Tag: data science

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The Occasional Mentor: On Data Science or UX and Getting Started

THE OCCASIONAL MENTOR
A monthly 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 August.

Should I Learn Data Science or UX Design?

Answered on August 9, 2018

To find the answer look at the labels. Data or users? Are you more comfortable working with data or with people?

Data scientists work with data sets and computational analysis, while UX designers focus on people and their needs and behaviors.

Data scientists work with tabular data, charts, graphs, statistics/graphics programs like R and computer languages like Python, JSON and SQL. Their subject matter expertise is mathematics.

UX designers work with drawing and wireframing software, Post-Its, whiteboards and Sharpies. And lots of discussion, interviewing, observation, surveying and feedback. Their subject matter ultimately is people who use the products they design.

In some companies there may be an overlapping of the roles. For example a data scientist may work with user generated data, such as usage logs, to analyze behavior. A UX designer may help the data scientist test a visualization that is understandable to the users. So if you are interested in both you may be able to find roles that focus on your area of expertise, but give you some exposure to the other disciplines.

What Is the Best Way to Become Successful User Experience/User Interface Designer and Promote Yourself for Someone Who Is Completely New to this Career Path

Answered on 08/04/2018

Read: Read books, articles and blog posts on UX and design that are recommended by experts in the field and UX professional networks, like UXPA, IxDA, AIGA and the IA Institute. The Interaction Design Foundation has a concise set of encyclopedia articles on topics in UX as well as inexpensive online courses. A good intro is Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think. Rosenfeld Media nd O’Reilly Media have many of the bestselling UX books. Good online magazines include Boxes and Arrows, UX Matters and Smashing Magazine.

Be sure to read a wide variety of subject matter. Read about philosophy, cognitive science and behavioral economics. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow and Thaler/Sunstein’s Nudge are good ones to start. Also read in areas where you have particular subject matter expertise or interest as you are most likely to succeed in getting a job, and enjoying it, in a product area you can be passionate about. I’m currently reading Gary A. Klein’s Sources of Power, a book that focuses on high stakes decision-making by military and emergency personnel and Planning for Everything, by Peter Morville, who coauthored Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond.

Watch: There are a lot of great conferences and talks that post their materials online that you can watch for free or for a small fee. I like IxDA’s Interaction Conference, Enterprise UX from Rosenfeld Media and Jared Spool’s UIE conferences. UIE collects talks in an “All You Can Learn” Library that are very good quality.

You can also find video courses on platforms like Udemy and Vimeo. I am currently taking a Cooper design course at Udemy taught by Alan’s Cooper, whose company Cooper.com, a user experience design and strategy firm offers design training. IDEO also has online design courses though these can be pricy for someone just starting out.

Listen: If you search “top ten UX podcasts” you’ll find most of the good ones. UX Podcast is the most cited. I like Postlight’s Track Changes. It has the banter of Car Talk and isn’t always so serious.

Also, since UX is all about the user, really build your listening muscle by listening to what people around you are saying about the products and services they use. What kind of language to they use when describing their experiences? What common problems or complaints do people have? Are they articulate or vague? Sometimes the vague ones are the most interesting to explore.

Talk: Find UX and Design related Meetups in your area and get out and talk to Designers. Ask them questions. What do they do? What do they love and hate about it? What are their most interesting or wicked challenges. Meetups are wonderful opportunities to network with UX designers, hiring managers and other likeminded people who can serve as mentors and travel buddies on your UX journey.

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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.