Tag: ux design

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.

UX Design Fundamentals: UXApprentice.com

UXApprentice.com

UX Apprentice is a static website that takes site visitors through a 3-step UX project to teach visitors about the process of UX. The steps the site goes through are Discovery, Strategy, Design.

As it states on the first page, each step describes what the step is all about, it provides examples, there’s a very short knowledge quiz, and a list of resources consisting of books, articles/sites, and a

As it states on the first page, each step describes what the step is all about, it provides examples, there’s a very short knowledge quiz, and a list of resources consisting of books, articles/sites, and a who’s who list of names.

Alphas:

  • Great connection between the description of the information, using the outlines and icons from the top of each page to the bottom.
  • Good use of navigation to prompt site visitors to go from one explanation to another.

Deltas:

  • The website provides a lot of information, but it’s highly biased to be accessible for people who already know a bit about UX. There just isn’t enough information to help someone who is totally new to UX get started.
  • Many of the articles are a few years old, and a few links for the books and articles are broken. For instance, I tried to take a look at the Kevin Cheng book on the Discovery page, and an article on the strategy page called “What is User Experience Strategy, Anyway?” Both links were dead. See update.
  • It’s an advertisement for Balsamiq. While I like the information this site provides, in the end the entire site is essentially an advertisement for the wireframing tool Balsamiq. It doesn’t hit you over the head with it, but it’s the truth.

Final Thoughts

I’d still recommend the site to someone as a possible resource, along with other resources, but I’d preface it by saying that there might be a lot of broken links in the reference sections.

Update

As you can read in the comments, Jessica from Balsamiq contacted me to let me know that they updated their links. I’ve checked it out and this appears to be the case.

Some of the people they’re linking to may have broken links, but that can’t be helped.

Checking out their resources, I found a 4-video series of Lean UX Strategy YouTube which I recommend because it won’t take more than 15 minutes to watch.

UX Design Fundamentals, Part 1: Getting started

Getting started in UX: a comprehensive list of resources. Part of a 3-part series on resources about the fundamentals of UX.

While I haven’t exactly been a mentor before, I have helped people learn more about the field of User Experience. In a few recent jobs, I’ve had someone ask how they can learn more about UX.

I provided my own responses, but since then I’ve come across a few different examples of comprehensive UX introductions that have a lot of good information to offer. I thought reviewing each would make a good blog post. First, I’ll include my tips, then the static examples. Finally, I’ll review a few video courses in the next post.

Part 1: My List

As I mentioned above, I’ve had people ask me about how they can learn more about UX. The thing to keep in mind is that these are people who are totally new to UX – as opposed to people who work in software development, visual design, or some other related field. Or people who’ve gone through some classes and are looking for more information.

One person in particular asked me about more information and I provided a comprehensive list of UX resources. My main focus was to provide a starting place to learn more about the field of UX, and less so about the process of UX. I’ve found that process can change, slightly or drastically, depending on where you work. I did not provide any resources on Lynda, though they’ve updated their site since then, because the resources felt like a starting point for someone who’s already gotten started in UX.

Everything below this point was originally sent in an email, called Lots of UX, though not necessarily in this order.

Also note that my links to Amazon go to smile.amazon.com, in support of the ASPCA.

One quick note!

The one thing to know about UX (which is really human-computer interaction), is that the core of it is psychology – think of it as the application of cognitive psychology. So, it can be applied in many different contexts, not just on traditional websites.

Also, not everyone who works in UX is a designer; some people only do research.

Quick Start!

Some things to think about right now, as you go about your way in the world…

Books 

  • The Design of Everyday Things – this will change the way you view the world. About Book
  • The Inmates are Running the Asylum – this discusses the importance of designing for the actual users, not the stakeholders. Book
  • Don’t Make Me Think – simple primer on what usability is all about. Can read in a day. Book
  • Universal Principles of Design – think of these as though they are from a cognitive psychology perspective vs a design perspective. Book

There are many other handbooks about actually designing and testing, but these are good to first get yourself in the right frame of mind!

Sites/Newsletters

A Few People

  • Don Norman, Jakob Nielsen, Bruce Tognazzini (I would look them up individually…)
  • Alan Cooper (designer) – …also look him up…
  • Alan Tufte – …and him, too.
  • Ben Schneiderman – see also his personal project with many names of other people you can learn about! (https://hcipioneers.wordpress.com/)

Accessibility
I don’t have a book, but you should also learn all you can about accessibility because it’s very important. It gets into the field of Ergonomics and Human Factors which is more about the design of chairs, handles, doorways, phones, etc.

http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility

Information-Seeking Behavior
OK, I’m sneaking this in… This is not likely in these books, because it’s a complicated, grad-level concept. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really able to find examples that are not long research papers.

Essentially, information-seeking behavior is the idea that all humans search for information in the same way that we evolved to search for food. We have a need, we act to satisfy that need, either actively or not. We do not always know for sure what we’re looking for, and so we satisfy our queries piece by piece, while all the time asking if this new information gets us closer to what we think we’re looking for or not. Like I said, it’s complicated so if this is still confusing, I can try to explain it to you in person!

 

Of course I then ended the email with a few nice words, but that’s my list!

The next post will be about a static site I found providing an intro to UX fundamentals, and other websites to add to this list.

Building up HTML Skill

Normally, I do not spend a lot of my time using HTML or CSS, but I got a little caught up in reading on UX blogs and discussion forums about how web designers and UX professionals should or should not be required to know how to “code”. One person asked why they kept getting applications from UX designers who did not “code” (i.e., design from scratch with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) their own portfolio site. Those applications, according to the original poster, were apparently not good enough because he wanted someone who could design their own site rather than use a WordPress template or theme.

Much of the debate, which I won’t go into now, had to do with whether or not this type of UX person exists – some said this person is a mythical “unicorn” and the poster would be better off looking for UX designers who had a better grasp of psychology (which is also true). My question, and one of my arguments against this UX People Must Code, is that it does not specify the degree to which a (web-based) UX specialist should understand code. (And really, what they’re specifically talking about is HTML/CSS, not Java or .NET.)

I was curious: how much should a UX person learn about HTML/CSS and how fast can they do it? Well, in my own experience, I’ve found that spending a dedicated but serious amount of time learning something difficult (Russian, OpenFrameworks, driving) will not likely get you to mastery, but it will get you somewhere. I wondered if a UX designer dedicated, say, a month of time learning about HTML/CSS would that get them “far enough”?

I typed into my trusty Google search box “learn HTML in 30 days”…and voila! I came across a great website called TutsPlus.com. This site offers tutorials on all kinds of creative and design related topics, included web design and development. Web Development is actually on a sub-site, called webdesign.tutsplus.com. Turns out someone has already created a 30 day tutorial to learn HTML and CSS. And it’s FREE!

Checking it out, and skipping ahead, I was pretty impressed by this tutorial. I like movies and I love learning via video. The tutorial eventually has the pupil try to skin and recreate a website from a PS template. I became inspired to try something similar. Except I didn’t use a template. I used a page from a real website. It was an Etsy tutorial on how to sew a skirt. (I did make my own skirt, eventually, too.)

I’m still working on it, but I’m over halfway finished. The sidebar is a little bit tricky, so I’m taking a break. I’m using the 960.gs grid in 16-columns, and a few HTML5 tags. There’s not much need for CSS3 yet, but I think some of the buttons will need some styling for gradients and corners. It’s been fun, but I’m not sure I’d want to do it everyday. (Maybe, though…if I had more practice.)

*****

The funny part, is that the part of my brain that is working hard to format an HTML page and troubleshoot what could be going wrong with the CSS does not feel like the same part of my brain that comes up with UX inspirations and designs, and makes the associations between how a person would use a system with what the system offers. More on the Coding Designer later. For now, here’s a screenshot of my sample Etsy project and the real Etsy webpage. There’s still quite a lot of tweaking left to do, but you can see how it’s coming together.

My version of an Etsy webpage
My version of an Etsy webpage
Etsy.com Sew a skirt in an hour
Etsy.com Sew a skirt in an hour