Can you tell us about 10collective?

10collective was a company that I started by accident in 2008. I walked out the door of my previous company, an IT recruitment agency, and received a call from a client who said, “Can you find me a developer”? I said, “Okay” and on autopilot I found one and made a placement.

At the time, it was just a bit of fun and I assumed I would spend my newfound free-time painting or writing books, but it snowballed from there. In the end, I needed to hire an additional employee, and soon after that we moved into an office in Fitzroy.

At that point I’d been recruiting user experience people for a number of years. There is some debate about whether the position should even be called “User Experience” anymore, because it’s really “experience design” to some of the more established UXers.

You’ve been recruiting UX professionals for quite a while. What changes have you seen in the industry since 10collective started?

Clients certainly want UX professionals more now than they did years ago. Employers understand that UX is important and that consumers want a better “user experience” for their public-facing website.

I’m not convinced that all employers actually understand what user experience means yet, although it’s definitely more prevalent. The first school of UXers that I worked with sought to evangelise UX as important and essential, but now it is less of a fight. There is still some education to be done around what a UXer actually does, but the term “user experience” has changed, or evolved, quite substantially. If you were to ask some job hunters or employers, the difference between “user experience” and “usability”, they can’t always tell you.

Nowadays, different types of organisations want UXers, not just organisations with immense budgets. Employers don’t necessarily want what I was looking for years ago—hardcore UXers that understand interaction design and contextual enquiry—they just want a UXer to use their common sense, which is not entirely unreasonable.

The first school of UXers were very much user and research-centric. That isn’t something that a lot of my clients can even do given their budget limitations. UXers are now being sought for their established expertise rather than what they can discover by research. Many user experience people still want to be involved with the user, though. It is frustrating that many organisations are offering user experience services and user experience expertise, but they don’t have much exposure to the actual user.

Are those who are getting into user experience coming from a visual background? Is that the general path?

Yes—if you have a visual background and a good foundation of the basic principles of user experience and usability, then that’s an effective avenue for you to get a job with the title, “User Experience Designer”. Whether you can truly be a UX Designer at that point is debatable.

Do you think that you’re on the back foot if you’re not coming from a visual design background?

I think so, yes. Many agencies, for example, don’t need just “researchers” anymore— they do require you to have visual design skills as well. You need to be able to get a piece of paper and a pen and throw together some sketches. You would need to have a basic understanding of user experience or usability in order to satisfy the job briefs that we’re getting from clients, on the whole.

What skillsets are clients looking for in UX roles? Does the client say they need a user experience person when what they really want is a visual designer who’s going to use their brain?

Commonly, a client such as a digital or advertising agency will want someone in-house who is a visual designer with agency experience, but who also understands the principles of user experience. What that means is they need someone to do wireframing and prototyping, interview stakeholders and users and be able to expertly review the application or site.

There isn’t a decent understanding of the need for the individual to lead focus groups or use eye-tracking equipment or do card sorting. In many cases, it’s unlikely that those activities are going to happen in a small to medium agency, unless their clients agree to pay a reasonable amount of money. The Account Services team also needs to be able to sell those services—which is another debate entirely!

Skills-wise, a UXer would ideally have experience with Axure and Balsamiq, have some exposure to Visio and be able to use the Adobe Creative suite. UXers need to be able to defend their designs and engage in conceptualisation and ideation. Importantly, they need to have worked on robust and meaty applications. They also need to know how to talk to people, obviously!

Nowadays, are UXers being employed in-house or as contractors?

A lot of people are doing contract work at the moment because they get better money contracting. Freelance projects are common. If you are a career UXer, you will probably end up contracting to say, three to five extremely loyal clients that use you repeatedly and pay you excellent money. Essentially, in recruiting we have had many top UXers wiped from the market which is a tragedy for smaller businesses who really could use the expertise of those people.

I advise UXers to do contract work as much as they possibly can now, but start looking for a permanent or good long-term contract within the next six to twelve months. Recruiting is a good option to help with that.

How do you determine whether an applicant truly understands what UX is?

When recruiting, I start by asking the applicant a basic and disarming question, “What is User Experience?” Oftentimes they just tell me what usability is and I might prod them until I get a better answer. Having a robust opinion about the field you engage in is compelling in job interviews. I know that UXers have to be pragmatic and maybe educate users, but users are supposed to inform your design. It’s a fairly good sign when I hear that a UXer is not attempting to change the user. Many applicants don’t even mention the user and that’s a black mark most of the time. User experience is not just the experience the user has with your product.

Would you say having a process and being able to talk about it is important?

I think so. I love it when I ask an applicant to take me through their process and the first thing they do is grab a piece of paper and a pen and take me through their process with some decent narrative.

Storytelling is a critical component of UX on the job, so I like to see evidence of that in a recruiting interview. A candidate must also have experience with the activities and practises that fall under the user experience umbrella.

What advice would you give a candidate coming into UX from another area, such as business analysis, creative production or development?

I’d advise against calling yourself a user experience designer if you’re not comfortable doing so—simply say you’re a producer with UX skills or a project manager with UX skills, or focus on the research side of things if that is how you are inclined.

The word “designer” is misleading to many companies. If a company is hiring, an applicant’s first gateway is an HR person who usually doesn’t know what user experience designers do. They see the word “designer” and they imagine someone creative for the job. You actually don’t need to be particularly creative to be a fabulous user experience researcher, in the traditional sense, although the UX discipline firmly belongs in the creative sphere.

I would advise job seekers to get into their UX community. Start reading some old school HCI usability UX blogs—for example Jakob Nielsen—but also get into some new blogs. Attend a UX Book Club and network. Simply being around UX people will give you some context around what you do and how that’s relevant to the user experience process. Doing so also gives you an idea of the language inside the UX and Design world—using relevant terminology is always useful in an interview!

Take a Business Analyst for example. What a Business Analyst does is so relevant to UX—how they interview and observe people, create specifications and evaluate scenarios. The thought process they go through is key for a UXer, but a Business Analyst needs to know how to describe what they do in UX terms.

How should a candidate prepare for an interview if they get to that stage? Would you recommend a portfolio for someone who doesn’t have a substantial visual background?

Absolutely. A user experience folio is not a design folio—it’s a case study folio and a dissection of all the activities it took to get to whatever outcome you’ve reached. What I recommend with UX folios is that once you’ve determined that a particular activity pertains to the UX discipline, you need to dissect it.

An infographic or something visual is a good idea to illustrate what you’ve done. It doesn’t need to be a band poster; it needs to be something like a screenshot of your wireframe or an infographic to show how you got to the end result.

Opinions don’t hurt, either. For example, saying, “These are the results—they were surprising for such and such reason” is pertinent for both user experience professionals and those who want to get into user experience. Giving your opinion demonstrates that you understand that those analytical skills are transferable to the discipline.

Having a folio to kick-off the discussion can be a difficult concept for many job seekers. Some UXers I know, who are absolutely amazing, have never landed a job with a folio or a CV because everyone knows their reputation so they get jobs via word of mouth. However, I still think that they should have a beautiful folio—a dissection of their ideas, their opinions and their assumptions and then how they’ve backed those things up with actual data, research and design expertise.

Do you have some general tips on how to make the most out of an interview?

Firstly, when running through your work history, ensure that your timeline actually makes sense. If you’ve been fired a bunch of times, you just need to come clean and admit it before it comes out later in the recruiting process.

Most interviews will have a behavioural interview component. The philosophy behind behavioural interviewing is that how you have acted in certain situations in the past can predict how you would act in similar situations in the future. I think it’s a flawed philosophy as nothing can predict any of those things, but behavioural interviewing during recruiting is generally believed to give an indication.

I think job seekers need to learn how to handle behavioural interviews. Most questions in this format start with, “Describe a time when…”. You need to think of a specific example in your past where you addressed the question and answer along the STAR format.

You should then analyse what you did wrong in the example you chose and also what you learned from it. If you can apply that way of answering to every behavioural question you are asked, you’re laughing.

It’s OK to use a personal scenario if you can’t apply the question to a work one. If you are changing fields, all people need to know is that you can learn and adapt to the new position that you’re applying for.

That’s where behavioral interviewing can be very useful during the recruiting process. It assesses your aptitude, emotional intelligence, commercial maturity, self-awareness and your ability to learn. If you have the skillset that is required but cannot demonstrate the key competencies in the role via a behavioural interview, then a client is unlikely to hire you.

The other piece of advice I would give is to practice your ability to decide which questions require a long answer and which ones require a short answer. It is fairly essential not to bore the interviewer.

There is some debate about how long your CV should be. What are your thoughts on that?

It depends on the client. Some clients need to be educated around what your experience is, in which case a four or five page CV can be helpful for them. There are also clients that are savvy enough to read between the lines and can draw what they need in a one to two pager. Your CV shouldn’t go any longer than four or five pages.

Your CV needs to compel a client to read on within the first five seconds of looking at it. If it does, they’ll spend the time to read the rest. If it doesn’t, it makes no difference whether your CV was one, four or thirty pages—it won’t get read.

Some of the most talented people I know don’t have good CVs. They have one page that says, “I’ve done this”. That’s good enough for them because they know people, but it’s not good enough for all of my clients.

For UXers, when you write your CV, you need to be prepared to answer the question, “How do you use your understanding of the UX discipline in the design of your CV?” Many people in the UX field do not use their skills in designing this very important piece of paper.

Your expertise has a Melbourne bent. Do you have a sense for whether there are hotspots for UX in the rest of the country, or globally?

I have many English and American people approach me for roles in Australia. Their understanding of user experience, and how it’s used practically, is quite different to ours. Recruiting for UX looks different in different places. One of the criticisms I commonly hear, from British people especially, is that nothing gets done in UX in Australia—we spend too much time in concept, too much time in research and not enough time doing.

The other piece of positive feedback that I get is that Australians are very detail oriented and we do get UX right. When I went to London last year, a mobile director for a very large and well-known digital agency remarked that Australia’s user experience for mobile applications was second to none. I’ve also heard—and I don’t know if this is true—that there is an amazing user experience scene in South America. I’ve not done any recruitment there, but I have had some people with South American roots come to me.

Considering there is a demand for UX, is it fair to say a UXer can be choosy about which jobs they take and what they do on them?

Yes and no. There was definitely a time I was getting frustrated at the UX community for being princesses during recruiting in all kinds of areas— wage, working hours, the stage of UX and design maturity—but the community is coming out of that now. Frankly, as any kind of job seeker, you should be picky about your job choice.

I think work cultures are very institutionalised in some organisations. Even though the organisation is saying they need a UX person, in fact, there may not be a place for them there culturally.

If you have to evangelise and educate, it’s a 24/7 job. It’s a very rare person who could do the job part-time. You have to be constantly showing the client that you are not only good at your job but that you are actually adding value. The issue is that what you provide isn’t necessarily something you can hold in your hand and show someone.

When you’re not proving to the client that you’re adding value, you’re being an entrepreneur, validating tests or doing experiments. Do you think the client values that learning?

Not always—and that’s a fairly dangerous position to be in during recruiting if there’s a recession imminent. Ultimately, if you’re not providing tangible deliverables and a return on investment right here and now, you might get relegated to middle management status, and I think we can all agree that middle management people always go first in the lay off rounds.

Is there a seasonal demand for UX work?

UX work is seasonal, absolutely. UXers are always involved during production, even though they should probably by around before the idea even happens. January is not a great time to go through the recruiting process to find a UX job compared to the rest of the year, but then January is not a good time to find a job for anybody!

You can read more about UX recruiting, and how to use it to your advantage as a UXer looking for work, in our ebook Get Started in UX. 

The post Is going through recruiting a good option for landing an ideal UX role? appeared first on UX Mastery.

The impact that travel has on a young adult should not be understated. Those six months that I spent travelling by plane, bus, train, boat and hitchhiking through 20 different countries expanded my perspective on life, planted seeds of possibility, and shaped my values in ways that were profound and lasting. It was, in many ways, the ultimate experience.

Upon my return, many friends and family members asked the same question: what was your highlight? What was your favourite country?

My answer was always the same: Turkey.

After following the well-trodden path of Italy and Greece during the peak tourist season, the gateway to Asia and the Middle East was a revelation for me. I’d been treated largely like just another number as I island-hopped across the Mediterranean, but the Turks welcomed me with open arms.

The sights, smells and sounds of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar; the ghostly barren (and slightly phallic) sandscape of Cappadocia; the lush jungle intertwined with centuries-old Roman ruins and tree-top accommodation of Olympos; sunset alongside the majestic statues atop Mount Nemrut; and the sobering graveyards of Gallipoli on ANZAC Day all contributed to make my experience of Turkey one that was rich, memorable and defining. The people were welcoming, the nature was breathtaking, and the history was humbling. I developed a genuine affinity for the place.

Why am I telling you about a backpacking holiday I took 20 years ago? Well, next week I have the honour of speaking at UX Alive!, the second ever user experience conference to be held in Istanbul by the team at Userspots. It will be the first time I’ve visited Turkey since my seminal coming-of-age adventure.

The UX Alive! conference

To say that I’m excited is somewhat of an understatement. I’m giddy, beside myself, and bursting at the seams to return to Turkey—and to meet other UXers from the region.

I’ll be speaking on the first day about UX Careers, a topic Luke and I have spent a number of years researching, debating, and writing about. I’ll also be running some career counselling sessions, where I’ll be giving folks advice on everything from who to approach for a job, what to include in your portfolio, what questions to expect in interviews, and more. If you live in Turkey (or are considering taking a holiday there!) then definitely consider registering for the conference. It boasts an amazing line-up of world-class, international UX designers speaking about their craft. UX Alive! really is an event not to be missed.

• What: UX Alive! conference and workshops
• When: 11-13 May, 2016
• Where: Wyndham Grand Levent, Istanbul, Turkey

Register now and get a 15% discount using the discount code ALIVE15.

If you are attending the conference, please do come up and say hello. I’m a friendly guy and love meeting new people. I’d love to hear more about the state of user experience in Turkey and the surrounding region.

Teşekkürler!

The post Talking UX Careers at UX Alive! in Istanbul appeared first on UX Mastery.

This year’s conference was held in Brisbane. Luke and I had the honour of teaching our Introduction to User Experience full-day workshop to 47 eager attendees; we also had the good fortune of attending the very talented (and very tall) Dave Gray‘s excellent Gamestorming workshop.

As is often the tradition, I also sketched a handful of the sessions that I attended, which I’ve included below.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference, fear not: UX Australia Redux is coming to Sydney and Melbourne in November. It’s a low-cost, one-day event that will repeat some of the presentations from the main conference.

In addition, the conferences organisers always record every presentation, and make the audio available as a podcast (with slides). It takes a while to coordinate this, but there are 5 years of previous recordings online that you can work your way through while you’re waiting!

The post Reflections and Sketches from UX Australia 2015 appeared first on UX Mastery.

Marcel kindly agreed to continue this conversation with us on our podcast, and this episode is the result of that chat.

You can listen to this episode directly in your browser—just click the “play” button:

Here are some of the links mentioned in this episode:

• Marcel’s upcoming visual facilitation workshops in Sydney and Melbourne
• Marcel’s website, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles
• Visual Facilitators Melbourne Meetup
• Bikablo
• Chineasy

Note: If you’re interested in Marcel’s workshops, he has kindly offered UX Mastery readers an exclusive 10% off the workshop fees. Use the discount code uxmastery to receive your discount on checkout.

Transcript

Matt: So welcome to another UX Mastery podcast. I’m here with Marcel van Hove who is a visual facilitator. So Marcel, welcome

Marcel: Thanks very much Matt

Matt: Pleasure. Let’s start by hearing a little bit about yourself, what you’ve done and your background please.

Marcel: Umm yes, I’m definitely an I.T. geek. I have a background in I.T. for almost 20 years now. I started my first company in the first I.T. bubble, probably ‘97 or something like that; it’s not 20 years yet. Since then I developed software and through the world of software I came to working with people and through that I came to visual facilitation.

Matt: So, let’s start by hearing in your words what visual facilitation means.

Marcel: Ok. Visual facilitation is, for me, a way to facilitate meetings using visuals to keep the conversation running and to help people to collaborate better. So for me, the facilitation part is a very big one and the visual is a tool we use to help people to work together.

Matt: Right, and we met at the Melbourne visual facilitators meet up which you organised. And there have been some great numbers so there seems to be quite a lot of interest in the power of visuals to collaborate lately.

Marcel: Yeah, it definitely picks up more and more. I started this Meet-Up when I moved to Australia 3 years ago almost. Since then I run it monthly we were 2 or 3 people and now we are often up to 10 people. So yes, it’s picked up and I’m very happy that in Australia graphic facilitation, visual facilitation is picking up.

Matt: Now, you moved to Australia from Germany, which is your country of origin and on your website you talk about this German company called Bikablo. Can you tell us a little more about who they are and what they do?

Marcel: Yes sure. Many people wonder what the word Bikablo means, and it means the first two letters of the German word “builder carbon block” which roughly translates as “picture block”. And this relates to the first product, which was a visual dictionary where you had very iconic, symbolic drawings to express your ideas in pictures. So it was the first book from Bikablo, which came out more than 10 years ago now, and it started to become a drawing school. Today, as of last month, we have the Worldwide Bikablo Academy which is a training school.

Matt: Right, so our regular listeners and anyone who has been to a UX Mastery workshop will be very familiar with this idea of visual vocab, but Bikablo have taken that visual vocab and really formalised it haven’t they?

Marcel: Yes, there are a group of 25 trainers at the moment and we meet once a year at least. They meet in Europe often, like they run many trainings per month. At the moment I run one training per month in Australia. And we redefine the symbols over and over again, we prune out all the details that makes it complicated for people to draw them and we make it simpler and simpler and simpler—to make it even quicker on the whiteboard and on paper.

Matt: So, I’ve looked through some of these Bikablo visual vocab visual dictionaries and you’re right, they are very simple, very easy-to-draw objects. What’s the philosophy behind Bikablo and why is this such a useful tool?

Marcel: For us at the Bikablo Academy, it’s really this simple shape and to open – everyone can learn this technique, you don’t have to be an artist or you don’t have to be a crazy person to pick this up. As I said, for myself, I’m an I.T. guy who then figured out that drawing together is quite handy and quite useful. I learned this technique myself and I had this strong assumption that I had, that I couldn’t draw and I think many people have that problem in their head. They think “I can’t draw” and we get people drawing and reactivate actually the drawing skills of the people.

Matt: ‘Cause I know there are going to be people listening now who say “Ah, Matt says they’re really easy to draw but he can draw, so it’s easy for him to say that!” But they really are like basic squiggles on the page aren’t they?

Marcel: Absolutely. We run a fundamentals class and on the first day we start with relaxing your arm, using your whole body to basically manage to interact with the flip chart and then add a pen to it and then create a straight line, then we start drawing. So we really really start very basic. That’s the philosophy to enable it and of course it doesn’t stop there, it’s just the start. Many people start with Bikablo technique and then soon develop their own symbols to actually have on the second day of the training – the practitioner level – an exercise we have that’s called symbol safari where we combine symbols to create more complex symbols to make sense in your more abstract or more complex world; like user experience design or like when I do portfolio management in a company then I need more complex symbols – it’s not only the light bulb but it’s maybe the lightbulb with something combined with it.

Matt: You know, I don’t know if anyone has studied Chinese or Japanese but I lived in Japan for 3 years and the philosophy of learning the japanese Kanji characters is very similar. Like there’s a bunch of repeatable symbols and you combine them to make other symbols and you make stories in your head about how to remember. But the stories you’re making for these symbols for drawing aren’t going to be as elaborate because they make sense to you from the get-go. You don’t have to invent some story.

Marcel: Yes. There’s actually a website which is Chineasy and they explain the symbols in drawing – it’s a guy from Melbourne who did this, I heard about it, and they explain how the symbols in Chinese work.

Matt: There you go interesting. So, some people might be thinking “Well, this is all very interesting but how does it relate to user experience?” What role can a visual facilitator play in the UX world?

Marcel: Well, I don’t have a strong background in User Experience, but in my world, when I work, I have to bring people together. So we need to agree on the best practice or the best trade or best design for some way to come up with ideas and for me drawing together on the whiteboard is the way to go. It’s a bit like a hammer and you see all problems become a nail but it’s quite often the answer for many problems in knowledge work. So in user experience design – let’s, for example, say you want to have a customer journey through a whole software experience then I am using the second day of the training the visual story telling approach where we go through the story block and we apply the Bikablo emotion figures which are expressing the emotions. And we basically teach them how to tell a story on this emotional level with these emotional figures and that can be applied to your customer journey for example.

Matt: Absolutely.

Marcel: So I would say, if you’re a good… I don’t want to offend anyone with this… I’ll basically say User Experience Design is not only screen design, right?

Matt: Absolutely. I don’t think you’ll offend any of our audience. No, I agree.

Marcel: The thing is there, the more, to see the big picture, yeah? And how the screens maybe interact and what is strong in the storyline from let’s say this app or so. We can use the symbols like the emotional figures or the icons to express that.

Matt: And so, UX aside what other places are these visual facilitation skills useful? And what kind of roles or careers are there available for someone who chooses to pursue this visual facilitation stuff?

Marcel: Everywhere. I once used it with games at my child’s birthday and we drew together—like Pictionary or something. But for me drawing is really like learning a language and the question is then where is, let’s say, Spanish useful, if you learn it, or Chinese? The same question applies here—it’s everywhere where you have to find a way to communicate. So drawing, and this easy simple drawing technique, it’s just a lifelong skill that I’m absolutely sure it’s not a question whether you have to learn it; it’s just when, if you work in creative work.

And many people start drawing on the whiteboard and overcome this fear without Bikablo and it’s now, to come over this hump, towards this first mountain. But I think I missed your question. The question was where is it used as well. So I have also an agile coaching background, which means I work with teams as Team Coach and help them to organise their processes and in this complete coaching world it’s very applicable. Like visual coaching picks up; we have a great lady in Melbourne, Cristiana Anderson, who likes visual coaching and has a life coaching background. That’s something that I think is very valuable. And we’ve done this with people where we drew basically a landscape map of their career path and see where they want to go. So visual coaching is one.

For me then the whole idea of presenting your idea, leading a meeting and presenting the idea. There is this quote by Dan Roam: “The person you can present his idea on the whiteboard gets the funding”. So in the whole entrepreneurship world, if you can express your idea in a picture you’re very strong. So visual presentation is actually the goal of the first of the fundamentals training.

Matt: We’re also seeing roles for graphic recorders and workshop facilitators appearing more and more aren’t we? What is a graphic recorder?

Marcel: A graphic recorder is a bit like a fly on the wall; he is not interacting with the group, he’s just listening to the people, capturing it on the big screen, whiteboard or paper or digital even then re-projecting to the group with a data projector. And quite often at conferences I think in Germany, when I look at how much is going on there almost every conference now is facilitated with graphic recorders and visual facilitators to do that. The way you do that is just you capture, you bring it to the screen, people can watch what you do and through that they gain a new insight of that.

Matt: So just to be sure, it’s real time. As the conversation is happening.

Marcel: It’s real-time, as the conversations happen you capture this with your pen on the big screen and the people see what you do and even interact with that. When it comes to the interaction I would say that’s visual facilitation.

Matt: So graphic recording is just capturing … and then graphic or visual facilitation is more interactive, how does that work?

Marcel: Well I see myself as a visual facilitator because when I graphic record I want to go back from the wall and ask the people for more info and I want to interact with the people in a facilitator’s role. I think if you just focus on your drawing and create a nice piece of capturing the big picture than it’s more graphic recording. As soon as you interact with the people and use your facilitation or coaching skills then you step into visual facilitation. So for me graphic recording is the half picture of the whole graphic facilitation or visual facilitation.

Matt: So when you’re working as a visual facilitator, is there another facilitator there as well or are you doing both?

Marcel: Quite often it is split; one person is the facilitator for the group and the other person is the graphic recorder. If you combine it in one role, you become the visual facilitator. Many people see that differently, but that’s how I see it. And that setup works well: one person can focus on their drawing and create a very nifty nice drawing and the other person to access the group. So if you have one person for that pair I would say they are a visual facilitator.

Matt: And when you are working in that role as a graphic recorder or graphic facilitator I imagine there’s a kind of balance between making something that looks beautiful, and then being comprehensive and capturing everything. So where do you land on that spectrum, and how do you make decisions about balancing aesthetics with completeness?

Marcel: Yeah, absolutely. So this is the beauty of it, as there’s almost no competition because every visual facilitator or graphic recorder has their own style, and the client can choose which style they like. For me, where I land is the stick figure drawings—I want to get the message right. I want to have different layers in my drawing where I see this is, let’s say the question in one layer, the answer in another layer and then the reaction is in the third layer in the picture. So I want to have this structure; I have this I.T. background and for me this systematic approach which is like a drawing on an atlas where you have many many description layers in your world map. It’s what I aim for. So quite often when I start, I create my legend first, to have the backbone of what I will do, and then I add these layers as I go.

Matt: So it’s a very systematic approach. So does that mean, do you often have some kind of layout in mind from the beginning or does it just evolve organically?

Marcel: Quite often I know the outcome of the workshop or the background or let’s say in a conference it would have a theme and there I often have a layout which I can recommend if you are new to graphic recording. So stick figures is the way I like to go – and maybe the other reason I don’t have any illustrative background, so I can’t do that and I don’t want to do it. Because it’s the intention of the people and the content to get right.

Matt: But you still, I mean I’ve seen your work and it’s still lovely to look at and it’s full of colour and hierarchy and … it’s still visually interesting, right?

Marcel: Thanks for that, but that’s just the beauty of the Bikablo technique because what happens there is you get this cartoonish outline right? From there you just add shades, which is learned as well, and from there you add pastels or other techniques to make it have a consistent, nice look. So it’s a very systematic approach in the drawing itself and through that I think our eyes can relax and find their way through the picture. So if you have a – we teach templates as well – if you have a template there it makes it logical; let’s say there’s a road with a sun at the end of the mountain. So there is this classical way of reading it from…

Matt: So that’s bringing in metaphor isn’t it?

Marcel: Yes. So it looks like wow he can draw! But I can’t. But the thing is I’m not an artist but people assume that this would be the case.

Matt: So what are the key skills and personality traits that you think make a good visual facilitator?

Marcel: Yeah I would differentiate here between a graphic recorder and a visual facilitator. For a visual facilitator – this is classic people people like you really like people you like to interact with them you like to bring them to this collaborative mode. For me this is quite strong if you have a coaching background – or as well a domain specific background in the way you work. Let’s say you do this in Finance and you have a Finance background – if you start drawing there you will be much stronger than the average other graphic recorder or graphic facilitator on the market because you understand the people more. You are more in their mindset, so that’s something very specific. It’s like the long tail of the graph.

The graphic recorder, on the other hand, is more likely bring it to the paper, drawing a nice picture. So there is space for all kinds of people. And this is the beauty of it. When you meet at the international conference which is at the moment is on next week in Austin, Texas. When you go to this international conference the IFVP you see so many different kinds of people. They all have one thing in common: they draw. That’s really cool. That’s it.

Matt: Fantastic. Now, you mentioned you have some workshops coming up in Australia. Can you let us know some details about what’s on the horizon?

Marcel: Yes, so what’s on the horizon, just check the website around monthly trainings in Australia marcelvonhove.com. In terms of what’s coming next, next week I’ll be in Sydney for 2 days. For the first day is the Fundamentals level the second day is the Practitioner level. It’s July 13th & 14th together with Brainmates, they nicely gave me the room there it’s very good. Then in Melbourne on the 8th & 9th of September, this is locked in and I think I will soon put out the next dates for the rest of the year. So just stay tuned, check the website, check Eventbrite, it’s all on there.

Matt: Fantastic, so if anyone is interested in learning the Bikablo technique for visual facilitation that’s where they should go. And you’ve got your monthly visual facilitator’s meet-up in Melbourne.

Marcel: Yes absolutely. So, we have a monthly meet-up at The Cooper’s Inn it’s super nice to hang out there they are very friendly people and you just come around and ask questions and we draw together. We put actually a big paper like a napkin on the table and draw together on the back of the napkin.

Matt: And what day of the month is that again?

Marcel: It’s last Tuesday of the month.

Matt: We’ll put links to the workshops in the show notes.

Well Marcel thank you so much for your time we really appreciate you explaining to us about visual facilitation. If people want to keep track of what you’re up to where can they go, are you on Twitter?

Marcel: Yes I’m on Twitter. I’m on Twitter with @marcelvanhove. Just check my website marcelvanhove.com or add me on Facebook. But I’m more active on LinkedIn than I am on Facebook.

Matt: LinkedIn. Ok very good. Thank you very much Marcel.

Marcel: Thank you very much Matt.

The post UX Mastery Podcast #6: Visual Facilitation with Marcel Van Hove appeared first on UX Mastery.

This was the first time we’d taken any of our workshops overseas, and we were delighted that the principles and format translated reasonably well cross-culturally. Of course, the fact we were able to enjoy a holiday with the lovely folks from UXMNL after the training event was over was clearly a huge part of why we enjoyed the experience so much! (Read Part 1 and Part 2 of my travel diary).

Well, last month I had the very good fortune of returning to the Philippines to deliver more UX training. This time my fellow instructor was A Practical Guide to Information Architecture author and UX Australia organiser, Donna Spencer.

A few words about UXMNL

I feel compelled to give a massive shout-out to Phil and the team at UXMNL. User Experience is not a mature concept in the Philippines—it’s not uncommon to receive poor service in a range of industries, and the UXMNL team want to change that. They’ve set themselves the admirable and ambitious goal of “making outstanding customer experience the norm in the Philippines”. One of the ways they’re making this happen is by running affordable education seminars like this event, titled UX Summit 2015.

They also know how to make speakers feel like rock stars. A massive thank-you to Phil, Christine, Kate, Zara, the helpful conference interns and everyone else involved in the event. Plus, the event sold out, with 250 people attending across both days. I foretell big things in the future for the UXMNL team!

Inspiring Innovation in the Workplace

Day 1 of the UX Summit consisted of yours truly running the Inspiring Innovation workshop that Luke and I have run in Melbourne a couple of times. The workshop is all about helping the next generation of designers become facilitators (psst: we’re running it again in Melbourne later in the year).

The activities in the workshop are a mix of techniques I’ve used on client projects over the years, as well as a few that are well documented in books by some of my heroes in the visual thinking world—folks like Dan Roam, Sunni Brown, and others. Participating in the activities gives students get the opportunity to gain experience running some of these collaborative creativity exercises, which they may not get the opportunity to do at work.

If you’d like more information, check out the excellent write-up at rappler.com, which goes into detail about the activities and what participants learned. The team at When In Manila have also published a ton of photos and thoughts about the day.

Killer Information Architecture

Day 2 saw Donna take the stage to teach a full day of information architecture. Her workshop material was, as always, polished, insightful, and fun. Students were taken on a journey to design a website of their choosing, and along the way learned all about categories, card sorting, and Donna’s weird obsession with organising everything. A handful of lucky attendees also received a free copy of her book!

Celebrating Hard Work

With the hard work out the way, Donna, myself, and a handful of the UXMNL team took some time-out at an amazing resort called Coco Beach, near Puerto Galera. I don’t use that word amazing lightly—I’m talking golden sand, thatched-roof huts dotted throughout the hillside, amidst a jungle of coconut trees and chirping wildlife.

I won’t go into a terrible amount of detail, for fear of making you green with jealousy. Suffice to say the next few days involved a fair amount of snorkelling, scuba diving (sea turtles! giant clams!), drinking cocktails by the pool, and reading books in a hammock. It’s a tough life, but someone’s gotta do it. Yes, this was one of those memorable “pinch me” moments that I will treasure forever.

Upcoming Workshops

Now that I’m back to the real world, allow me to mention the fact that you don’t need to travel to Manila to learn all about UX design, sketching, or innovation. We’re teaching a handful of UX training workshops between now and the end of the year. Feel free to download an info sheet if you’d like to know more (or have something to show your boss).

The post Inspiring Innovation at UX Summit 2015 appeared first on UX Mastery.

The day after, coincidentally, was World IA Day, a global series of free one-day conferences for anyone interested in Information Architecture.

The team from Optimal Workshop (the guys behind the event) got wind that we were in town, and invited me to speak at the Wellington event. This was a real honour—especially when I discovered that I would be on stage immediately after the opening keynote from Jesse James Garrett, author of the first UX book I ever read (I think I’ve read it about six times).

My talk was well received, if some of the comments in person and on Twitter afterwards are any indication. Below are the slides from my talk, which I titled From Cubicle to Cloud 9: 10 Tips For Architecting UX Career Happiness.

For those who are interested, a complete transcript of my presentation follows.

From Cubicle to Cloud 9: 10 Tips For Architecting UX Career Happiness

Hello! What a fantastic event. Please join me in giving a round of applause to Samantha and everyone involved in World IA Day for putting on such a great show. And thank you too, Samantha, for scheduling me directly after Jesse James Garrett—I really can’t thank you enough for that one!

Actually it is kind of poetic, because Jesse James’s book, The Elements of User Experience, is the very first UX book I ever read. Honestly, your book set in motion a chain of events that lead me to be here on stage today, so I really am honoured, and mildly terrified, to be here.

You’ll hear a bit today about making our users and our customers happy; I’m going to interpret the theme of “architecting happiness” a little differently—I’m going to talk about making ourselves happy. Happy in our jobs, and happy with our career.

Now I don’t profess to be any kind of happiness guru. But I do love what I do. It makes me happy. And I’ve been told that my story is a pretty good one, so I’m going to do my best to tell it to you today.

Now, some of you may be wondering … hmm, this guy’s just getting up and talking about himself. That’s kind of indulgent.

And you’re right, it is.

But you see, I have a bit more license than usual today, because today is in fact, my birthday.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, I turn 39 years old today … so I do feel like I can get away with standing on stage, reflecting on my career, in a way that I may not otherwise be able to.

So I’m going to tell my story—the various roles I’ve worked in, how I’ve architected my own happiness, and then some tips that I hope you find helpful to architect your own career so that you’re happier. I’ve tried not to make them the usual career advice guff.

But first things first—who am I, and why should you care?

That guy who draws stuff

Well, my name’s Matt, and I’m that guy who draws stuff. Specifically, I visualise information.

Sometimes that’s in the form of custom illustration, sometimes it’s an animated video, sometimes it’s wireframes or concepts for some other digital product, and sometimes it’s the real-time capture of a conference or meeting … I also have a kids’ book that I wrote and illustrated. So I’m a bit all over the place, but that common thread in everything I do is that I love communicating with visual language, bringing information to life with visuals.

And what’s interesting is that I’ve only just realised this in the last year or two. And it’s this funny phrase that entered the zeitgeist about 6 or 7 years ago, “UX”, that has allowed me to explore it and, in a sense, find myself and articulate what it is that I’m passionate about.

Having strong visual thinking skills turns out to be very useful for more than just making kids books. There is a slew of books that have come out in the last 5 years or so about how improving your visual literacy is good for business and being creative.

My career can be broken up into a bunch of phases.

• First there was the code monkey phase.
• Next came the artistic instructor phase.
• Then I entered the word nerd phase.
• After that came the pixel pusher phase.
• After that came the UX unicorn phase.
• And then finally I arrived at the vivacious visualiser phase. I couldn’t think of an adjective that started with “V”, so Beyoncé it is.

And the beautiful thing about each of those roles that I’ve had is that they all fall under the UX umbrella. There’s no such thing as a UX specialist—UX is this convenient container that we can use to lump a bunch of principles, and process, and roles, and values, into one container. And what that means for those of us who operate in this space is that there’s a lot of space to move around, and try new things, and grow professionally and personally. There are always times when you feel like you’re in a rut, or your work doesn’t feel satisfying … and when you get to that place—and we all arrive there at some point—then you can take action without having a mid-life crisis and doing something drastic.

Finding the thread

So let me take you back to when I was a kid. Here’s a shot of me as a creative, curious, awkward teenager. I think I was about fifteen in this pictures. And if I wasn’t on the computer, I’d be drawing. I’d spend hours creating these elaborate comics and caricatures and doodling.

And it wasn’t just in my spare time that I drew. My old note books from school are full of little works of art that weren’t part of class but I threw in there anyway. What I realised from looking through these is that I’ve actually always created visual notes, even as a kid.

This was an essay we had to write about the ANZACs in World War I. And for some reason I’ve complemented my essay with this bizarre drawing of soldiers shooting each other with big smiles on their faces. I’m not sure that I fully grasped exactly what it must have been like to be at war as an 8 year old!

I’m sure you guys probably drew a lot as kids too, right? For me it continued through to university. And while I enjoyed art and design, I also had a knack for maths and science. So when it came to deciding what to study at university, of course I went with the sensible option of pursuing something left-brained and technical.

Code Monkey

So the code monkey phase started at uni. My parents, my peers, everyone expected me to. And I enjoyed using computers, so why wouldn’t I? So I studied engineering at university: Computer Systems Engineering, and went on to become a software developer.

Yet even in my university notebooks I was using visual design principles to help me understand and recall information, or make it easier to read. So you can see things like type, colour, containers, whitespace, and alignment and all of these design principles that made my notes look so neat and ordered and easier to read, and more fun!

And because I was immersed in large electric motors and complex sorting algorithms and compilers and calculations, I stopped doing anything visually creative. And in doing so, I think a little part of me died. I felt hollow and numb. And when I scored a great job straight out of university with a Big 5 consulting company, no matter how many great projects I got to work on, and some of these were really large, global, complex, ambitious software projects, I never truly felt excited about any of them.

And so I walked away.

At 25 years old I was earning really good money as an IT consultant, and I walked away because I couldn’t stomach it. I was yearning for something more. I just didn’t know what.

So, like many Australians who don’t know what to do with their life, I ran away to Japan to teach English and think things over.

Artistic Instructor

My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) and I applied as a couple to teach English in Tokyo, and worked for the same company for 3 years. I taught in primary schools and junior high schools, and my wife taught air hostesses at an airline. And this was a great experience. Naturally, travel is always good for the soul and a terrific way to gain some perspective and work out what it is you should be doing with your life. And that was true for both of us.

But in particular, teaching English in schools gave me the opportunity to draw again … I got to create worksheets and board games and make learning fun for my students … and because I was studying the language while I was there, I also explored ways that visual language could help my own learning, by creating these crazy illustrated mnemonics to help remember the Kanji characters. I was learning lots, I was having fun.

But I was worried.

I was worried that once we decided to leave Japan, I’d go back to Australia and be unemployable. Because keeping up with the tools and the languages and the browser quirks is a constant race, and after taking a break I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to catch up with it all. So I started tinkering with websites, and these things called blogs, which were just starting to get some momentum. And that was how I felt connected, by tinkering with web technologies like HTML and CSS and PHP and JavaScript.

And what I discovered was that this was the medium I’d been craving—it was perfect for me. It let me be both technical and creative! I could design something, then I could build it, and there was this incredibly satisfying feedback loop that was infectious. So after launching a handful of personal websites and getting a small taste of success, I was hooked.

Word Nerd

When I came back to Australia, I knew I wanted to work on the web, but my design chops weren’t good enough to get hired as a web designer. I tried my hand at freelancing, but I wasn’t disciplined enough and ended up finding a job with a company that published computer books, called SitePoint. I was hired as a technical editor, and I got to combine my love of language with my technical skills.

Plus, it was a lot of fun! It really did save my career, in a way. I went from dreading going into work, dreading the grey suit wearing, corporate boys club in my old IT job, to loving what I was doing. Sure, I took a massive pay cut, but I also had fun at work for the first time in a while. Fun! Fun is under-rated. There are a lot of jobs that aren’t fun, so when you find one, embrace it.

Pixel Pusher

While I was at SitePoint I finally got to make the move from editing books to actually doing design. Sure, I’d been doing a little bit of design on the side, freelance, but this was the first time someone had employed me in a full-time capacity as a designer, and I was super proud! I got to spend lots of time in Photoshop, and argue with front-end developers about how many pixels high a button should be, and make design decisions about web properties that were visited by millions of people. It was great.

But I hit some hurdles too. You can probably sum up these hurdles with the phrase “stakeholder management”. The owner, and the other owner, and the general manager, and the finance guy—each of them had different ideas about what the design should look like. And I didn’t know how to manage that. I had my own ideas, and I tried my best to defend my design decisions while still taking everyone else’s views into account, but at the end of the day, on reflection, I knew how to create something that I thought was functional and looked pretty good, but I didn’t know how to validate design, and I was inexperienced at communicating design effectively.

That’s when I first started hearing this term “UX”.

UX Unicorn

I worked with someone from Hiser who had been doing usability for years, and he opened my eyes to the techniques that we all know and love today. At the same time I was fortunate enough to approach an interaction designer who I knew and respected, to ask him how it was he did what he did. And over the course of a bunch of coffee chats, he broke down to me his process and the techniques that he considered “best practice”. Things like usability testing, low-fidelity prototyping, transparency, collaborative design techniques, creating personas and storyboards.

So I read a ton, I met regularly mentor, and I started applying a bunch of these techniques at work. And when I tried them on a big project at work, what do you know, they worked? The web app I designed was lauded in the tech media for having “one of the simplest interfaces for putting together online content I’ve seen—and I mean that in the best possible way.”

This skill of being able to conduct user-centred design was in pretty hot demand, and it was at that point that I decided to leave my salaried job and try my hand at working freelance. I was lucky enough to work on some great projects that won awards and I felt like this new-found knowledge was quite transformational, really, for my design education and for my own career.

And I felt an obligation to share what I’d learned with others. So I teamed up with a friend of mine to start a website called UX Mastery, and together we started writing blog posts that taught other people about UX. Beginner stuff really—what are personas? How do you do card sorting? How do you create a customer experience map? It turned out that people liked the content we were putting out, and asked us to write ebooks about UX, and teach workshops, and that’s been an incredible ride so far. Luke and I have had some incredible opportunities off the back of having a popular blog.

Vivacious Visualizer

One thing that we did well when we launched UX Mastery was we made a launch video that answered the question What the @#$% is UX? And we did it as a whiteboard animation. My next door neighbour is a freelance videographer for some of the TV stations in Melbourne, so in exchange for redesigning his website, he agreed to shoot and edit this video that answered the question “What is UX?”

And at last count the video has had over 200,000 views, which at 3 minutes is nearly 150 years of that annoying background music track!

One of my clients at the time, Australia Post, saw the video, and asked if they could have one for their business, so then I was getting paid to make these videos for the first time. And I had one of those moments where I thought “Hey, I’m getting paid to draw pictures!

My cousin is this struggling cartoonist who, his whole life, has submitted one comic strip after another to newspapers and never quite got his big break … and here I was, living the dream.

A couple of months later I was working at a client, and while I was on my lunch break I got this call from a PR firm who had found my article about sketchnoting on UX Mastery. They were calling to ask whether I made sketch videos. They had a client who wanted one and was based in Canberra, but they wouldn’t tell me who it was.

And I was a bit thrown, partly because I was at another client, and I have this strong ethical drive to be completely focussed on the client who premises I’m currently at. But also because I’d only made two of them! But I said, “Sure, I can make your video.”

There were going to be some very tight timeframes, and they wouldn’t be able to get me a final script until the very last minute. But I was prepared to step up, and once I’d signed an NDA I discovered that this video was about the Federal Budget. That video clocked up 50,000 page views in the first day that it was published to the Labor Party’s home page. And fortunately I managed to negotiate a name credit at the end of the video, so the next day I got a bunch of calls, and the inquiries for making sketch videos kind of snowballed from there.

So now I split my time between making sketch videos and writing UX Mastery ebooks and newsletters and presenting about UX at conferences in exotic far-off lands like New Zealand.

And so we come to today, when, because it’s my birthday, and I get to look back and think: wow—what I’m doing … really is how I want to be spending my time. I’ve architected my career to make myself happier. And I feel very fortunate that all of the opportunities. I’ve had sit under the UX umbrella, because I haven’t had to chuck in the towel six times to evolve my career. I’ve just been able to shimmy sideways.

Sure, I’ve had some lucky breaks and some incredible opportunities that at the time feel like they landed in my lap. But that PR firm wouldn’t have called me if I hadn’t written that article about sketchnoting. Luke and I wouldn’t have been invited to teach our UX workshop in Malaysia and The Philippines if we hadn’t started doing it in Melbourne and writing about it in our email newsletter. You make your own luck. I really believe that. And you can architect your own happiness.

So anyway, that’s enough about me! Here are 10 tips that I came up with for architecting a career that makes you happy, based on my humble experience.

10 Tips for Architecting UX Career Happiness

1: Love the work you do, or quit.

This may already be the case for you. Or maybe you’re still searching for your “thing”. That’s OK. But don’t complain about not loving your job and not do anything about it. Take pride in your work, or quit. We all know someone like that, who’s unhappy in their job but doesn’t do anything about it.

If you’re curious, there’s a wonderful website called zenpencils.com, it’s a webcomic from a fellow Melbournian, Gavin Aung Than, where he takes inspirational quotes and makes comics out of them. He has a book of some of his best comics too, which I highly recommend. One of his comics is a quote from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, and the line is “Work is love made visible”. And I love that line, especially for someone whose job is visuals. Check out zenpencils, Gavin does amazing work.

2. Know your shit.

And that’s not to say that you need to strive to be the number one world authority on a topic. But mastery is certainly a worthy goal, because it’s satisfying to do great work. Doing great work makes us happy, and it’s hard to do great work when you’re still coming to grips with the basics.

3: Be loyal. But not too loyal.

Loyalty is definitely a great quality to have. But it’s better for your employer.

At one point in my career I was in a job that I probably should have left way before I finally did. I was good at what I did, but I was closed to the idea of taking on new opportunities because I was so bought into the culture of the place. I loved my job, I loved the people I was working with, and I love the vision of the company … until one day I didn’t, and it took me a while to do anything about it. You have to look after number 1 first—no-one else is going to look out for your career. It needs to be you.

Which leads me to my next point …

4. Embrace fear.

One of my mentors told me that fear was an indicator that something big was about to happen. And when you look at it in that context, it becomes a good thing, and it’s something you shouldn’t shy away from. For me, taking the leap to go freelance was massively scary, as was agreeing to make a video for the Federal Government of Australia when I’d never tackled something that big before. Drawing on film—I was a bit nervous and my hand was a bit shaky initially, but then I got over it.

Getting up and speaking on stage was a big one too—my first public speaking gig was terrifying. But I got through it, and the next one was a little bit better. And the one after that, and I still have a lot to learn, but I know that I’ve come such a long way, because speaking to a crowd used to terrify me, and now I actually get a real buzz out of it.

So challenge yourself! Push yourself outside of your comfort zone. That’s where we grow and where we learn. And without growing or learning we’ll never reach our potential.

5. Find a mentor

Some of the key moments in my career have come about because my mentor pushed me into stepping out of my comfort zone. My mentor is the one who told me I should get up on stage and speak at an event. It was terrifying! But I did it. And I was pretty average.

And then I did it again and again, and over time I got better at it. I know I still have a lot to learn about public speaking. But I know I’ve come a long way.

I also recommend you find multiple mentors, because you’ll learn something different from each of them. They’ll each have their own areas of expertise and their own way of looking at things.

If you want to talk more about the process of finding mentors and how that works, come talk to me after.

6. Network like a mo-fo.

This is something that I kind of do naturally, but I know lots of people are shy about putting themselves out there at events. You’ve got to meet people and connect with them and form relationships with the foiks in your industry. It’s the best way to find work, find a job, find a mentor, and understand what’s possible for you. Events like this are a great start, but don’t spend the times in-between each session just chatting with your mates—go up to a stranger, introduce yourself and make a new friend. Creative people often want to sit in their room and create, and I get that. But if you ignore networking then you’re shutting off so many opportunities, so be social!

7. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

I’m aware this one’s a little contentious.

I’ve deliberately been a little vague about this tip—it could relate to running some budget usability testing at work that your boss won’t fund. Or doing some other research so that you’re making better informed decisions … or it could relate to something more personal like changing jobs. Obviously it doesn’t apply in all situations—if you’re married, and you decide one day that you’re going to leave your $100K/year job to be a full-time street busker, then you may want to have a conversation with your spouse before you take that leap.

But really, at the end of the day, you do need to do what’s going to make you happy. And sometimes that means being a little bit selfish and backing yourself that it will pay off. Because it’s possible that others won’t believe in you.

If you believe in yourself, even if others don’t, then you should just do it, and ask for forgiveness, because permission may not be forthcoming. You have to look after number 1!

8. Own your channel.

I’m talking here about personal brand and social media … it can be very tempting to try and be everywhere. I’m saying you don’t have to be—but if you decide to spend time on building a brand on Twitter, or Flickr, or YouTube, then you need to do it right. It’s better to have an awesome YouTube channel than to have a half-arsed one because you’re spending so much other time posting to Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and whatever else.

9: Be a conduit.

This is something I also realised that I sometimes did naturally, but didn’t realise that people saw so much value in it. I’ve referred a ton of friends to awesome jobs, and never really thought that it was that valuable until I thought about the fact that there’s this entire industry called recruiting, that’s big money.

So be generous in connecting others, and it will come back in spades.

10. Take action.

This sounds like a cop-out but it’s an important reminder that reading about how to find our passion, reading about the latest techniques or approaches to research is all well and good, but nothing will change for you unless you put them into action.

Whether that means trying a new technique at work, or taking on a freelance client on the side as a way of dipping your toes into working for yourself, or taking the leap to quit your job and try something ambitious, I encourage you to be bold, because nobody ever achieved great things by playing it safe.

One more thing …

There’s one other thing I haven’t mentioned.

Two days ago I received some news from back home that knocked the wind out of me a bit. A friend of mine’s young son passed away, and that incident made me look at this talk in a whole new perspective. Like, here I am on stage talking about myself and what a great time I’m having doing what I love. But really, what does it matter when shit like that happens.

And the feeling of helplessness that I experienced, and some of my friends who are here were also impacted, as he and his family grieve, was a pretty solid reminder of one more important motivation for how to make sure that what you’re doing makes you happy.

And that’s your own family.

I don’t know how this happened, but I have these two devastatingly beautiful daughters.

I mean, I do know how it happened, but I’m continually baffled at how beautiful they are and what lovely, strong, women they’ll grow up to be. And so all of this “find your calling” stuff is important. But being able to spend time with the people who are important in your life—that’s what guides me. The fact that I work for myself means I get to do school drop-offs and pickups, and be there for important stuff, and any parent in the room will know that that’s priceless.

So anyway, that’s all I have for you. Thank you for making my birthday a memorable one. Please connect with me—my details are on the screen. And please find me today and come say hello. UX Mastery is the website that Luke and I run. The whole UX Mastery team is here today, actually, so come say hi. I wish you all the best in your journey to happiness.

Thank you.

The post Architecting Career Happiness at World IA Day 2015 appeared first on UX Mastery.

However, we have some good news: our latest ebook, UX Sketchnotes, is out now.

UX Sketchnotes is an illustrated collection of over 50 sketchnotes created while attending various UX and web-related conferences over the last few years.

​There are insights and tips in here from visionary thinkers like Donna Spencer, Jeff Gothelf, Dan Szuc, Steve Portigal, Dan Willis, Kevin Hoffman, Steve Baty, Aaron Walter, and others. Plus there are a handful of random, fun sketches in there too—this really is a rich, diverse collection of illustrations and collective wisdom that will both educate and inspire you.

Grab your copy now

Complete list of sketchnotes

ProBlogger Training Event

› Overcoming Obstacles & Road Blocks • Darren Rowse & Guests

Product Bash

› Is There a Place for Entrepreneurship in Product Management?

Web Directions South

› We Are the Makers of Things • Hannah Donovan
› Lanyrd: The Accidental Entrepreneurs • Natalie Downe & Simon Willison
› Interaction Design Bauhaus • Rahul Sen
› All the Small Things • Relly Annett-Baker
› Connected UX • Aarron Walter
› How the Internet of Things Changes How We Design • Alex Deschamps-Sonsino
› Stiff and Static Sucks • Pasquale d’Silva
› People, Not Users • Rachel Binx
› Creating Good Content for an Imperfect Web • Relly Annett-Baker
› Context, Multi-Device, and the Future of TV Browsers • Rod Farmer
› Nerd, Know Thyself • Heather Gold

Web Directions Code

› What Everyone Should Know about REST • Michael Mahemoff

UX Indonesia

› Design for Innovation • Turi McKinley
› Designing a Healthier & Smarter Life • Dan Szuc & Josephine Wong

Hargraves Institute Innovation Summit

› Innovation: A Global Perspective • Jo Gray and guests
› Innovation: The Future Inspired by Our Past • Phil Kwok
› Innovation in Action • Natalie Pavuk
› Living the Innovation Program at AMP • Munib Karavdic
› How a Million-Dollar Accounting Firm Invested in Design Thinking • Maureen Thurston
› The Recipe for Innovation Success at Baxter ANZ • Marise Hannaford

Leaders In Software and Art

› Lightning Talks: Alessandro Ludovico, Celement Valla, Blake Carrington & Claire Bardainne
› Lightning Talks: Elisa Giardina Papa, Gabriella Levine, Jake Lee-High & Lauren McCarthy
› Lightning Talks: Josh Davis, R. Luke Dubois, Miral Kotb & Shane Hope
› Lightning Talks: Sophia Brueckner, Steve Di Paola, Toni Dove & Yucef Merhi

UX Australia

› Anton Sher, Rod Farmer, Dan Naumann, Sally Bieleny, Dan Szuc & Joe Sokohl
› Microinteractions • Dan Saffer
› Designing Successful Experiences for Bald Apes • Dan Willis
› Getting UX Done • Ian Fenn
› Improv Talks • Donna Spencer, Dan Szuc & Steve Baty
› Better Product Definition with Lean UX & Design Thinking • Jeff Gothelf
› Designing Meetings to Work for Design • Kevin Hoffman
› How to Run an Effective Cultural Probe • Matt Morphett & Rob McLellan
› From Faith-Based to Evidence-Based Design • Miles Rochford
› Our Billion-Dollar Baby: From Greed to Good • Chris Paton
› Design at Scale • Greg Petroff
› The Neuroanthropology Of “Us” • Stephen Cox
› Can You Wireframe Delightful? • Ben Tollady & Ben Rowe
› The Cadence of Great Experiences • Michelle Berryman
› Epic Fail: Takeaways from the War Stories Project • Steve Portigal
› Change Aversion • Hendrik Müller
› Describing the Elephant • Eric Reiss
› Finding Simple • Jason Bayly
› Graphic Facilitation: See What I Mean? • Luke Chambers
› Lightning talks: Nova Franklin, Kimberley Crofts & Jay Rogers
› Attributes & Aesthetics of Experience • Xin Xiangyang

Random Sketches & Illustrations

› Hospital-bed Sketch
› One of Those Days
› Grossly Informative

The post UX Sketchnotes: An eBook containing 50+ Sketches of Inspiring UX Talks appeared first on UX Mastery.

If you missed anything, what follows below is a recap of the first 12 days of UXmas 2014. Enjoy!

1. Santa, the Child, and the Magic of UX by Kathryn Reeves & Andrew Mayfield

In honour of UXmas, let us exalt Santa as the ultimate experience designer.

2. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. for the Method: Workshop Facilitation Guidelines, Inspired by Aretha by Kristy Blazo & U1 Group

When was the last time you heard workshop facilitation advice set to an Aretha Franklin song?

3. Old Dog? Time to Learn some New Tricks by Donna Spencer

After a while in the same role, work can start to get boring. But it’s easy to re-ignite your enthusiasm for UX. Here’s how.

4. About that C Word … by Ruth Ellison

In this excerpt from UX Mastery’s “Everyday UX”, we unwrap three designers’ favourite tools.

5. What can UXers Learn From Rudolph? by Chris Gray

At Christmas, UXers can draw inspiration from the story of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

6. If you Think Paper Prototyping is a Waste of Time, you’re Doing it Wrong. by Ashlea McKay

Some people think paper prototyping is a waste of time. Ashlea McKay disagrees. Here’s why …

7. The Phenomenon of Automagic by Kayla Heffernan

Excellent UX happens when your users don’t know how your app is working—it just works. Kayla calls this “automagic”.

8. 5 Roads to a Great UX Team by David Bradford

Google might not think the term “UX team” is important, but David has some advice on how to create a great one.

9. Digital Transgressions by Matthew Magain

Have you been naughty or nice? Matt explores the transgressions made by digital designers

10. Hooked on a Feeling by Stephen Anderson

As designers we craft experiences that are usable, attractive and reliable. Yet, there’s something missing. What might that be?

11. How to Overcome Portfolio Creator’s Block by Michelle Chin

If one of your big NY Resolutions is getting a new UX job, Michelle has advice on portfolios that will help make that happen!

12. Towards A Better UX Community by Dylan Wilbanks

Is it time to get out our pitchforks and torches out, or is it time for us as a UX Community to get real?

What’s your favourite UXmas gift so far? Let us know in the comments.

The post 12 Days of UXmassy Goodness appeared first on UX Mastery.

I’d been to Indonesia just once before. At the age of 21, I began what is a common rite of passage for young Australians: six months of solo world travel with an enormous backpack strapped to my back. My first port of call on a six-month solo journey around Europe was Bali, and during that week I caught three things: a monster wave, a love of Indonesian spices, and a severe case of Bali Belly. Fun times.

17 years later, here I was returning to Indonesia to deliver a presentation titled What the @#$% is UX?, and teach a workshop on Sketching Experiences. In the same vein as the video on this topic, I spent 30 minutes unpacking the term “user experience”, what it means for newcomers to the field, and how to best navigate a career in this exciting, nebulous industry.

My slides from the presentation are below; there’s a lot missing from the context, but you may find them interesting to flick through as I reflect on some of my past projects (and shine the spotlight on some former workmates!).

And while Jakarta is not necessarily a must-see destination (it’s a difficult city to get around—you haven’t seen gridlocked traffic like this!) it is a convenient jumping-off point to mind-bogglingly beautiful beaches, islands, and tropical wonders. I did have some time after the conference was over to take advantage of being in a remarkable part of the world …

… unfortunately, in keeping with tradition, instead I spent my final couple of days in Jakarta clutching my stomach, unable to venture far from a restroom. Whether it was a gulp of swimming pool water or something else that got me, Indonesia had the last laugh. Again.

I’ll still be back.

The post Defining, Developing and Exploring UX in Indonesia appeared first on UX Mastery.

If you’re after more specific advice, be sure to pick up a copy of our ebook, Get Started in UX, the definitive guide to making a career change and landing a job as a user experience designer.

We’ve received quite a few emails lately from readers looking to get started in UX Design—many coming from a print background. Here’s one such email, which I’ve published here with permission:

I’m a traditional print-based graphic designer looking to get into UX design. I’ve a good background in the Adobe Suite and traditional print software (QuarkXpress etc). Currently I’m working within the newspaper industry and am fearing for my future, as the industry is in (probably) terminal decline. I am looking to re-skill towards web-based UX design. Can you recommend a starting point and path I should look to take? Many thanks.

In our animated video (embedded below) I mentioned that a career as a UX Designer is interesting, challenging, rewarding, pays well, and has a low barrier of entry.

What I didn’t touch on is how to get started as a UX Designer. What follows is my advice for anyone looking to get started in UX Design.

1) Get Educated

I’m not saying you should go invest in a university degree. While I’m certain that there are quality higher education courses out there, I don’t think that’s a necessary step to take to break into the UX world. What I mean is: read, watch and listen to everything you can get your hands on in order to understand how UX Designers do what they do.

We’ve put together a ton of recommended books, which should form a good starting point. If you’re looking for an online course to help you get started, our big list of UX courses is the most comprehensive collection you’ll find. For complete beginners, try Lis Hubert’s UX Basics course or the course Become a UX Designer from Scratch by the Interaction Design Foundation; developers may find Amir Khellar’s Design Your User Experience in 7 Simple Steps more to their liking.

In many of these courses, the subject matter itself isn’t difficult to digest, but there is often a lot to learn. The more you can digest, the better off you’ll be.

2) Get The Right Tools

UX Design is more about working with people than working on your own in front of a screen.

That said, there are two tasks that stand out as being a huge part of what I do: creating interactive wireframes and conducting guerrilla usability testing sessions. Both require software to do properly. I’ve tried a few different applications, but keep coming back to Balsamiq Mockups as my wireframing tool of choice, and I use Silverback (Mac only) for recording my usability testing.

There are plenty of other alternatives to these tools out there; these just happen to be what works best for me. For the most comprehensive list of UX Tools ever, check out our 100+ Awesome Tools For UX Designers.

3) Get Some Experience

Your next step is to find a way to put some of this new-found knowledge into practice. Luckily, it’s possible to do so without having to bluff your way into a job only to discover you’re out of your depth.

Whether it means spending some time after hours helping a friend’s small business, a local non-profit, or a personal project, seek out the opportunity to apply some of the theory, and start getting those runs on the board. It could even be as simple as taking the initiative at work to conduct some user testing sessions, and branching out from there.

Approach an agency or organisation that you have contacts on the inside, and volunteer your time to conduct some usability testing sessions or perform user interviews. While it may go against the grain to admit to being a novice at something (and taking a pay cut to go with that) after you’ve had an established career doing something else, this is a field that is so fast moving that I honestly feel like a year after being “that intern” people would forget that was where you came from, and if you’re adding value then you may be in a good position to renegotiate (or move on to somewhere else that recognises the value you’re adding).

For an activity such as conducting user testing, a handful of sessions is all you need to get the hang of things. Once you’ve introduced that user feedback loop to your project, you can start focussing on developing other skills.

4) Get Connected

The best UX jobs, like all jobs, aren’t advertised. They come through LinkedIn, Twitter, local event meetups, referrals, or are only ever sourced internally. Trusting somebody to own the user experience of a product to somebody, for many organisations, is like trusting them with a newborn baby.

There will be a ton of questions and building trust with the interviewer is key. If the position has come from the result of a conversation in a social setting, or a recommendation from somebody you met, then you’ll already have a head start on building that trust. So get along to your local UX Book Club, find an event on meetup.com, and start following some of the UX thought leaders on Twitter.

5) Get A Mentor

For me, finding a mentor was a real turning point. Even though we don’t catch up as often these days as when we first formalised the mentoring relationship, when I look back now, many of the big decisions I made career-wise happened soon after I found a mentor and he started encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone.

My mentor not only helped shape the process that I use on design projects to this day, he also encouraged me to start giving presentations at conferences and meetups, and to quit the low-paying job that I was in and take control of my career. For that I’m eternally grateful. Finding a mentor can be hard, but hopefully if you’ve done a good job of Step 4, you’ll at least have more people within your circle and a better understanding of who’s who. Hopefully someone will stand out. Failing that, you could try a more formal program such as IAI mentor program or a mentor-led bootcamp like Get a New Job in UX Design by the Interaction Design Foundation.

6) Get Hired

With those ducks all lined up, you’re now in the best possible place to land an awesome job. What’s missing, however, is a portfolio of your work.

Much like a graphic designer would have an A3 portfolio that showcases logos, posters and t-shirts he or she has designed, your portfolio should include examples of the deliverables you’ve produced.

Your portfolio could include wireframes you’ve created, example personas and scenarios you’ve developed, photos of walls covered in post-it notes from affinity diagramming exercises, photos of you conducting a workshop … whatever you need to tell a story about the process you follow, and to help you talk about that process during an interview. If you want help, we recommend the online course called How to Create a UX Portfolio by the Interaction Design Foundation.

Want to hear more? Pick up a copy of our ebook: Get Started in UX.

Where to learn more:

• Recommended UX Books
• See our list of UX Conferences
• Find an Online UX Courses that suits you
• Our giant list of UX Degrees
• The best UX Tools and Software

Related Reading

• Get Started in UX: the complete guide to launching a career in user experience design by Luke Chambers and Matthew Magain
• Whitney Hess’s mind-bogglingly comprehensive collection of resources and guiding principles.
• Patrick Neeman’s list of seven tips on how to get started in user experience
• Nick Finck’s excellent tips on starting a career in user experience design
• UXPin’s collection of free UX books
• A comprehensive (and free) UX course
• A free course on UX Design for mobile developers
• UX Beginner
• UX Apprentice

What other advice do you have for people trying to migrate to UX Design from another career? Let us know in the comments.

The post How To Get Started In UX Design appeared first on UX Mastery.