourselves from other disciplines and industries. This is the gravest problem of all because it means we don’t educate ourselves about what information or context these other disciplines and industries need to really understand where we can be of use. We don’t learn about business (yuck, suits), and then wonder why we get screwed in negotiations. We don’t learn about company process, then wonder why our ideas are labeled as being outside of the process. I can go on.

Four, this all means we perpetuate our cycle (wait did I go back to number one again? That’s meta.) The crappy jobs keep getting resourced with talent (us) that is too good for the jobs. The crappy companies keep getting resources (us) that are too talented and smart to work with people that don’t want to hear how we can help. Then we blame the company, the clients, the co workers for the crappy jobs existing… and the cycle persists. We continue to hate the work that we are supposed to love, and live in misery complaining to each other how bad we have it.

Hope Exists

But fear not dear reader, there is hope! And to inspire this hope we turn to none other than Sir Isaac Newton (you may have heard of him). As many of us may remember, Newton was a famous physicist who is known for proving three laws of motion. For our troubles to be cleared, I’d like for us to remember Newton’s first law of motion:

An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Put more simply. Things won’t change unless you act, unless you exert some kind of force. Try this… an object at rest (let’s say the environment we work in, our industry, your clients or your co-workers) will remain as it is unless acted on by an outside/unbalanced force. Here’s the secret… you have to be the force in order for your luck to change.

Now, you may be thinking, “But, wait, what if I don’t WANT to change.” Or “But I have to take these crappy jobs I have a family to support.” Or “I’m not you, Lis, I don’t have the people skills to do it.” Or whatever other argument you can think of. But, I’m here to tell you that all of these are invalid, yes even the family one. Why? Because the definition of the force is flexible. Doing any one of these things can change the environment:

Ask more questions during interviews to discern if the job meets your goals. Things like “How often do you do usability testing and why?”, “What does user centered design mean here and how is it implemented?”, “Does, and how does, my role help bring a user centered focus to the company?” will help you know if they are for real.
Network more with people like you to let people know that you are an awesome person. Go to industry and non-industry events that spark your interest. Talk to people about what it is you want to be doing with your knowledge and skills even if you aren’t doing them “for real” at your current job.
Choose to interview or work for companies whose mission you believe in, and whom believe in a user centered mission. If those companies aren’t in your area, at least start to follow companies whose mission you believe in and try to meet others who work at them when at the next conference or event. Ask these other employees, designer or not, how they got the gig, or get advice on how to manifest your career in the same way.
Choose co-workers who are awesome like you. Obviously we can’t choose who we work with, but we can choose who we cooperate with and provide favors or extra help to, etc. Prop up those co-workers that you see as awesome.
Choose to believe you have a choice in your career, because we are all free beings, and we always have a choice.
Insert any other type of force here.

Further, if you are thinking about how you have already exerted force and created change, but it hasn’t worked… then I would argue that you need to exert a different type of force in order to manifest change in a different way. I’m by no means assuming that none of us are acting, but instead hoping to give you ideas on how to exert force, or act, if you currently are not exerting force, and if you are exerting force and it’s not working, giving you ideas on how to exert force differently.

The main point I want to make is, it’s not all about completely throwing away every part of your career and starting fresh. Instead, it’s simply about using whatever amount of force you can use to affect change in your environment. Even a little force will create some change (it’s a law of physics, remember?!). Of course, Newton’s second law says that the greater the force the greater the change, and that is to be expected. But, the happy news is, the laws of the universe tell us that as long as we are exerting a force, no matter how small, there will be a change in return. Anyone can assess the level of force they are able to exert and then start manifesting change, no matter what your situation is. Newton said so!

It Keeps Getting Better

And, guess what? The more we see the change, the more energy and ideas we’ll have to exert more and better force. It’s a cycle that gets better and better. Then the more force we exert, the more change will come. We’ll venture out and learn more about other disciplines and industries and become better integrated into cultures we like. We’ll stop with the cycle of taking crappy work, complaining about that work, leaving that work only to find more crappy work. We’ll instead force better jobs, ones where we can actually use our talents, to be created. We’ll force jobs that have a better understanding of the help we can provide, thereby using our talents to the fullest. Best of all, with all of us exerting force, our industry gets better. We don’t do it alone! By all of us exerting even a little, itty-bitty bit of force, we are all, in culmination, exerting a lot of force. And, that means, we’ll all see a lot of change and reap a lot of benefits. It means we can finally help in the ways we’ve always known we can.

In the end, it really is about taking responsibility of our fate, and then taking action to change that fate if we are unhappy with where the object is at rest. It really is just about not being the object at rest, if we don’t want to be, but instead being the force that moves that object in the right direction. And once the object is moving, it can’t be stopped… unless, of course, another force is exerted on it :-).

UX Designer Just Doesn’t Make Sense… Or Does It?

Published on May 22, 2014

As I pour through my spreadsheet of blog ideas, I keep happening upon (probably not by accident) ideas that I have had over the years around the term UX Designer and, more specifically, whether or not the term makes sense (I.e. means something). Now, I realize that the title UX Designer DOES in fact “mean something” to many people. I think what has sparked this flow of ideas for me, however, is that the title means so many different things to so many different people. This space between the meanings is where I’m finding both internal and external conflict around the title’s purpose. Today, I want to dive into this even further, and, hopefully, get your thoughts and feedback as well (Yes, I’m adding another log to this fire. So, all you old school UXers can stop rolling your eyes now.).

Tina Fey rolling her eyes — I know many of you are doing this right now.

This topic is nothing new. Most of the known digital technology industry walks around having a firm belief in the validity of the term UX Designer. Many people think things like “User Experience is, of course, the most important part of the product AND you need to have a UX Designer to have a ‘good UX’”. Or, other people think things like “UX Designers. Those are the people that make sure the product’s UX (but really they mean interface) is great!”. Or, they may think “UX Designers. Those are the people that are glorified visual designers.”. Whatever anyone thinks, it’s obvious that the title UX Designer is something that exists in a myriad of ways. In the digital design community, many times it’s a lauded profession; one that you acquire after knowing everything there is to know about “the UX” including interaction design, information architecture, visual design, and more. For this last point I can admit that I have also thought that UX Designer was a lauded profession. I bought into this concept… hell, I built a business around this concept! But today, I wonder, is the title UX Designer really all I, and many others (those that think it’s the *ish title), have made it out to be?

Why Lis, Why?

Why am I even pondering beating this dead horse? Well, as I was pouring through said blog idea spreadsheet, I found an idea I had back in early 2013. Seems I was scouring the web (read wasting time) and I found this quote, and I realized I needed to get this thought out of my head.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it. — Today’s Thought ~ Simply Stated March, 2013

Although this quote was not targeted at the field of UX Design, it still stopped me in my tracks and caused me to reflect on the profession. Why? Because it brought to the surface, again (at least for me), the question of whether or not an experience can be designed. Of course, this quote that I found is not based on scientific or academic research (although if you have some to share I’d love to see it!), but the meaning of it felt true to me. So I’m going to move forward in this post assuming it is true (this, dear reader, is what is called fair warning).

The Debate

The debate on whether or not an experience can be designed has been raging on since, what feels like, the beginning of the field. The following are just a few of the many pieces out there on the topic:

Can Experience Be Designed – IA.net
Yes, Experience Can Be Designed – UXmag.com
“Can experience be designed?” Yes. No. Wait, yes. But. – adaptivepath.com

The way that I see it, is that each side is looking at the User’s Experience as one of two things. Those that agree with the idea that an experience can be designed often conceive the user experience as an input into a product or service. It is something that happens before the product or service is created and a user uses it, i.e. something they “do” to make a product or service better – “I do UX!”. On the other hand, those that say that experience can’t be designed, but can be designed for, see that the user experience as an output of the product and service, i.e. something that happens because of using a product or service – “How can you do something that happens later?”.

The Realization

I’ve somehow found myself a part of this debate, and, have recently realized that I firmly agree with the latter, UX is an output NOT an input. Meaning I believe that the user’s experience exists when a user uses a product or service; i.e when they undergo it. I don’t think it can be argued that, to an extent, we can predict when a user will have a better experience if everything and everyone shown here has been accounted for in the creation of that product or service the user is using. However, I no longer believe that User Experience is something we inject into the creation of said product or service.

Given this new realization, I asked myself: If UX is an output and not an input… can the title UX Designer make sense? Can there be someone whose job it is to design the user’s experience IF the user’s experience it not something that goes into the product or service, but something that comes out of it.

I would argue that No, this title does not make sense (I.e. mean something) given this point. And, to be honest with you, I don’t have much more to say on what my new viewpoint means (so I suppose my good friend Donna Lichaw might say that this piece is a cliffhanger).

And Now It’s Your Turn

Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the battle that never ends. Do you think the UX is an input or an output? Given your opinion does the title UX Designer still make sense to you and why?

Whew ok folks there you have it. Another piece of wood added to this fire. Let the flames rage on!

What to hear more about this topic? Check out my Why I’m Sick of Calling Myself a UX Designer talk this June at Future Insights Live! in Las Vegas. Get 15% off with promo code: FILSPEAK15. Hope to see you there!

UX isn’t Art! Or is it?

Published on February 12, 2014

I just returned from the Interaction 14 conference in Amsterdam, and I’ve been reflecting on the information I learned there. I was honored to be facilitating a full day workshop, Interaction Design Beyond the Wireframe, at the conference. I love and hate facilitating this particular workshop. I love it because I believe in the content and approach, and it’s great to see this affect other designers lives. I hate it because sometimes it feels as if the concepts are old and no longer useful. But, after last Wednesday’s workshop event I realized that this information is still very much useful. Also, as I was watching the participants go through the activities I was reminded of a question that fellow UXer, and friend, Nathan Gao asked me some months ago. He said to me “Do you ever look back on the work you did, and just hate it?”. “What do you mean?”, I asked. “Well I mean now that you have learned a lot more, and you have done a lot more, do you ever look back and realize that the work you did was ugly, not technologically as advanced as it could be… stuff like that?” I paused and thought about this for a moment and responded “Honestly, no. And let me tell you why.”

In this world of UX and Interaction Design, we so often view our work as a work of art. We think of it as a blend of science and art, reflecting both best practices as well as internal purpose, aesthetic, and opinion. It was even mentioned during IxD 14 that we are both science based and art based. I always thought it was interesting to view our work this way… interesting and problematic.

The issue that arises when we think of ourselves as artists, is that we think of our work as art, and this causes pain points. First, we judge and critique our work as art. We judge the “look” of the deliverables, and the savviness of the interaction. We judge the emotional response invoked by the deliverable or the sketch or the prototype or whatever it is we, the interaction designer, provides.

But, at least from my point of view, my solution, which is reflected in, but not defined as, what I deliver, has nothing to do with art, unless I am actually designing the visual look and feel (which I personally don’t do). Strictly speaking of non visual design deliverables then, I see no art reflected in them. Everything that I have included in them is based on factual evidence of either user need, business need or technological constraints. If a user needs a way to view search results by date… I add a sorting control. If they need to find a way to company contact information… I add a contact us link. I also don’t view my wireframes as the final layout and product, I view them as information design. I.e. their purpose is to inform the interface by showcasing information relationships and priorities. Basically I don’t care about how it looks in the end, just that the right information and controls are present. Therefore, nothing I add in my work is based off my own opinion or internal narrative, so I don’t judge my work as art.

Going with this argument then, judging our work as art, means that we must be, in same ways, adding our own opinions and narrative to our work. And, if we are doing that, then we aren’t doing user experience design or interaction design, we are doing art. So the biggest problem with thinking of ourselves as artists is that we think of our work as art and add our own opinions and narrative to it as opposed to keeping it strictly about upholding user needs and business needs.

In order to avoid this problem, then, and to create work that is representative of our user needs, business needs and technology constraints, I believe we need to take the art point of view away for a minute. I KNOW this is going to cause a tear in the universe, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about and wanted to write about for some time.

So, I implore you dear readers to help me to see if I am on the right path with this thinking, completely mad with this thinking, correct with this thinking, or somewhere in between. Is there a cross over between Art and our UX and IxD deliverables (sans visual design), and if so, where is it?

UX Reflections for 2013

Published on December 18, 2013

It may seem a bit early to write an end of year post, however I believe that consistent reflection is one of the best exercises that one can do. And, since I have been reflecting quite a bit lately, I thought I would apply these thoughts to my 2013 and share with you what I have been up to, where I’m going, and what I’ve learned.

One thing I have realized is that this fall and winter I have not had the time to keep up with writing for my Keeping It Real About UX blog. This might normally be a bad thing, however, the main reason I haven’t had time to write here is because I have been busy contributing to some amazing publications such as UX Matters and UX Mastery.

For UX Matters I partnered with Paul McAleer to write to the UX Community about our attempt at a new way to Map Business Value to UX, and to educate our organizational partners while doing so. So far, we’ve gotten some great feedback about the pieces, and we’re always open to hearing more! I’ve included these posts here, in case you missed them:

Mapping Business Value to UX – An Idea’s Inception
Mapping Business Value to UX Part 2
Mapping Business Value to UX Part 3

For UX Mastery I was invited to take part in their awesome UXMas series. There I wrote about the items on my UXMas Wishlist. If you haven’t already shared your’s, I’d love to see it!

Many thanks to both UX Matters and UX Mastery for allowing me to be a part of such an esteemed community of writers.

The second thing I realized is that, earlier in the year, myself and my interns (who are now real working world UXers!) did get the chance to contribute some pieces to the Keeping It Real About UX blog. Here you can find the top 5 viewed posts from 2013

The Real Business Value of UX
Want to Sell UX? Stop Talking UX!
Mapping Business Value to User Experience
Book Review: Gamification At Work
Learning UX in a Lean Environment: Part 2 – The Journey Not the Destination

Third, as I look into the new year, I also realized I have some amazing speaking opportunities to be excited about for 2014. Top of mind is my full day workshop Interaction Design Beyond the Wireframe that I’ll be facilitating at this year’s Interaction 14 event in Amsterdam! If you plan on attending and are looking to learn all about IxD outside of the interface, I’d love to see you there.

Lastly, one thing I realized in my end of year reflections is quite how busy I, and all of us, have been. Thus, I plan on taking the next few weeks to ease my mind, find, again, some inspiration, and reflect on my goals for 2014. I encourage each and every one of you to do the same. I encourage you to take some time for yourself to reflect on where you have been, where you are going and what you have learned along the way. Only then can you make the next year, even better than this one!

Keeping It Real in the UX Job Search

Published on September 10, 2013

Guest Post by: Kofi Aidoo, Intern

I have to start this post with a full confession. I was a recruiter. Right before I switched to UX it was my job to get designers work. First, I worked with industrial designers and then more and more UX designers. In fact, working in placement helped me get closer to the design field in a more meaningful way, and it helped me to get some insight into the industry as a whole. But now as I start my UX career the shoe is on the other foot. It’s me who has to put together a portfolio and reach out to companies and recruiters in hopes of landing a job. And with as much knowledge and experience as I have in recruitment, applying for jobs still makes me nervous. So how do I make sure hiring managers and recruiters see value in my profile? How do I convey not only the things I am able to do, but also the things I want to learn? How do I work with recruiters who will actually care about me as a candidate? Basically – How do I Keep it Real in the UX job search?!

Here are some helpful steps that I’ve found that may also work for you.

#1 Know what you want to do
As a recruiter one of the most frustrating things was dealing with candidates who didn’t really know what they wanted. Junior candidates, especially, were unsure what they could provide or over shot, and perhaps, over expected what they could deliver. So, desperate for a job they say they can do everything. But the reality is very different. Study the field, speak to other professionals and get a good understanding of where your skills can be of most use. Being a wireframe machine isn’t always the best but it’s a door in. If a hiring manager can trust you to do that they will trust you to do other things.

#2 Know who you want to work for but stay open and flexible
Almost as important as knowing what you want to do, is knowing who you want to work for. Though, that’s not always obvious from the beginning. As a recruiter, one of the questions I would always ask candidates is: who were their dream companies? I didn’t ask this because I could always get them a job there at those companies. In fact, nine times out of ten I couldn’t. But it did give me a good sense of the kinds of things they were open to. Know if you’re looking to go in house or be a freelancer. Agency vs Corporate. A fast paced team with little projects or one working on a more long-term basis. For more UX specific roles it’s knowing whether you want to be involved in an agile process or more waterfall, more research focused or closer to UI and execution. Knowing what you want should help you get to where you want to work. These two go hand in hand.

#3 Portfolio Portfolio Portfolio
The portfolio becomes the critical piece in the puzzle. As a recruiter, I would easily look at a portfolio before reading a resume and cover letter. You want to see the skills of the candidate, understand their thinking and see if their aesthetic is a match for the the hiring managers you’re working with. The two biggest questions candidates have to answer when they are creating portfolios are:

1) What is the core message you’re trying to get across?

2) Who’s this portfolio targeted at?

The work in your portfolio should adequately answer these two questions and give a good impression of your thinking and skills. Try and point out the development of a project from start to finish and highlight the process. Wireframes are nice and some recruiters may only focus on that, but stay true to UX as a process and reflect the whole thing. Hiring managers will appreciate seeing the totality of your thinking and insight even if sometimes recruiters miss out.

#4 Screen your recruiters
When working with recruiters make sure you’re screening them too. You want to know that this person will represent you to the fullest, and that they have a good understanding of your skills and some respect for what you’re offering. I try and listen to how the recruiter I’m talking to is responding to my profile. Are they asking questions about my history? Are they noticing my skill-set when they comment on my portfolio? Do I feel like I can trust this person? Those are some of the questions I want answered at the end of our conversation.

Truth be told recruiters go through a lot of candidates and portfolios. Sometimes it’s easy to get jaded but they usually know what they’re doing and know what their hiring managers want. So be upfront with them as to your skills as well as shortcomings. Know that they aren’t miracle workers. They can only try to present you in the best light, so try and give them as much information as possible, without overwhelming them. That way, they can get a full idea of who you are. Also, if they give you some advice: listen! Take it if it makes you look better to hiring managers or aligns with your overall strategy.

#5 Stay Humble and Work hard
For this I will use an example from when I was in engineering. One of the best jobs I had was at a research hospital in Chicago. I had just moved back to the states from Belgium and was looking for a job after the first dotcom bubble burst. I applied for a job in a research lab and was told that they liked my background, but they had already filled the position. But, they did offer me a chance to be in the lab a couple of days a week to help out here and there. I jumped at the chance and accepted, pro bono. For 2 months I was there practically everyday. Helping out where I could, going to meetings, just enjoying being in the environment of learning and doing. After those 2 months a grant they had submitted on the day I arrived was approved and they decided they would give me the researcher position attached to the grant. I was rewarded for my enthusiasm and hard work.

I’m not telling you to take a job with no money, because in this environment, we also don’t want to cheapen the value of UX. However, sometimes you may need to take a risk in exchange for what you can learn and how it augments what you offer as a candidate. You never know where chances could lead.

The good thing about UX right now is that there are a lot of jobs out there. The need for UX grows greater and greater, so it’s a good time to be coming into the field. However, there’s still a lot to navigate. Some companies view UX as only wireframing, others have an evolved process, but may move slower than you want. You also have to try and understand the environment that will help you thrive and grow to be the best UX’er you can be, and that means more than making the choice between an agency or corporate environment. So start by keeping it real with yourself about what you want and what you can do, then demand that others keep it real with you. That’s the way to maximize your job search and craft a great career.

Tell me about your job search adventures and what advice you’d give to someone looking for a job in UX.
Tweet me @K_ID_X

Maybe Agile REALLY Isn’t for Everyone

Published on August 12, 2013

Part of the 5 Minutes a Day blog series

Intern Kofi passed along this link to me saying that it would be a great topic for a post for the site. Normally, I’d love to write a long piece on something like this in order to really dig into my thoughts BUT, time will not allow it. Instead we’re going to review this piece in five minutes (or less).

The main takeaway is that Uber, a traditionally agile shop, stopped its process for the sake of its marketing and future product. They realized that Agile is great for software development, not so great for marketing (something I’ve touched on before), and therefore stopped their engines (pun intended) and did something unheard of. They actually went back to waterfall to rethink their site.

Wow! Finally someone is publicizing this. I’ve been saying for a long time that process for process sake (i.e. using Agile just because it’s a new trend, saves time, etc) is no good, but that is just what many of our companies are doing. Unfortunately for us UXers and designers, we are the ones that usually feel the most pain for this effort.

But, imagine a place where someone says, “hey maybe this process just won’t work. Maybe we should try something else?”.

I don’t hate Agile. I just hate the misuse of it. I hate that we don’t think about the places and times to use it, and instead try to force the square peg into the freakin round hole. I hate that we don’t think before we do, but most of all I hate that we can’t talk about it freely, without getting kick back from the Agile champions (well at least most of them). What do you think?

Pssst I’m looking for Guest Bloggers. Could this be you?

Learning UX in a Lean Environment Part 2: The Journey Not the Destination

Published on July 9, 2013

Guest post by: Kofi Aidoo, Intern

Author Greg Anderson said “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.”

As I sit back in my Brooklyn abode and reflect on my last 3 months at The Starter League (TSL), an independent “school” that teaches entrepreneurs and enthusiasts the technical skills to venture forth with their own ideas or for some like me make a change in their career, it’s this quote that comes to mind.

In my last post I was adapting to Learning UX in a lean environment. Today I will wrap up my experiences and learnings in my final 6-7 weeks as I tried to maximize my learning while building my own application.

Here’s what I learned:

#1 – Always make time for others! This is the most important thing that I learned. While battling it out over the last few weeks I hit a few roadblocks both as an individual and also within the confines of the team. Help always came from one of 2 colleagues in the web development class and UX classes. One of them was basically at TSL to build his business back in his native country and had little time for deviation, the other was still working remotely and had other deadlines besides his 3x a week class. Both were technically advanced and really understood backend development as well as front end design. They would spend the time to review concepts or explain html and it was humbling. So take the time to help. You will benefit from the learning and camaraderie that develops.

#2 – User Stories are key. User stories are quick ways to put features into sentence form. Each sentence places the feature in context with the user. At TSL there were a few conversations where developers were dismissive of the need for UX in the development of an idea. Many didn’t see the need. Yet they were still dependent on a UX tool in order to develop their ideas. Developers were taught the value of user stories and the development of good user stories in order to know what to build both for a Minimal Viable Product, as well as, for the whole system. It was refreshing to hear the developers I was working with demand User stories and want to work through the research and process to refine them even more. Demonstrating the value of UX to developers in such a simple term as the User Story is a good way to bridge the gap between front end backend.

#3 – Understand all your technical limitations from the beginning. When I decided to build my application I was fortunate enough to find 2 very competent developers who wanted to be part of the process. They understood the value of UX, and, as I said in the paragraph above, were even involved in the process of defining the MVP and user stories from the beginning. Yet all was not smooth sailing. Having defined the MVP and even going through a wireframing session with them on whiteboard, my other UX/HTML teammate and I began to build the frontend from scratch using our own html and css that we had defined. Yet when it came time to integrate front end with backend (or so we thought) actually doing so was not as simple. Our ground up html didn’t mesh with their template based system and it would take too long to integrate. So in the end we had to rebuild our html to make it easier for the devs to integrate the product which,with the time left, meant we didn’t “finish” the MVP by the end of the program. Still 3 of 4 of us are committed to continuing on the project and it feels like an exciting beginning.

Finally, the biggest lesson I learned from the whole program is that UX is NOT, I repeat, NOT a lean process. It takes time. Everyone wants to move fast and iterate quickly, but we still need to reference good solid research. The best ideas address a witnessed or experienced user need. A properly researched and wisely applied strategy will uncover the breadth of your user needs. It will also reveal other exploitable areas. This requires time spent with the users and the data to produce the right insights. The UX process can be used to inject momentum into a multi-stage agile development process and when done so can be very beneficial. But an agile UX process seems to be self defeating and limits the strength and power of the output from UX work. Can the UX process be aligned with a good research strategy to support a lean and agile development? I would say yes. But, can an agile process replace a good research strategy, I would say no.

Like all journeys my time at TSL was not as straightforward as I would have liked but in the end I will say the experience was definitely more than worthwhile and I would recommend the Starter League to anyone who wants to dedicate the time to learn in a welcoming, active environment. I’ve been given the feeling that I know and understand UX much better, but I still have a lot more learning to do. Thankfully I now have the confidence to go learn anything whether it be HTML and CSS, visual design or even J-Query. And that has, more than anything, been the greatest value of this experience.

Keeping it Real: Learning UX in a Lean Environment

Published on May 13, 2013

Guest Post by: Kofi Aidoo, Intern

It’s been 6 Mondays since I landed at O’hare and came directly to the famed Merchandise Mart ready to begin a new chapter. After spending 3 years placing designers and putting my own creative needs on the back-burner, I was here to start again and begin my journey towards becoming a UX designer. So, exhausted from my last 4 days in New York, I walked into the 1871 space at the Merchandise Mart, luggage in tow and duly impressed by what I saw.

After several years of going to IxDA events and flirting with the idea of UX as a career, I decided that it was time. In making my transition I had spoken to a good number of people in the industry and received some valuable advice. I knew I wanted to dedicate myself to the practice and also that I didn’t want to pay too much money. The ship and build philosophy, the location, and the very reasonable price made Starter League, my current focus, a very attractive option.

For those who don’t know, the Starter League is a 1.5 year old “school” that teaches different aspects of web design and development. The Starter League was founded by Neal Sales-Griffin and Mike McGee, two friends who had faced the challenge of learning the skills needed to build their own digital products. Realizing that there weren’t that many opportunities and resources available that truly help the uninitiated, they began the Starter League. The root of their drive and methodology is to help people learn the skills needed to create and ship viable products fast.

They offer classes in Beginner and Advanced HTML/CSS, Web Development using Ruby on Rails, Visual Design, and User Experience, the class I’m taking. All courses last 3 months and attendees are encouraged to take more than one course to round out their education. The UX class is taught by Carolyn Chandler, co-author of “A Project Guide to UX Design” assisted by Veronika Goldberg, a visual designer turned UX designer and alumnus of The Starter League.

A typical class starts with the review of the homework, Carolyn asks us about any insights and pain points and then we delve into the lesson for the next 3 hours with a ten minute break at the half-way point. We’ve already learned about visual design, heuristics, personas, user stories, surveys and research, as well as, have begun to do some initial wireframing and site maps. All work is project based and done in groups that were formed in the second week. Groups… which leads me to one of the over riding tenets of the course. Collaboration!

Collaboration forms the spine of the learning. In the programming classes, students work in pairs during class, but for the design classes, students work in groups on one “real – life project”. They work together, as practitioners, looking to develop and launch an idea. The high point of all this collaboration is Starter Night at the end of term when teams from all the classes will join together to build an app and then present their app and their process to the rest of the League. Think of it like a 6 week Hack-a-thon without the begging for money at the end. One of the taglines displayed heavily on the Starter League homepage reads: Start Careers. Launch Products. Build Companies. But after 6 weeks here I can definitely say the emphasis, besides being on collaboration, is more heavily on the last 2 tenets.

With such an emphasis, in the UX classes especially, the process can sometimes feel a little lacking on feedback. With 3 months to cover everything there is a speed that is obvious but not overwhelming. However, our homework assignments are mere discussion points and serve ultimately as a roadmap to the construction of an app. Topics and processes are well covered, but we seem to touch on them only once or twice and don’t come back to them as we move on in the class. More than one of my colleagues and I have raised this point, and Carolyn and Veronika have responded admirably. Homework review is taking up a little more of the opening minutes in class while some information that can be consumed as reading material is placed in an extra file. The emphasis on in-class activity and familiarity with the UX process has gone up, and that is great. But enough about Starter League, the question for me remains:

As one of the many here focused on making a career change, and on making UX my livelihood: How do I KEEP IT REAL and become a UX professional while I’m here?

I was trying to keep it real even before I started the program. On deciding to come to this program I have not only left my job but have also made a not so insignificant financial investment. I wanted to make sure I would use the time wisely and be efficient. So, the first thing I did when I was accepted was to prepare myself mentally for the challenge.

Inspired by a Steve Martin quote, “So Good they Can’t Ignore You” is a book by Cal Newport, a Georgetown Computer science professor who’s been writing since high school on different tips for academic success. This latest book looks the idea of Follow your Passion dead in the eye and forces it to blink. To summarize, his claim is that a successful career isn’t about “Following your Passion”, instead your passion arises from using deliberate practice to build career capital, build valuable skills in your industry, gain more control over what you work on and then couple that with a mission statement that drives success and that elusive Passion. Skills are the foundation and that foundation takes work! This has become the backbone of my practice.

But deliberate practice isn’t just about work it’s about receiving critical feedback on that work and then working to make it right. So when my friends in the NYC IxDA community alerted me to this internship I jumped at it. I had known Lis from going to IxDA events and knew she was a well respected straight shooter who would definitely help me refine my craft. Along with this internship I was pleasantly surprised that the Starter League had also put some thought into mentoring and would provide anyone who wanted it with a professional in the city as a mentor for the duration of the course. I was lucky to have been assigned Patrick DiMichale, a colleague of Caroyln’s at Manifest Digital.

The most important thing I’ve done is immerse myself in the work. The Starter League is full of people working to put their ideas to market. Regardless of their experience they are developing projects that require good User Experience design. I’ve aligned myself with 3 of these projects (including my own), and have been using the things I learn in class to look at the projects from a user perspective as well as a business perspective. I’ve given both my mentors a lot to chew on in the past weeks and it’s been invaluable to have their input.

As I look at the next 6 weeks the end seems both far away and right around the corner. I’m not 100% sure if I’ll be ready to start a UX career by the end of my time here, but I do know I’ll be on the right path and will have built a solid foundation from which to move forward. No matter what the challenge, being mindful about the skills that are important, as well as coveted, and working on those will be the guiding principal in my practice. I urge you to read Cal Newport’s book and look at his 4 principals to a happy career. No matter what the environment Keeping it Real starts with knowing your stuff!

Keeping It Real About Entering UX

Published on April 18, 2013

Guest Post by: Chris Stair, Intern

A little over a year ago I decided that I wanted to work as a User Experience Designer. About three weeks ago I made the step from my web development being a cute thing I did on the side to a full fledged commitment when I landed this internship with Lis. The next step was of course to quit my regular job so I could work at this stuff 24/7 (accomplished today at 1:30). A lot had to happen before I got here.

Keeping it real, I’m not a genius, I didn’t even feel terribly comfortable around computers before starting on my tech sprint (they were portals through which I could stream movies). It was a roundabout journey, marked with many pitfalls and digressions. There aren’t many colleges that offer degrees in user experience, and there aren’t very many entry level positions in UX. I’m assuming it’s because of the power UX designers wield over layout and productions in the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). So getting into UX is a little bit like getting into Mordor; you need to wade through a swamp and you meet some interesting characters along the way.

After I had concluded that I wanted to be a UX designer and nothing else, I casted about for something that I could UX design. There was nothing, so I was lucky when my mother offered to pay me a grand to split amongst my friends to redesign her site. My friends are programmers, so all the aesthetic decisions fell on me, which was both stressful and enlightening. I didn’t know anything of real value going in except that I was willing to work for every penny. In retrospect, after handing out most of the money to my friends I think I worked for around 1.50-2.00$ an hour. That willingness to just jump regardless of money has paid off tenfold.

A few months after finishing my first website I got another website job from a close friend. It’s taken me several months, but eventually I got to the point where I settled on a good CMS (WordPress) and a good hosting service (AWS) and the site is practically writing itself now that the hard parts are done. That site generated the lead for my current internship, and while I didn’t know enough to accomplish it at the beginning, I spent at least 40 hours on Lynda.com and Youtube learning everything I needed to. Knowing that it would be both longer and slower than I wanted was something that I had learned from the first website. Knowing that there was no quicker way available was another bit of Zen picked up by banging my head against the wall the first time around.

However, like I said, the internship started three weeks ago. I’ve read four books, looked at countless wireframes, brainstormed a concept into a sound information model (which I then put together in the shabbiest of fashions) and set up a contact list for my own personal professional development. I totally had a Zen moment when I realized that the user interface, site design and logo are all subordinate to the system, and that one probably doesn’t need to consider the specifics of the interface until after developing a sense of what the user will want. It stretched my mind. It’s also the kind of realization (and experience of vertigo) that I never would have gotten from reading a book.

So if the internship is so great, why isn’t everyone doing it?

Honestly, that’s a question for you, readers, that’s right, you! If you’re an expert, you probably know that you didn’t get a degree in UX in school, but you also know everything you need to know to be a successful UXer, so why not do the philanthropic thing and take on an intern? They would learn so much for every minute of attention you give to them. Lis has been showering me with support to the point where I just quit my job because I have goals in the field that I can reach with her help. It’s also the only way the field is going to grow, because it’s one of the few ways that someone from a different background can join your ranks. If you don’t have time or room for one, at least go on ohours.org and chat with a few, unless of course you want the field to stagnate, rot and die.

And for you newbies, go get an internship, go design a website, go mess with apps! I’m clearly no expert, but it worked for me. The actual nature of the project is secondary to the crowd of people you’ll find yourself with, the work is secondary to what you can learn from doing it, and convince other people you can do for them. It’s not fast, it’s not easy, but when you have the experience it doesn’t go away and people like a self made person. It doesn’t take that much time on a weekly basis, even if you’re just reading, you can pat yourself on the back for being productive and laying the foundations for a successful future. You can only hope that the professionals have actually read the paragraph above and are willing to share their process.

UX and Its Problem with Should

Published on March 20, 2013

I, like you, am passionate about this industry we’re in, the industry of creating products and services that are meaningful to others. I am so passionate that, like you, I read, watch, listen, write, speak and practice this profession (along with eat, sleep and breath it as well!). But as I was reading another amazing post of lecture notes from one of the best in the business, I started to think. I thought long and hard about how we talk about our work, write about work, aspire to practice our work. And who else is with me when I say… we have a big problem with Should, and an even bigger problem with Is?

Currently, the majority of how we write and speak about our work is in ideals… myself included. I find myself saying “Ideally you would have already done personas” or “Ideally we’d be involved in every step of this process” or “Ideally we’d be taking all channels into consideration, but due to the scope of this project…”,

The thing is rarely, very rarely, (if at all!) do these ideals line up in real life. For instance, I have tons of great resources telling me how I should, in an ideal world, conduct a discovery and strategy project. These resources have provided me a great outline for doing my work (to be fair, many tell us that they are only outlines), but rarely ever do they provide me a real world scenario that is seeped in reality OR they do provide me a real world scenario of their’s, unfortunately, however, my real world is not as awesome. Don’t get me wrong here, we need the ideals, but along with them I’d like to start seeing some reals… and here’s why…

When knowledge we take in regarding this profession relates to only awesome projects or lofty ideals, several problems occur.

First, no one else really thinks they DO the work. Because they weren’t able to follow the ideal process step by step or because they didn’t have the ideal scenario in place, it didn’t seem like “real” work to them. Therefore, many practitioners aren’t embodying the work they do. It becomes a mystery to them of what “the real” thing is because they just can’t match these damn ideals.

Second, because these practitioners don’t embody the work, we have a HUGE lack of mentorship in our community. Everyone thinks that they are the ones that should be mentees, because mentors, afterall, should have done the “real” work step by step, and since many people think that they haven’t done “real” work, the assume they aren’t fit enough to teach others. You see the “ideals only” approach puts us in a place where we are an industry of self doubters, not of empowered practitioners, therefore it is hard for a newbie to think they can write a blog, mentor someone else, or speak at a conference.

Third, because no one really thinks they “do” the work, less people actually share the work they do! This sets the whole profession back because it means the new ideas and ideals only come from a select few (not their fault). This perpetuates the cycle of practitioners only hearing from the select, awesome few, about their select, awesome work, and realizing that their own actual work isn’t as awesome, and therefore they must be frauds… BAH!

But not to dismay, the world is yours! And, there are ways that we can defeat these problems.

The first solultion starts with the content creators. I think that more of us should write and talk more about the actuals. There is always a time for ideals, we need to understand them to have a direction, but I’m going to make it a goal of mine to write and speak more about my actual work, on a non-awesome project… because I sure haven’t ever followed an ideal process, but I believe and know I do this work (and you do too!).

The second solution is, if you aren’t writing and talking about anything, go out and start doing so and make some if it about your actuals! There is always room for more ideas on how to do something, or why to do something. So what if there are a millions posts about feature prioritization… we want to know how YOU do it.

Once we all have a more realistic view point of what “actual” UX work is, we see several outcomes. First an overall confidence and assurance increase throughout our profession. And, this is key because if WE are more sure about what our work “really” is then our clients and customers will have more faith in us as well.

Second, more of us will be writing and sharing our ideas which will perpetuate a growth in knowledge and ideas overall. Thus, we’ll have more options to use or craft in our actual day to day world, and thus more good work will be done overall!

You see there is nothing wrong with Should except that it is not Is. It simply is not… it just should be. And, if we look to Should as the actual, then we miss the point. The point of Should is to give us a compass, a direction, a focus, but not to blind us to reality. Once we realize that Should is “can be” instead of “is”, then we’ll be in a much better place to better ourselves, our profession, and of course our businesses and users. It’s a win-win… win!