Category: Occasional Mentor

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The Occasional Mentor: On Data Science in UX, Content Strategy vs UX Writing and the Durability of Digital Humanities

THE OCCASIONAL MENTOR
A monthly(ish) column based on questions I’ve answered on Quora, heard on Slack groups, and other career advice I’ve given over the prior month. Hope you like it, but feel free to challenge me in the comments, if you have a different experience. Below are questions I answered in June.

How are the user experience design and data science professions connected with each other?

June 6, 2018

According to Wikipedia:

“Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from data in various forms, both structured and unstructured, similar to data mining.”

A data scientist is a person who is skilled in quantitative research and can formulate a study, analyze the results and create reports to inform other people about the topic of study. They may work with spreadsheets, statistical programs, graphical interfaces, and programming languages like Python, Java, JSON, R, SQL, MATLAB, SAS, C and F#, among others. They may also work with text analysis software, geographic information systems (GIS) and visualization tools like Tableau and Gephi.

UX designers use the results of quantitative research, created by data scientists and UX researchers. The reports help the designers understand user behavior, based on data collected from digital product user logs, web analytics, or quantitative user research tests. These data may describe typical user paths and places where users tend to drop off or bounce away from the app. It could include the results of A/B tests, card sorts, heatmaps, user flow diagrams and demographic and conversion data.

UX designers may also use the output of data studies in the content of the products they are designing for. These studies would be relevant to the subject of the product, not user generated data. For example, an infographic or other visualization that illustrates aspects of the product: weather maps, income disparity charts, election results.

What is the difference between a content strategist and a UX writer?

June 6, 2018

A content strategist creates a plan for all of the company’s reusable content assets. This can include graphics, text, labels, photographs, charts, PDFs, videos, audio files, documentation, directories, etc. The content strategist creates policies and manages the programs that house and govern content. This could include inventory, storage, workflow and governance of content (such as who has access to what type of content, who is responsible for updating or archiving content, who can delete or create new content).

A UX writer prepares written content for use in any number of media, including advertising, apps and websites, video/audio/animation, PR, etc. with a focus on maintaining a consistent user experience across all channels. This can include articles, product descriptions, documentation, headings, headlines, labels, microcopy, essentially anything that needs to be written in words.

Is the digital humanities an enduring movement or a trend?

June 6, 2018

I think it will endure. Academics need to create original research. Digital projects and analysis represents an exciting way to discover new things about subjects that otherwise seem to be studied to death. Applied to art, literature, history and other subjects in the humanities, digital projects open up a whole frontier of analytics and visualization where computational study used to be rare. This can take the form of text analysis, network diagramming, geographic information systems, 3D printing and even the creation of virtual worlds.

Where it can hit a road block is the fact that people who pursue humanities don’t often have the skills or competence required to utilize computational tools in their research. This isn’t their fault, it just happens to be rare in humanities curricula. That is why many universities are investing in developing IT and library staff who have these skills.

Ultimately, schools will include more and more digital studies electives in humanities programs. So like art and art history programs now may include chemistry and material science in units on art preservation, and English departments will have more an more computer scientists on hand to help with digital humanities projects.

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The Occasional Mentor: On UX Certificates vs Conferences

THE OCCASIONAL MENTOR
A monthly-ish column based on questions I’ve answered on Quora, heard on Slack groups, and other career advice I’ve given over the prior month. Hope you like it, but feel free to challenge me in the comments, if you have a different experience. Below are questions I answered in May.

Is it helpful to get a UX certificate or go to a UX conference as a starting point for a college undergraduate who wants to work on UX later but has no experience yet?

May 26, 2018

I am going on be the contrarian and say absolutely go to a conference or a meetup that is aligned with your UX interest. A certificate program will probably get you some basic skills, but so would reading books and working on pro bono projects on your own. (See one of my previous answers on certificates). For someone just starting out, it’s the interaction with other attendees as much as the talks and workshops that help build your knowledge of what and who you need to know to get a job in the field. And most conferences offer student discounts or lower-cost workshops so you don’t necessarily have to pay full price to get a benefit. Depending on where you live, Meetups can be plentiful and free or cheap. Online interest groups like Designers Guild on Facebook or UX Mastery on Slack are also good ways to find a community. UX Mastery even has a mentoring program.

Keep in mind that the most valuable UX design skills are soft skills like communication, presentation and ability to make insights. Design tools are always evolving so what you learn at a boot camp may not be marketable in a few years.

Some positive things about taking a certificate course. You meet your competition and potential future coworkers. A formal program may be confidence-building if you fear you don’t have basic understanding of what UX designers do and how they do it and aren’t comfortable picking up these skills on your own. But do some research. Not all certificates or boot camps have a good reputation. Meetups and other UX events are good places to ask about programs in your area.

Even better if your university offers design courses that you can take as part of your degree. Also, look for intro level cognitive psychology and ethnography courses (typically anthropology classes that cover interviewing skills). If your school has business or entrepreneur programs, ask if they offer any design or customer discovery workshops. Sometimes these programs are open to students schoolwide.

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The Occasional Mentor – May 2018

THE OCCASIONAL MENTOR
I am rebranding my monthly column, The Occasional Mentor, based on questions I’ve answered on Quora, heard on Slack groups, and other career advice I’ve given over the prior month. Hope you like it, but feel free to challenge me in the comments, if you have a different experience. Below are questions I answered in May.

May 2018

On Startup Founders taking on a part time gig to make ends meet…

If you model your job search as a consultancy rather than man for hire, you can drop the resume and just use a portfolio. Limit the work in your portfolio to only the kind of projects that will get you the role you are seeking. If they do ask for a resume, I will usually include my startup in my consulting description as one of many ongoing projects.

Be realistic about how much time you are able to devote to a part time gig. Consulting clients are usually aware that you have other clients. As long as they know when they can count on you to be available, they will be happy.

On why companies won’t give interview feedback when you don’t get the job…

The same reason that during employment checks, companies will only confirm or deny you ever worked for them, and nothing more. They don’t want to put themselves in a potentially prosecutable situation.

Don’t be surprised if they don’t respond at all. It can sometimes take a while to complete a round of interviews. You may not actually receive a rejection notice. But don’t let too much time pass without hearing a word. At the end of the interview you’ve probably asked what the next steps are. Be sure to at least send a very brief thank you the evening after the interview or by the next morning. Include any additional information you want to highlight and reiterate your understanding of when you will hear from them. Follow up again within a day or so of the “next steps” date, if you haven’t already heard an answer.

If you do get rejected, ask if they would be available to discuss how you could improve your position for future openings. And if they say no, thank them for their time and move on.

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The Occasional Mentor: Career Advice — College Degrees and the Long, Post-Interview Wait

I answer questions about Careers, Mentorship and other topics on Quora. A selection of these answers will be reposted on Medium with occasional, minor editing for clarity. Following are selected questions I answered in October.

Are you going to be an unsuccessful person without a college degree?

Answered October 13, 2017

It depends, of course, on what success means to you. A lot of successful actors and artists don’t have degrees. All successful doctors and lawyers do. And while you can be quite successful as a plumber or electrician without a degree, the overwhelming majority of business leaders have one. The reason people keep trotting out the degree-less Zuckerberg, Jobs and Gates is because – try to name one more. It’s not that easy. And by the way, did you drop out of Harvard?

You may be tremendously rich and successful without a college degree, but if so you would also be very rare. A college degree will get you ahead faster in most professions that require it or some level of certification. With a degree, you qualify for any job that does or doesn’t require one, but without it you won’t qualify for any of the jobs that do, so you are limiting your options. Without a degree you will be competing not just for jobs but also for promotions or for clients. You will need to fight to stand out and suffer not even getting the call because it’s an easy way to narrow down a long list of applicants.

Not all jobs require degrees. I’ve seen many government jobs that require a masters degree that will accept a certain number of years of experience along with a lesser degree, say a BA with 5 years of experience, or no degree but ten years of supervisory experience. You would need to calculate the cost of the degree and potentially lost wages over 5–6 years of studying against starting at a lower salary class and working many more years to qualify.

It is true that in some fields, particularly trades, where a degree not required, having one may actually hold you back. In this case, your competition for jobs has already spent four years perfecting his craft while you were in school. It is also true that the significant level of student loan debt you may accumulate can hold back your financial future, especially if you end up in a job that doesn’t pay well or didn’t require a degree in the first place, or if you struggle (either to pay tuition or academically) and fail to graduate.

I went for a job interview over a week ago and have not heard anything. I forgot to ask what their timeline for the job was. Does this mean I probably didn’t get the job?

Answered October 3, 2017

A week or even a week and a half is the perfect time to call or email to follow up, ask about your standing, offer an update on anything you may have discussed that was in progress during the interview or to forward some interesting article or news that is relevant to the work.

Getting beyond two or three weeks is somewhat long but I would still follow up in the same tone as if it had only been a week. As others have said, sometime the process does take long depending on the number of applicants or uniqueness of the role.

Beyond a month or two, they may have passed on you because it seems that you have passed on them. But there still could be a chance at that point that they haven’t settled on a hire or have changed the need or requirements somewhat. At that point I would make a simple request for a decision, i.e., has one been made, so I can get feedback and move on.

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Lorem Ipsum, UX Portfolios, Thought Leaders and Designing for a Customer Niche

I answer questions about UX, Information Architecture and other topics on Quora. A selection of these answers will be reposted on Medium with occasional, minor editing for clarity. Following are selected questions I answered in August.

In a UX Portfolio, can I use lorem ipsum or do I have to use the real text from a website?

Answered August 5, 2017

Lorem ipsum will likely be read by reviewers as a stage in an unfinished site. That’s fine. Your UX Portfolio should include artifacts showing the process you went through to solve a design problem. If you only show screen shots of completed sites, it is difficult for a reviewer to understand exactly what part of the design solution you worked on.

Notice I am using words like “problem,” “artifacts,” “process” and “solution.” These are terms that direct the reviewer to consider your role in the completed work. What problem did you solve? What design artifacts (like screenshots, wireframes, journey maps) did you create? What other team roles did you work with? What processes did you use as a team or individually? How did you negotiate and advocate for your work with the team or the client? Your portfolio should be more than the pretty results of your work, but give a description of the messy problems and creative solutions you brought to the table.

Another thing that I wonder when you mention Lorem ipsum is whether you are using it because you have an NDA. This can be tricky. Read the agreement thoroughly and have a lawyer explain anything that doesn’t make sense. Simply obscuring text may not be enough if there are branding elements that are recognizable in the completed design. Often wireframes make sense, since they are very lo-fi and don’t need to show branding elements. That said, some NDAs will prevent you from sharing any artifacts at all, especially if the intellectual property is particularly sensitive, so a general description of your role and processes may be all you can put into a portfolio.

Hope that helps.

What is the best way to do customer research to decide what product I should build in a specific niche?

Answered August 5, 2017

If you have already decided what that niche is, you can start to think about the activities that group is involved in and the types of problems they are trying to solve. Meet with them and observe how they are currently performing these activities or solving these problems. How do they perform the activity? Is their solution or task analog or digital? What are their pain points? What do they struggle with? What do they wish was different? Have them speak to you aloud about the steps of their task: what are they doing, feeling at each point in the process? Are there solutions or tools they have tried and abandoned? What made them abandon something that was not satisfactory? What made them keep using something that is perhaps subpar? Are there solutions they have heard or read about that they would like to try? What are they and what might be keeping them from trying?

All of this will give you insight to an underlying problem that could use a designed solution. More questions to ask during the ideation stage: Can their tasks be supported by a digital solution? What are the external roadblocks? Is there a cognitive or behavioral issue that may be involved? Is there a bias? (I remember when wheely bags were derided as something only for the weak or the female. Now most urban mail carriers use them and most other people couldn’t imagine getting to their gate on time without one).

Is cost an issue? Regulation? What external factors might be affecting the market for your solution?

Map out some ideas, prototype your solution (paper mockups or quick digital prototypes are OK) and go back to your users to see how they use it. Does the solution address their problem? Does it make sense? What would they add? What would they remove? Would they suggest it to a friend or colleague?

Then back again. Keep iterating and testing. Read about the problem space in the media. What other companies are working on products like yours? What are investors buying into? What larger groups, associations, affinity markets are interested in solutions like yours? Meet them for coffee or go to Meetups and conferences on topics related to your niche group. Meetups are good places to find your user test participants as well as to learn generally how the industry or affinity group understands the problem space and what other solutions are out there.

Be sure when you start to approach designers, developers and partners that they really get your niche and the problems they are dealing with. Decision Fish has been very lucky to find people who understand and are excited enough about our product that they want it for themselves. When your team really gets it and they are excited about coming up with a solution, investors and customers can feel it and will be more likely to want to help you to succeed.

Hope that helps.

Who Are the Thought Leaders of UX Writers?

Answered August 5, 2017

Most of the authors at Rosenfeld Media and the speakers at UIE conferences can be considered thought leaders in their area of UX. Writers I follow in particular include Peter Morville for IA, Kristina Halvorson for Content Management, Donna Lichaw for UX Storytelling, Steve Krug and Don Norman for Usability, Dana Chisnell for Government/Participatory Design, Steve Portigal for UX Research (I’m currently reading Doorbells, Danger and Dead Batteries), Thomas Wendt for service design (I’m also reading Design for Dasein, which is highly philosophical/academic, but fascinating if you are up on your Heidegger and terms like phenomenology and hermeneutics). Peter Merholz has done writing on service design that is a bit more accessible. Jonathan Kolko and Nathan Shedroff have written on Design for “wicked problems” and sustainability, respectively. Nathan also has a fun one at Rosenfeld Media, called Make It So, on what designers can learn from sci fi.

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The Occasional Mentor: How to Advance as a UX Professional

I answer questions about UX, Information Architecture and other topics on Quora. A selection of these answers will be reposted on Medium with occasional, minor editing for clarity. 

One of the things that makes a very good UX designer is developing empathy not just for the user but also for your entire team. Knowing what the user and your teammates can and cannot do, what frustrates them and how you as the designer can make their experience easier or more enjoyable is a key part of UX. What I have been doing to advance in the field is start to expand my professional development beyond the usual design conference or Agile sprint Meetup. I have started to attend conferences and networking meetings outside my specific field of IA/UX. With a mentor’s encouragement, I have even begun going to the kinds of events that may seem a little scary to the average designer, like cybersecurity, cloud computing and semiotics/philosophy groups.

My approach to these events going in is understanding that much of what I will see be gibberish at first. I once attended a “search engine usability” event at Columbia Business School that was literally Greek to me: slide after slide of computational algorithms peppered with Greek letters. At first I admit I felt way out place, but I decided to just absorb the atmosphere and observe the people in the classroom. A different feeling washed over me as I stepped into that observer role. These were people who quite literally speak a different language than me and who may have a similarl, “fish out of water” experience at a design-oriented Meetup. I once met a female programmer at a design sprint event who claimed to “think in code” and admitted that the sketching part of an exercise was difficult for her. I think she was doing a similar observation technique as the one I used at the Columbia lecture. That kind of self-reflection about your own experience versus the experience of those who are more (or less) comfortable in a given context can be useful when working with team members or users whose context may be equally foreign to you as a designer.

I’ve had similar experiences attending financial and human resources related events in my role as COO for a financial wellness startup (although these were at least usually in English). Being able to step into the role of an ethnographer or anthropologist without entirely objectifying the experience and humanity of the subject group–in this case fellow conference attendees–is a great way to develop as an advanced UX professional.

Another thing you can do to develop as an advanced UX professional is to mentor another designer. I started mentoring in my local UXPA program after having been a mentee in the same program last year, which has been very valuable and rewarding. I don’t believe I was consciously trying to experience mentoring as a user of mentoring services when I joined as a mentee. I had real needs for which a mentor would be valuable. But the experience allowed me to feel empathy for the mentee when I became a mentor myself.