Category: General Discussion

Portfolio and Website Updates: Incorporating Feedback

An update to a previous post on the feedback I received from friends and acquaintances on my portfolio, and ongoing work.

I’ve been making updates to my portfolio and website, and I have even more updates to report. In this post, I want to go a little deeper on some of the feedback I received from friends and acquaintances, and how that has influenced some of my updates.

I’ll continue to make updates, of course. These are just changes I’ve made so far.

My Initial Reaction

I asked most people to review my portfolio, which is on CargoCollective. When I got the feedback, my emotions ranged between feeling overwhelmed and disappointed.

I was overwhelmed with what I had received, which was not all negative, because I felt that I’d wasted so many first impressions.

For months, I’ve been sending out links to my portfolio and not getting anywhere with it. Despite my hard work with updating my resume, including the time I spent gathering tips, I felt I had ultimately been short-changing myself by sending out a lackluster portfolio. It felt like a huge waste of time. I even felt like a fraud, giving out tips at the NYC UX Camp 2019.

It was disappointing that other people weren’t seeing my vision or hadn’t understood the history how this site came to be. But, you know, people only reviewed what I asked them to review. They weren’t providing holistic direction on how to reframe my image as a designer. And they weren’t evaluating anything a hiring manager wouldn’t evaluate, either. In other words, it wasn’t personal.

In any case, after a few days (or hours), I started thinking about how I could make changes. My personal website, alliwalk.com, actually went through a whirlwind of changes, large and small. And then I started focusing on my portfolio.

So let’s go through some of the top feedback and how I addressed it.

The Feedback: 1-2-3

The 3 biggest areas of feedback centered on:

  • Domain: Using a real domain name, instead of a third party site.
  • List of projects: Feeling overwhelmed by the number of projects; not sure where to start; emphasizing the projects.
  • About: Adding a tagline or a paragraph to the home page to give a sense of who I am.

Now I’ll go through these top 3 pieces of feedback and give my thoughts, and what I did (or didn’t) do to address them.

1.Personal Domain

Jared Spool gave a talk at BostonCHI in Jan 2019, about the difficulty of hiring designers. In the talk, he called out employers who discriminate against candidates who use third-party sites like Wix or other CMS tools.

Specifically, in his example, he recounts an encounter with a design leader who felt that “good designers” should be able to code and would have coded their own websites. The video is linked to this point in the presentation.

If you’re reading this on my blog, it’s clear that I do have my own domain. I also have own website and I did code it myself.

The reasons I coded my own site were not to prove myself as a “good” designer. They were due to: a) cost, and; b) exploration/personal expression. Let’s review:

A. Cost: It’s cheaper to code your own website on your own domain than to pay a 3rd-party site to do it. A site that costs $12/mo is $112/year, which is over $500 after 5 years, assuming you keep it running all that time. Many sites cost more than $12/month. About five years ago, when I first created my site in Bootstrap, I needed to find areas to cut back on my expenses. This was an easy choice to make and I’ve stuck with it.

B. Exploration: As mentioned above, about five years ago, I started seriously learning more about front-end development. I used building my portfolio and a few side projects as opportunities to learn. I like designing my own website. So why am I also using Cargo? Because updating a domain can be a small project but updating a CMS takes a few minutes.

I could use my own domain to host an external website, but it feels like giving up control of my own website. And, I’m not sure that the external template available is what I want to use on my own site. Plus I get control over my own analytics.

Ultimately, I won’t be moving the Cargo portfolio to my domain. But, I did update my website to more prominently point to the portfolio.

2. List of Projects

I admit: I do have a lot of projects. I’ve heard that using 3-5 projects is a must. I don’t know if that’s a max of 5, but I’d definitely heard a minimum of 3.

Even the NN/g article that prompted this redo suggests 3-5 projects:

Step 2: Choose 3–5 Projects as Detailed Case Studies

But I want to share an image from the NN/g article on UX portfolios. It depicts a gallery of projects.

Web PortfolioHow many projects do you see? I see 8. Clearly the maximum number of projects is not hard-limited to 3-5.

At the moment, I may have too many at 11. However, the first 3 projects are the same as from my website. And on my website, I used analytics to narrow the list from 6-7, to 3 based on visitor traffic.

Most people view a website in an F shape. Using that logic, my most popular projects are placed first. This doesn’t mean I shouldn’t continue trying to narrow the list. But there’s clearly some discrepancy what’s too many, and my choice of projects and the order they’re presented have some thought behind them.

Providing Signposts with the Writing

To help address the feedback that people might be feeling lost, within each project page, I have been working on improving the writing. As mentioned in my last post, I’m updating the writing make it easier for people to scan.

I’ve made changes such as:

  • Incorporated images at the top of projects, when appropriate. (Suggested by feedback.)
  • Organized the writing a bit better. The format is now: a) description; b) images.
  • Included additional promo information, like videos, for people to find more information if wanted.
  • Used more headings, lists, and bold text.

My hope is that even if people feel like they don’t know where to start, once they do, they will feel more directed.

3. About

I used to have an About Me page on my website, alliwalk.com. I removed it because analytics showed that very few people ever visited the page.

But, two respondents mentioned making About info more prominent, like right on the homepage. They asked about adding a heading sub-title or adding a paragraph above the project.

Unfortunately, those are not options I can pursue due to limitations of the CMS template. There are other changes I can make:

A. Using a Landing Page: The template does allow me to select any page as the landing page, even if that page is not public. (Public pages do not show in the nav in the template I’m using.) So I am working on creating a landing/about page, but it’s not something I can easily test without it immediately going live. So, I’m being very cautious.

B. Improving “About”: While working on the writing and updating images, I have updated how I described myself on both my website and my portfolio. I used a combination of my resume and cover letter. I also provided answers to a few questions I tend to get in interviews, like:

  • Are you more of an information architect or visual designer?
  • Do you typically work full-time or freelance?

I just wove that information into the writing itself, and then I put the same information on both my website and my portfolio.

Still more to go. I haven’t made much progress on my website regarding the responsive images, semantic HTML, or migrating to Bootstrap 4.

And, coincidentally, I recently participated in a virtual session with Google, on their design review process. I learned a few things…which is for another post.

Portfolio and Website Updates

After reading a Nielsen Norman Group article on UX Portfolios, I recently began a process of updating my own portfolio and website. Here is a recap and plans for the future.

I have begun a process of updates for my website at alliwalk.com and an additional portfolio at cargocollective.com/alliwalk.

Here are changes in mind for the portfolio and the website.

Portfolio Updates

Changes for my portfolio began after I read a Nielsen Norman Group article on UX Portfolios. The article is called 5-Steps to Creating a UX-Design Portfolio. The 5 steps are:

  1. Take Inventory of All Your Projects
  2. Choose 3–5 Projects as Detailed Case Studies
  3. Choose Your Desired Format
  4. Create Your Portfolio
  5. Get Feedback and Iterate

Implementing the Tips & Other Updates

Take Inventory

Given my work on improving my resume, I’ve already taken some inventory of what I feel I’m good at and what differentiates me from other designers.

3-5 Projects

But I do have a lot of projects. Far more than 3-5 as recommended. So that’s been difficult to evaluate objectively.

Writing

I also took a second look at the writing and how I described my projects. And I’ve decided to focus on improving the content so it’s ideal for the web.

  • Hemingway App helped to simply sentences and eliminate long words
  • Lists help get points across in an easier to scan format.

A short course I’ve been referencing is available on Lynda.

Styles

Styles aren’t part of the list, but I made a few changes:

  • I used Coolors to use find colors that complement each other
  • Use HSL instead of HEX values

Feedback

I’ve asked a friend, a new contact, and an acquaintance for feedback on my portfolio. Not everyone has responded with their take, but I’ve already begun making edits.

Upcoming

I plan to continue making more changes and improvements, to the order of each project and the writing.

Also, Website Updates

Some big changes here….

I recently made some pretty drastic updates to my website.

Style, Images, Content

  • Using Coolors to get a complementary color palette
  • Adding SVGs from UnDraw.co
  • Updating the content: Removed CSS projects; Added an “About” section

That’s it for now, but there are more changes I still want to make.

More Changes I Want to Make

Remove IDs

3-4 years ago when I first made this site, I didn’t know the difference between IDs and Classes. Now I do and I want to update the HTML to use the correct tags.

Add Responsive Images

The technique now is to use responsive images, using srcset and sizes. A how-to is available on MDN.

Update to Bootstrap 4

Although I think I’m OK with Bootstrap 3, it would be a good idea to update to the newest version. Bootstrap 4 uses Flex by default and possibly Grid.

Optimize the SVGS for Animation

In order to add animations to SVGs, the different paths and shapes need to be given names. Moving the styles out of the code means colors and other styles can be animated.

Animate the SVGs

After optimizing the SVGs, I can add some animations.

Create a CSS Experiments page

The site used to have a section for CSS animations. But I took that out to focus the page on just one message. I plan to put everything I removed onto a new page/section.

Domain Email

I’ve got a domain but I’m not using the email for it. This isn’t really a website thing, just a professional thing.

Happy to report, this is done!

I plan to write another post about some of the feedback and ongoing changes.

Notes on Writing Formal Business Letters and Emails

In a few posts, I’m doing a write-up of my notes following a Lynda course. This course is less than 40 min, but I thought it had some good tips, shown below.

 

Define Your Goals
  • First a short-term goal (or want), then the longer term goal.
  • Short-term goal is something you want someone to do right away. Action items; “Call me at…”
  • Long-term goal is what you want them to do for a bigger purpose. “I’m looking for help on….”
Research
  • Researching your topic: For instance, if replying to a job description use the language in the job post in your correspondence.
  • Researching your correspondent: Maybe you can find someone specific to send your correspondence to by searching for people on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. When reaching out, “My research shows you’re the best person to contact. If not…”.
For Tone

The presenter suggested using a website like bab.la for phrases, especially in other languages.

Getting to the Point
  • Put the goal up front
  • Remove confusing details
  • Rearrange and check punctuation
  • Cut out unnecessary words
Phrasal Verbs vs Direct Verbs; Idioms
  • Be direct. The second phrases below are indirect and passive:
    • “I analyzed…” vs “I looked over…”
    • “I hope to…” vs “I had been hoping…”
  • Idioms: Just write it out. Idioms can be misunderstood or misinterpreted.
Follow-Up: TAP – Timeline, Alternatives, Peskiness
  • Timeline: Do you need to follow up because you need an answer?
  • Alternatives: Can you get this info from another source?
  • Peskiness: What will be the downside of following up?

Remember: Don’t assume malice or argue.

Here’s an example: I’m afraid I didn’t get a response to our letter on June 15 about booth space. A prompt reply would be appreciated as we are trying to finalize our travel arrangements. Thank you.

Rule of Thumb for Following Up
  • Don’t follow through using multiple venues. Don’t follow up through email, phone, LinkedIn, etc.
  • If you send an email and get no reply, it’s OK to ask via one other outlet if someone got your email. But don’t bombard them on LinkedIn and Twitter and phone, etc.
  • This was a tip for me, because I had been thinking the more the better!
Continuing the Conversation
  • Keep note of other email addresses, and other people in a CC.
  • People can be generous, if they’re asked. Just be polite.
3 Takeaways
  • Be concise
  • Cooperate
  • There’s a person on the other end
Final Tip

If you ever find yourself stuck with what to say, try recording yourself speaking then transcribing your message.

UX Camp 2019

Recap of UX Camp 2019.

On Saturday June 29, 2019, I found myself again at UX Camp. UX Camp, which I also attended and wrote about 2 years ago, is an “unconference” which means that there is not set schedule of topics or speakers. Instead, the participants come up with the schedule by proposing talks they want to talk about. (Then the organizers choose the time and which room.) This year’s UX Camp was again held at General Assembly.

As this was my second time going, I tried to be a little more social and chit-chat with other participants. Unfortunately, Jared Spool and Dave Malouf weren’t in attendance. Jared Spool is a great speaker — here’s a video I watched recently. However, I decided to not only get over my fears of small talk, but also get over my fear of presenting my ideas in public. So I gave a presentation, based on one of my favorite prior blog posts of this year, “My Favorite Pro-Tips from NYPL Experts on Crafting a Resume”!

Ok, only a few people attended, but presenting was a very satisfying experience.

Most of the people who signed up to lead sessions did not have slides. I did because I based them on my blog post, so it was relatively easy to put the deck together because my thoughts were already written and organized.

Overview

Other than my own presentation, here are a few sessions I attended:

Interviewing

One of the participants wanted to discuss interviewing, because she found herself in a new situation and was curious about other people’s experiences. I used the opportunity to make a comment on my observations about what UX hiring managers are looking for, especially regarding portfolios, according to the articles I’ve researched online.

Mentorship

This was kind of a workshop about mentorship. We spent a bit of time discussing our experiences with mentorship. After getting through everyone, the speaker led us through an exercise where we discussed what a mentor is and is not.

First, a mentor is not:

  • a parent
  • going to punish you
  • responsible for your career
  • necessarily your boss, but could be

A mentor is:

  • Someone who has achieved what you want to achieve. Someone said, “They only need to be one step ahead of you.”
  • Has current knowledge about the job, current events, etc
  • A champion for your success

We then broke out in small groups to talk about: How to create boundaries, Framing your conversation (with your mentor); and Getting from having no mentor to having a mentor. Afterwards, we shared our discussions.
Tips on Working with a Mentor

  • Respect the time of your mentor. Pretend your mentor has 100 mentees
  • Be responsive and be clear about what you want.
  • Fully implement their advice and then follow up with them with the results
  • Boosters; some people really like to help others
  • Be willing to provide value to the mentor

A book mentioned was the 2-Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton.

Visual Storytelling

Another talk I went to was by an architect who was a very talented illustrator and hoping to break into product design. His talk was on Visual Storytelling.

He showed us some examples of his work and we discussed the story he was trying to tell with his images. He also discussed his process a little.

Some tips I got from him about visual storytelling:
– Pick key moments to visualize
– Show only 1 (one) idea per image
– Include enough relevant information, but don’t go overboard in detail

I wanted to ask him questions about design and improving in visual design, but when I tried to ask my questions, I found that my anxieties about improving in design only aided in making my words come out jumbled. He tried to answer anyway and suggested that just knowing what’s good design and what’s not good is OK.

I like his tips — very clear and straightforward.

Cultural Relevancy and Experience Design

The very last talk I went to was about Cultural Relevancy and Experience Design. It was a very interesting topic. The speaker shared with us situations in which technology (sensors, photography) failed her in key moments due to the technology not being tested on a diverse audience. It’s true that some sensors are poorly calibrated to pick up darker skin tones. For instance, “self-driving vehicles may have a harder time detecting people with dark skin”. It’s probably not because the technology cannot do it, but because it’s not being testing for a variety of skin tones. https://www.businessinsider.com/self-driving-cars-worse-at-detecting-dark-skin-study-says-2019-3

I also got some recommendations for books:
– Design in The Era of the Algorithm
– Politics of Design
– Mismatched

Conclusion

Although I missed seeing some well-known names at the conference, I still got something out of it — namely public speaking experience.

Notes on Interpersonal Communication

After giving a few recommendations to an acquaintance about my favorite online learning platform, Lynda, I recently watched one of the courses I suggested called Interpersonal Communication. This course is taught by Dorie Clark, who teaches several other business communications courses.

I don’t always take notes, but this time I took a decent amount. I am hoping that re-writing them on my blog, this will help me remember in the moment. (It also helps me throw away some of the papers piling up on my desk.)

9 Notes on Interpersonal Communication

1. How to Make Requests Effectively

Dig your well before you’re thirsty.

  1. Invest in favors before making them.
  2. Explain the context of your request.
  3. Acknowledge you’re requesting a favor. “Thank you for the favor.”
  4. Indicate where your interests are aligned.
  5. Express genuine gratitude.

2. Communicating by Phone or Email?

If it’s a boss or power broker, do they have an opinion or a preference about which they prefer? If so, choose what they prefer. Otherwise, some tips on email vs phone, and benefits of each:

Benefits of Email

  • Simple information
  • Different time zones, travel, late at night
  • Dealing with a talkative person

Benefits of Phone

  • Brainstorming or Troubleshooting
  • Emotional conversation

3. How to Interpret Non-Verbal Cues and What to Watch Out for In Yourself:

She might be cold, but crossed arms signals “closed” body language.

  • (Micro) Expressions of contempt (especially those brief expressions in yourself)
  • Open vs Closed body language
  • Check the direction of the feet; where are they pointed
  • Mismatched facial expressions

 

4. Communicating with Your Supervisor

Manage expectations by ranking projects.

Get the guidance you need:

  • Have a conversation about how to have conversations. [WARNING] – This will be uncomfortable.
  • Develop an emergency plan, on what to do when your supervisor cannot be reached.
  • Create an operating manual for your job.

Ask the right questions:

  • What can I do that’s most helpful for you right now?
  • How can I prioritize that?
  • Do you see anything that I’m missing?

5. Meetings

Notes on when to speak up in meetings and when to listen:

  • Listen when you don’t know the context
  • Listen when you don’t have a strong opinion
  • Speak when you have relevant experience
  • Speak if you have useful resources
  • Speak if you do have a strong opinion
  • Speak if you have key questions

6. Managing Tricky Communications

Can occur in cross-cultural scenarios when some culture explain things with direct language and some use indirect. Ex: Germany (direct), the US (mostly direct), and Japan (indirect).

In addition, some cultures are very formal and others are more informal. Ex: In the US, using an honorific title like Director or Chairman to refer to someone is way too formal, but some countries it’s standard.

Reference to work done by Andy Molinsky.

7. Interpreting Interruptions

  • Why are they interrupting?
  • Do they want more detail?
  • Is it a culture of interruptions or just one person?

Solutions

  • Talk one on one: Bob, you interrupted me 3 times. If Bob protests: I’m sure you didn’t intend it, but my impression was that you interrupted me 3 times.
  • Change the system: Talk to your manager and take note. Choose an interruption monitor for meetings. Ask meeting organizers to stop interruptions.

8. Responding to Critical Feedback

The most important rule is: know who to take feedback from! There are only two sources of feedback:

  1. Your boss (or client or professor).
  2. Anyone you ask for feedback.

If it’s anyone else, their opinion is not important. 

Other Tips:

  • Don’t respond immediately to feedback. Give yourself time to reflect.
  • If you’re worried about negative feedback: Think of worse-case scenarios between you and your boss. Write down possible criticisms and then your solutions.

9. Communicating as an Introvert

The office is optimized for extroversion, but you can play to your strengths:

  • Get an agenda before the meeting and share your thoughts in written format (even before the meeting).
  • Get a friend to advocate for you, and you can advocate for an introvert.
  • Try creating talking points
  • Create challenges: Ex: “I’m going to be the first to speak up.”
  • Do more pre-work.

 

Conclusion

If you’re interested in this course, here’s an overview:

Communicating effectively isn’t an innate talent that some people have and others don’t—it’s something that anyone can learn and practice. In this course, learn strategies that can help you hone and master your interpersonal communication skills.

Join personal branding and career expert Dorie Clark as she shares techniques for getting your message across effectively in the workplace, and explains how to tackle potential communication challenges with your colleagues and supervisor. She also discusses how to grapple with tricky situations, taking you through how to handle interruptions, respond to critical feedback, and communicate across cultures.

This course was released 6/13/2017 and rated “Beginner” skill level. So fairly recent and open to everyone. Also it’s only 37m 7s, so easy to fit into a day.

I saw a few more courses I didn’t know about on her author page, about how to hold yourself accountable and body language for women — also around 30 minutes. Maybe I’ll take those and write more notes.

Essays on the Experience of UX Job Hunting: Intro

A few years ago, I was looking for a job in user experience. Despite having years of experience, it was pretty challenging.

Trying not to get too discouraged in my search, I decided to ask a few friends for their advice. We talked about building the elusive portfolio, an absolute must for any UX designer these days. One word of advice was to think about what UX managers might be looking for when they review a portfolio, and to try and build a portfolio around that. That seemed like expert advice, but none of my friends were UX managers so they couldn’t give me one-on-one advice (or didn’t want to).

Given how easy it is to find development info online, I assumed it would be relatively easy to find more information about UX managers online, too. I started hunting for information on what managers might be looking for, what makes for a “good” UX portfolios, and information about job hunting in general.

That search eventually led me to write a long essay about what I found. I split my findings into the following parts:

  • Part I. What are managers looking for?
  • Part II. What Do Hiring Managers Agree On.
  • Part III. Profile of a UX Manager.
  • Part IV. What makes a good (UX) portfolio.
  • Part V. Good advice, Resources.

I’ve been sitting on all of this for about 2 years. At the time, some of what I wrote seemed inflammatory to me. It made me angry. Reading it now, I don’t think so. I think a lot of designers — and knowledge workers, in general — are getting frustrated for similar reasons related to job interviews, evaluation criteria, and other aspects of the hiring process. And several prominent figures in the user experience community have also written about how the education for UX design is broken, leading UX managers to complain that there are no good candidates.

Anyway, after all this time I figured it’s finally time I start publishing, so here goes with the intro. Who knows if I’ll post it all.