After many user research interviews, tests and pilot runs – the team at PeakXD in Australia has developed a program, in collaboration with the British Computing Society (BCS), that upon completion gives you a UX certification valid in over 200 countries. 

We sat down (or, video called, technically) with Tania Lang – one of the few instructors and writers of PeakXD’s 12-week Accelerator Program – to talk about the exciting new course.

What were the motivations to create a certified course?

It was just something that a lot of our customers were crying out for. It benchmarks professional’s skills to an international standard, and makes them stand out from other graduates. It’ll help their career progression – either by side-stepping or moving up, it attracts better-paying roles and future proofs them by staying current. 

We’d often hear, “Do I get a piece of paper at the end? Should I go back to university and do a three- year, two-year masters, or should I do some course? What piece of paper do I get at the end?” So, it’s largely around customer demand really wanting that piece of paper.

I actually interviewed some employers recently, and pretty much all of them said the piece of paper is nice to have, but the experience is more important. If someone comes to them with 10 years of experience but no piece of paper, that’s probably better than a piece of paper and no experience – but if you have a degree or a certification, that’s a nice extra. I wouldn’t say it compensates for lack of experience, but it brings them extra points, if you like. It’s not critical, but it’s nice.

How is it certified with the BCS?

For many years – 20 even – we’ve been talking about certification in the industry – but no one could ever agree on what that was or what that looked like.  What ended up happening was a lot of vendor certification. You’d do a course and get certified for that specific course – but that doesn’t really mean anything.

To me, I think it’s really important to try to build a certain standard and quality within the industry. The challenge in certification with UX has always been that the answer is not always just black and white – “Do you know this or not?” – The answer to something depends on so many things. It’s a little more challenging trying to do certification when the answer’s often “It depends.”

The British Computer Society have sat down with a team, including David Travis*, in the UK and worked out a syllabus that covers a lot of the basics. It’s foundational. So, this is not an advanced course, but it goes through all the foundations that we would expect a UX person to know. It’s focused more on approach and methodology rather than design principles, which are always changing.

Who is this course best for?

Our main target audience, our personas that we’ve created, are primarily people who have some experience in digital or IT, or marketing or psychology or research who want to sidestep their career into UX. They often have a lot of transferrable skills, but they don’t always have the confidence and realize the value of those skills. For example, if they’re a Business Analyst, they might be good at interviewing or stakeholder management – skills we highly value as UX people. The course is giving these people the tools and frameworks that they need to sidestep.

It’s also for people who may have just sidestepped or are starting out in UX roles, and they get that impostor syndrome. They really just don’t have the confidence, or the knowledge, and they’re making bad design decisions and bad research approaches because they don’t have that good, strong grounding. This course gives them those vital foundations to improve.

The PeakXD online UX Accelerator course is great. I love the artefacts and templates, and the step by step guidance throughout… It has practical examples and advice and working on a real business…
I feel like I am gaining practical knowledge which will help gain a career in UX.

– Tamsen M, Melbourne

How is the course structured?

You’re working on a real project, for a real client, in the program. So, it’s set up with 10 modules over 12 weeks, which includes 74 video tutorials – that’s approximately 60 hours to complete it. One of the things that I do in my face to face training is I tell a lot of stories… because you learn through storytelling. People have said “Oh, online won’t work because we’ve got so much value from the stories that you tell in training,” – so I’ve made sure all the stories I tell face-to-face are in the videos as well.

Each module runs for a week and have six to eight lessons in them. Participants can do them at any time… however, people aren’t always good at online learning. They’re not good at self-pacing. What we’ve done to combat this is rather than it being self-paced, is we have a specific intake date. Everyone in that intake works through the program together. Each week you watch videos, do an activity, and then have a live coaching call where they get feedback on the activities that they’ve submitted and also a chance to ask questions. At the end of the 12 weeks you take an exam (at one of the 5000 approved exam centres across 175 countries) which gives you your certification, and you also participate in a digital showcase.

It’s a global course, so what happens with the live coaching call for people in different time zones?

The live coaching call session is recorded, so if they are at three o’clock in the morning in the US, they can watch it the next day. They can also submit their questions prior to that to make sure, if they’ve got any questions, they still get addressed in that coaching call.

How do the real-world projects work?

One of the things we have designed in our program is the opportunity to work on a real project for a real client over 12 weeks and build up that project, real-world experience and also your portfolio at the same time.

We’re trying to replicate a project where participants are working collaboratively. It’s hard when it’s online, everyone’s remote, working individually. So, each week everyone uploads their content, their interview findings, etc. to a Google Drive, and then they can see each other’s work. Between all of them, they might to 10 or 15 interviews – they can then draw on everyone else’s interview findings as well as their own. That way we’re trying to get collaboration just like we would in an agency, where people go off and do interviews, and come back together. We’re trying to get as much collaboration happening as possible, like you would on a real project. That’s why we’re all working on the same project as well, not all different projects.

What kinds of projects do participants get to work on?

We’re trying to find charities or non-for-profit organizations, because part of our philosophy at PeakXD is to empower others to improve the world through human-centered design. We’re trying to find projects where we can do good.

For example, with our next project we’re working with an organization that supports wildlife rescuers – which is a very emotive. As the whole organization is based around supporting wildlife carers, they’re trying to map out the best approach to do that. First of all research; what do they need? And then what do they need digitally? What’s the digital solution to that? We haven’t worked out what the problem is yet, so the program will first of all work out the problem, and then work out what digital solution is… maybe a Facebook group, a website, a forum, an app… we don’t know yet, but that’s for the students to work out.

How does the course help participants connect to potential employers?

We do two things – a portfolio and a digital showcase.

In week 12 we go through building a portfolio. We encourage people to keep records, journals of everything they’re doing – what was challenging, what was the approach, what went well, what didn’t go well – that sort of stuff. When they go to do their portfolio, they build it based on that – because employers aren’t just interested in a bunch of artifacts, they want to see the approach, the challenges, all that sort of stuff.

The other thing we’re doing to help them get a job at the end of the program is what we call a digital showcase. After their course, they can upload their portfolio or link to a portfolio, and that’s going to be open to a small number of employers and UX recruiters who understand the UX space. It’s a way for recruiters to see that pool of graduates and their materials and portfolios.

It’s just a way to showcase digitally, rather than face to face. UX people aren’t always good at selling their own wares, and selling themselves, so this way it’s a little bit less intimidating, and also non-geographic as well.

Why would people choose this course over another out there?

Asides from the certification, we really wanted to try and create something as rigorous as possible but at a budget that people could actually afford. To do this we decided to go with group coaching, but we’re also giving individual feedback when participants upload activities. So they get the best of both individual feedback and collaborative working.

We’ve also set up an arrangement with study loans (for Australian residents), so that if people can’t afford an up-front fee, they can apply through study loans. It’s basically a $200 up-front fee, and the interest rate is pretty reasonable, and then they basically can pay that off over up to four years. So, they could pay it off in as little as $27 a week over four years. That’s nice to be able to offer that for those that can’t afford it upfront.

How have people responded to the course so far?

We had someone recently who had already done another vendor’s course who did our pilot with us – basically she would do the course as normal, but in exchange for her feedback on what to improve she got the course for free – and she said “I’m already finding this is better than the other course,” which was exciting to hear! We did a lot of work over last year putting this together and that was really encouraging that our first pilot was already hitting the mark.

Bonus!

Normally, PeakXD only offers 12-month access to their course modules, as they continually update the modules as new UX trends and foundations come out.

For UX Mastery readers they are kindly extending that 12 month ONLY access – to lifetime access to the video lessons for as long as their program is running (provided your account remains in good standing).

Use referral code UXMASTERY when registering to gain lifetime access.
Enrol now to be part of the October 21st intake.

*A previous version of this article mistakenly named only David Travis as a collaborator on this project with BCS, when it was, in fact, a whole team. You can read more about the certification here.

The post Interview with Tania Lang, Instructor of PeakXD’s Accelerator Program. appeared first on UX Mastery.

UX design is a broad, multifaceted field that’s constantly evolving. The digital landscape is ever shifting, new technologies are emerging, and the principles of user experience design are constantly changing as a result. Today’s UX designers must stay up-to-date in order to act as mediators between humans and technology.

With so much opportunity to learn and grow, UX designers must ask themselves: What role do I want to play in this burgeoning industry?

No matter what stage you’re at in your career, it’s important to routinely consider the kind of designer you are now, and the kind of designer you want to become. Especially if you’ve been in the industry for a while, you might find yourself getting comfortable or losing sight of your aspirations.

This is where your UX career roadmap comes in: it’ll keep you focused on your goals, ensuring you’re constantly growing and developing as a designer.

In this guide, we’ll show you the value of creating a UX career roadmap. We’ll then lay out a step-by-step process you can follow to create your own roadmap from scratch. We’ll discuss:

1. What is a UX career roadmap?
2. Why create a UX career roadmap?
3. How to create a UX career roadmap: A step-by-step guide

Let’s jump in.

1. What is a UX career roadmap?

A career roadmap sets out a clear plan of action for achieving your career goals. It considers the following questions:

• Where am I now?
• Where do I want to go?
• How will I get there?

Mapping out your UX career is not just about progressing from junior to senior—nor is it about aiming for a certain salary or job title. While these are important factors, an effective career roadmap should also dig a little deeper. It explores your strengths and weaknesses, identifies areas for professional development, and helps you forge a career that aligns with your personal goals and values.

A UX career roadmap depicts your aspirations, laying out the blueprint for your path as a UX designer. Whether it’s a simple flow diagram or a true work of art, there are many benefits of drawing up a UX career roadmap. Let’s take a look at the most important ones.

2. Why create one?

A career roadmap might seem like a lot of unnecessary work—especially if you’re not a fan of planning ahead. But, if you’re serious about your career as a UX designer, it’s worth the effort. Why? Because an effective UX career roadmap will:

• Help you achieve career satisfaction: In order to forge a fulfilling career, it’s important that your day-to-day work mirrors your personal values. You need to feel like you’re learning, growing, and contributing. A career roadmap keeps you on the right track; not only by making you aware of your goals, but also by ensuring you’re taking the necessary steps to achieve them.
  
  
• Hold you accountable: It’s easy to leave your career in the hands of fate, or to blame external factors if things don’t go as planned. A well-thought-out roadmap puts you in control of your career path, giving you the foresight to see what needs to be done in order to reach your desired destination.
  
  
• Make you a better UX designer: A career roadmap is not set in stone; it’s a malleable plan that can be adapted along the way. Thus, it encourages continuous evaluation of your professional self: what kind of designer are you? How might you improve? This self-assessment alone will push you to get better at your craft.

3. How to create a UX career roadmap: A step-by-step guide

When it comes to devising a UX career roadmap, the process can be divided into three distinct phases: evaluating the present; setting goals for the future; and coming up with action points that will help you achieve these goals.

Based on these three phases, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to creating a UX career roadmap.

Step 1: Reflect on the here-and-now

This first step is a bit like the research phase of a UX design project—only this time, you are the target user! In this phase, you’ll take the time to self-reflect and evaluate your current position in the UX industry: Who are you right now? Where are you currently at in your career?

The purpose of this step is to build self-awareness, focusing on your skills, interests, and values.

To get started, write down your answers to the following questions:

1. What is my current job title?
2. What does my current role entail? List five-ten key tasks and responsibilities.
3. What hard and soft skills do I possess? List your main skills and give yourself a rating for each (basic, intermediate, or expert). It might be useful to enlist the help of a trusted colleague!
4. What are my three main strengths?
5. What are my three main weaknesses?
6. What do I enjoy doing at work?
7. I wish I could spend less time doing…
8. I wish I could spend more time doing…
9. What do I value about my current role? Here you should think not only about the role itself, but also about your working environment, your team, the way the company is set up, etc.
10. What are my main values when it comes to work? List three.

Don’t rush the self-assessment phase. Some answers might not be immediately obvious, so allow yourself plenty of time to reflect. Ask your colleagues for their thoughts, too—they may recognize strengths and weaknesses that you’re not aware of.

Step 2: Construct your ideal world

Once you’ve carried out a thorough evaluation of the present, it’s time to consider the future. For the purpose of this step, you’ll think purely in terms of ideals. In an ideal world, what kind of designer are you? What does your perfect working day look like?

When answering the following questions, try not to get too hung up on what you deem to be realistic; this phase is all about your dreams and aspirations!

1. In an ideal world, I would work for: myself / a large corporation / an agency / a small startup…
2. In an ideal world, I would work: full-time / part-time / on a project basis…
3. In an ideal world, I would design products for the following industry…
4. In an ideal world, I would be an expert in…
5. My ideal day would consist of the following tasks…
6. In an ideal world, my salary would fall between the following range…
7. If I could write my own job title, it would be…

Aim to tackle this phase in a more quick-fire fashion. It’s OK to be unrealistic at this point; you just want to uncover and acknowledge your intrinsic career desires! This will help form the basis of a more realistic strategy later on.

Step 3: Conduct industry research

With a thorough self-assessment completed and an abstract wishlist in mind, it’s now time to conduct some industry research. The purpose of this step is to learn as much as you can about the field: What opportunities are available to you as a UX designer?

Some useful areas of investigation include:

• UX job titles and career paths: What job titles fall under the UX umbrella? Within the field of user experience design, there are countless routes you can take—from specialist roles such as UX researcher or UX writer, to broader job titles such as product manager or full-stack designer. You’ll find lots of useful information in Career Foundry’s guide to UX designer job descriptions, as well as on job boards such as Indeed, Glassdoor, UX Jobs Board, and, of course, LinkedIn. This leg of your research should culminate in a list of potential job titles of interest.

• Salaries: When constructing your ideal world in step two, you came up with an ideal salary range. Now it’s time to gauge what’s realistic. Based on the job titles you came up with above, conduct some research into the average salaries for each. If the data is available, break your salary research down by years of experience and location. Sites like Glassdoor, PayScale, and Indeed provide up-to-date salary reports for the UX industry.

• Specialist skills: What skills do UX designers possess? What additional skills are associated with the specialist job titles you’ve come across? This part of your research will enable you to identify any gaps in your own skillset and to focus your professional development in the future. Again, job boards and networking sites are extremely useful here. It can also be helpful to chat to your peers in the industry—be it a mentor, a colleague, or a connection you’ve made on LinkedIn.

As always, the internet is an excellent resource for conducting quick and in-depth research. However, don’t underestimate the value of in-person inquiry! You can learn a lot about the industry by attending networking events and striking up casual conversations with those around you.

Step 4: Set concrete goals and timelines

Now for the tricky part: Setting goals and deadlines. What milestones do you want to aim for, and when?

Start with the “when”. It can be difficult to think too far ahead in detail, so you may want to break your roadmap up into manageable segments. For example: You can have a five-year goal in mind, but you might work towards it in one-year increments. You would then set milestones for each year, rather than for the overall five-year period.

Once you’ve decided on a timeline, you can set your objectives accordingly. Based on what you’ve learned so far—about yourself, and about the industry—try to come up with three milestones for each roadmap segment. These milestones may relate to each other and feed into one main end goal (as in example one, below), or they may focus on completely separate areas (as in example two):

Example 1:

Our first example is a roadmap provided by Nadia Fedorova, UX Researcher and Designer at CareerFoundry. Nadia started her career as a data scientist before moving into UX as a research specialist. Her career roadmap is focused on her long-term goal of becoming a design all-rounder.

Five-year goal: To become a UX generalist and strategist. To lead projects at all stages in the design process, right through to implementation, as well as influencing an overall UX strategy for all the design initiatives.

Two-year interim goal (broken down into the following milestones): To land a role that combines UX research and UX design, with elements of UX strategy.

• Six-month – one year milestone: Develop a broader range of skills outside of UX research—such as mapping the overall design project strategy and identifying the most suitable UX methods for a given project. Familiarize myself with the tools that UX designers use (such as Sketch).

• One year – 18-month milestone: Gain practical experience in the broader UX field within my current organization. Find opportunities to help develop the strategy for UX projects, and to practice more general design skills beyond the scope of research.

As Nadia explains: “I moved from data science into UX as a research specialist. After some time in the UX industry, I realized I wanted to focus not only on UX research, but on the entire UX process—including design and strategy. I knew I would have to make a conscious effort to steer my career in a certain direction, so I came up with a five-year plan to make it happen.

My first step in the UX industry was a six-month internship which involved both UX research and design. Then I joined CareerFoundry as a UX researcher and designer, which fulfilled my two-year “interim goal” of landing a full-time role that combines both UX research and design and allows me to be involved in defining UX strategy. My next big goal is to become a UX generalist and strategist, looking at projects from a broader perspective. So, I’ll continue to get hands-on with UX strategy and learn as much as I can about converging business and UX!”

Example 2:

Our second example is a hypothetical UX career roadmap:

Five-year goal: To start my own business as a freelance UX consultant.

One-year interim goals: In one year’s time, I want to

1. Be a better communicator and improve my presentation skills.
2. Become an in-house advocate for good UX: organize and deliver a UX workshop for the whole company.
3. Have increased my salary by 10%.

These are just two examples of how you might set goals and timelines. As you can see, the first example is quite specific, focusing on one particular area of UX. The second example sets more general objectives within a shorter one-year segment.

How you set your goals is up to you. Even if you’ve identified a five-year goal, don’t feel compelled to fill in each one- or two-year segment straight away. Remember: it’s a malleable plan that can be tweaked, updated, or even completely overhauled as you progress throughout your career.

Step 5: Identify clear action points

You’ve established where you want to go; now it’s time to consider how you’ll get there. In this phase, you’ll come up with action points that will take you from A to B. How do you plan on achieving your goals? What tools do you need?

For each milestone laid out in step four, you need to set out a corresponding plan of action. This might include things like:

• Upskilling (hard skills): Learning additional hard skills such as basic frontend development or visual design principles—be it through self-study or a specific course.
  
  
• Upskilling (soft skills): Improving certain soft skills such as communication, teamwork, or collaboration by giving presentations, attending meetups, organizing team socials, etc.
  
  
• Networking: Some goals may require you to build a solid network of industry contacts—for example, if your long-term plan is to work as a freelancer. Your plan of action might be to attend five industry events in one year, be it conferences, meetups, workshops, or design showcases.
  
  
• Shadowing an expert: If you want to specialize in a certain aspect of UX design, one step towards your goal might be to find a mentor or shadow an expert in this particular field.

When coming up with action points, try to be as specific as possible. The clearer your action points, the easier it will be to implement them!

4. What next? Using your roadmap

So there you have it: Five clear steps to devising your very own UX career roadmap. In terms of actually putting pen to paper and drawing up your roadmap, treat it like a wireframe: be prepared to iterate several times, and only fill in the details once you’re happy with the basic foundations.

It’s important to remember that your UX career roadmap isn’t just a fixed, one-off plan. You need to review it regularly and move the goalposts as you progress in your career. Your roadmap isn’t there to tie you down to one single destination: you’ll learn new things every day, and your values and goals will inevitably change! The purpose of your roadmap is to get you routinely thinking about where you want to be, and how you can grow and progress.

With a clear UX career roadmap, you’ll never lose sight of the bigger picture. So: pin your roadmap somewhere visible and get to work on those action points!

The post Advice For Intermediate UX Designers: How To Create A Career Roadmap (And Why You Should) appeared first on UX Mastery.

I was lucky enough to sit down with one of the foremost educators of User Experience, David Travis. I picked his brain about what he thinks are some important areas of attention for aspiring and current professionals in the industry.

What do you see current graduates or practitioners struggling with when they first enter the field?

There are five things I see people struggling with when they first enter the field. These are:

• Self design
• Thinking product first, not user first
• Believing user likes are user needs
• Thinking that “Big Data” is better than “Thick Data”
• The Oracle misconception

SELF DESIGN

One problem I see in new UX’ers is that they fail to realise they are designing for people other than themselves. For example, when making design decisions they focus on what they like or what works for them or what’s fashionable.

Now, a core concept at the heart of user experience is, “You are not the user”. Intellectually, this is simple to understand but even the brightest UX designers seem to forget it as soon as they get in front of Sketch or any other prototyping tool… At that point, they begin to make design decisions based on their own experience.

Although this is an easy issue to understand, in my experience it’s the hardest for people to overcome. In fact, I think the only way you can overcome it is by immersing yourself in your users’ world: their context and behaviour. In practice, this means observing usability tests, going out on field visits, reading about users, getting first hand experience of their world. It’s very Zen like: you must almost become one with the user to prevent self-design.

You’ll often hear this characterised as “gaining empathy for the user”. That’s definitely an element of what you’re trying to achieve. You want to feel what it’s like to walk in their shoes. It takes work but when you follow that path of user immersion you get immediate, practical insights: for example, you might discover that the 10pt grey text that looks so good to you doesn’t work for your end users because they’ve got poor vision, or they sometimes forget their reading glasses. You may even discover that the team’s great idea for a new product doesn’t solve a problem for the user.

THINKING PRODUCT FIRST, NOT USER FIRST

The second misconception I see is people mistaking a field visit with a usability test. For example, a designer will say to me, “I want to do research on my product but I have no one to talk to because we don’t have any users yet”.

Well that’s a red flag.

That product will almost certainly fail, because the designer is thinking product first instead of user first. Instead of thinking about the product in discovery (the earliest stage of design), people need to think about the users. A good question to ask is “What meaningful activity do users carry out with my product or service?” Whatever your answer to that question, that’s the thing that you go out and research.

So if you’re taking a prototype with you when you’re doing early stage research, you’re not doing discovery at all… what you’re doing is usability testing. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Double Diamond approach that’s been popularised by the Design Council: the idea is that there is this important phase in discovery where you are trying to understand the needs of users before you come up with any prototypes or any ideas about the way that thing could look.

But most people forget that first part of the design process, or gloss over it. They start their research once they have got a definite product idea.

This is a problem because if you do research on a prototype web site, you’ll end up with a web site. If you do research with a prototype mobile app, you’ll end up with a mobile app. But your audience may have no need for a web site or mobile app. That’s what I mean by thinking product first. If the product is the start of your user research then it’s already too late. To overcome this, you have to believe user needs are more important than any product ideas you have. This is because understanding user needs will ultimately help you become truly innovative and develop much better products.

USER LIKES ARE NOT USER NEEDS

UX researchers will often show users a prototype and be influenced by what users say they ‘like’. For example, the researcher will show participants two alternative designs and ask which one they prefer.

Now obviously we want people to like our designs. But a raft of evidence shows that people are not very good at having insight into what’s best for them. I think this quotation from Rob Fitzpatrick captures it perfectly:

“Trying to learn from customer conversations is like excavating a delicate archaeological site. The truth is down there somewhere, but it’s fragile. While each blow with your shovel gets you closer to the truth, you’re liable to smash it into a million little pieces if you use too blunt an instrument.” (Rob Fitzpatrick, The Mom Test).

Asking people what they like is too blunt an instrument. A lot of the time, people may not have a strong preference but they’ll give you an answer, even if it’s not deeply held. To be more delicate, you must ask what works best for users. That means not focusing on what they like but focusing on what they do.

This is about believing that behaviour is more important than opinions.

User’s may well prefer Design A over Design B. But if they are more successful with Design B — that is, they are more successful at achieving their goals — then that’s what you choose. It’s not about what users like; its about what they perform best with.

BIG DATA VS THICK DATA

Why is it that people are more likely to believe the results of a survey of 10,000 people than a usability test of 5? People believe that having a large sample size must make the data more robust and reliable. But the data won’t be more robust and reliable from your survey if you’re not asking the right questions.

Nevertheless, people seem to believe that Big Data (quantitative data from surveys and web analytics) is somehow better than Thick Data (qualitative data from usability tests and field visits).

In fact, both kinds of data are important. Big Data tells us what’s happening, but
in order to do really great design we need to understand why things are happening — and that’s where Thick Data comes in. Big Data helps us identify areas where we should be doing in-depth UX research. And what we discover in field research and usability tests identifies the things we should be checking in our surveys, web analytics and multivariate testing.

Sometimes I wonder if this love of Big Data is actually based on a fear of speaking with users. Thick Data requires you to get face-to-face with your users. But real people can be unpredictable. They can make you feel uncomfortable. It’s easy to skirt this issue by sending out a survey or by studying your web analytics. That way, you can convince yourself you’re doing UX research while not having to get face-to-face with users.

Another example of this “fear of speaking with users” is the growth of remote, un-moderated usability testing. This is where users record themselves doing tasks and then upload the video to a Cloud-based server for you to watch afterwards. You don’t observe the user in real time: they work entirely on their own.
At first sight, it looks like a reasonable example of qualitative research.

But it’s not. If you’re not there to speak to the user you can’t find out why they are doing certain things.

What’s unique about the discoveries from qualitative research is that we often don’t know what we don’t know; we don’t know the questions to ask until we see people behave.

Do you think that’s a symptom of the companies commissioning these tests not properly understanding UXD, or does it fall on the UX Designer?

I think that novice UX designers and researchers tend to do what the client says or what their development team says. For example, their team might say, “Go out and do a survey to find out what people want from our product”. So that’s what they do, rather than pushing back and asking, “What hypotheses do you want to test? What questions do you have? What is it that you want to find out?”. A survey may be a good way of finding that out, but it might not be. So this is about understanding the problem before deciding on the best way to answer it.

THE ORACLE MISCONCEPTION

This is about the UX designer thinking they need to be the expert. Caroline Jarrett captures this well when she writes “User researcher’s fallacy: ‘My job is to learn about users’. Truth: ‘My job is to help my team learn about users’”.

User researcher's fallacy: "My job is to learn about users". Truth: "My job is to help my team learn about users". #ux

— Caroline Jarrett (@cjforms) July 4, 2014

An important part of the UX researchers’ job is to act as a facilitator, not just the person who does UX research. The findings from UX research aren’t useful if they live inside the researcher’s head. The findings need to be part of the development team’s consciousness. You need to immerse the team in the research to help everyone gain competence in understanding users and their needs.

The notion that the team is bigger than the individual is true in many areas of UX. For example, in the face to face courses I run we do a prototyping application activity where we split people into small groups of 3 or 4 and they create paper interfaces. This is very different to the way they normally prototype, which is on their own in front of a computer screen. The upshot is that people discover for themselves that design is best when you have multiple people involved. The problem with an electronic prototyping tool like Sketch is that one person is in control of the mouse, which means one person does the design rather than involving the whole team.

It also applies in other areas like expert reviews. We know from the literature on expert reviews that one expert will find about 75% of the usability problems that would be found if you had 5 experts doing the review. No matter how good you are, no matter how much of a guru you are in UX, you won’t find all the usability problems.

But UX designers and researchers don’t always want to believe this, especially those new to the field. They think they have to appear as an expert. If they don’t present themselves as the oracle of all things user, they worry they will appear weak. In fact, it’s a sign of strength to involve other people in UX research: not just users of course but the team too. That’s a misconception that people find difficult to overcome. Rather than think you need to answer every question thrown at you, become an expert in the process: “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I know how to find out”.

The post Things UX Designers Should Know – A conversation with David Travis appeared first on UX Mastery.

As an aspiring UX designer, you probably also have tons of great ideas that you want to turn into fully-designed portfolio projects. But how do you learn the right process to follow to turn those high-level ideas into comprehensive and well-researched projects that will impress employers?

Don’t worry – you’re not alone. We’ve spoken with dozens of experienced designers and hiring managers over the past year as we’ve built up our Design Portfolio Starter Kit to try to understand just what makes an impressive junior UX portfolio and how new designers can maximize their chances of creating a portfolio that will help them get a job.

In this article, I’m sharing a few of those tips to help you build your own amazing UX portfolio.

Figure out what types of UX work interest you and become an expert

First things first: what types of projects should you include in your portfolio?

The simple answer is that you should focus on what interests you most, and develop a deep expertise in that specific area of UX design. Employers want to hire candidates that have a demonstrated interest and expertise in the specific type of work they’ll be spending most of their time doing. So take time to figure out what interests you the most and then dive deep.

If you don’t know what kind of UX work interest you most, do a simple test. Spend a few hours browsing and using a variety of different websites and apps (use a site like Awwwards or CSS Winner for ideas). Take careful notes of what you enjoy most about them, writing down details about the sites and apps you like using most.

After a few hours, take a look at your notes and try to identify any patterns in the things you liked most. Were you most impressed by how easy it was to use certain apps and websites and logically find the information you were seeking? You might be interested in information architecture.

Did you get the most pleasure out of the visual aesthetic of some of the apps you were using? Then a role as a user interface designer might be best for you. Also pay attention to the types of products you enjoy working on, whether that’s mobile apps, ecommerce stores, or startup websites.

Whichever type of UX/UI design you find yourself gravitating towards, start to develop a deep expertise in that field. Simultaneously, employers love well-rounded designers so be sure to supplement your studies with learning about broader design principles as well.

For instance, if you decide to focus on UX design, make sure you fully understand research, user flows, and user testing so that your designs are informed by well-tested UX processes. And if you’re more interested in pure UI work, learn about design principles like grids, color theory, and typography, as well as fundamentals like hierarchy and repetition so that you can turn your research and user flows into beautiful final products (or at least work well with designers who can).

Once you’ve decided which subset of the UX field to focus on, it’s time to come up with project ideas.

Come up with projects that solve real problems

Early in your UX career, your portfolio will probably feature a lot of projects that you’ve come up with on your own. While having “real work” in your portfolio is always great, employers understand that you won’t necessarily have real projects to show when you’re just getting started. If your portfolio is going to be comprised of mostly theoretical work, it’s absolutely crucial for those projects to focus on solving real problems.

There are a few different ways to solve real problems with your first few UX projects. The most straightforward way is to think about problems that exist in your daily life or in industries you’re interested in and brainstorm how you could create a UX project to solve those problems.

For instance, if you’re interested in sports but live in a city, you could create a website or mobile app that makes it easy for anyone to find local intramural sports teams they can join. Or if you are passionate about nonprofits but have trouble finding places to buy nonprofit apparel, you could design an ecommerce site where nonprofits can sell their products. It’s really as simple as that. Spend 30 minutes writing down industries you care about, and problems in those industries, and use that as a basis for your project ideas.

Another easy way to solve real problems with your projects is to launch your own side project. There are thousands of great side project ideas you can design and launch in just a few weeks, so do the same exercise of writing down a list of possible side projects you could work on and choose the one that excites you most and can leverage the type of UX work you want to do. This could be creating an ecommerce site where you sell prints of your own artwork, an online course where you teach a specific skill, or anything else you care about!

From here, it’s time to move on to the actual project creation process, the most crucial step.

Follow the correct process – don’t skip steps

One of the biggest pieces of feedback from hiring managers is that many junior design portfolios showcase beautiful single screen designs without any context behind the project.

You can design the most beautiful landing page imaginable but if you don’t have a process behind it and a story explaining how you got to the final design, employers will move on to another candidate. After all, they want to hire someone who can solve problems, iterate on their designs based on research and testing, and ultimately reach the final design only after completing those steps.

If you have a great idea for a project, it can be tempting to jump right into Sketch or InVision to wireframe and prototype the idea right off the bat. We recommend taking a breath and following a few steps before that phase, steps that you’ll need to follow in any client or job setting.

First, do research. Look at similar products to see how they tackled the same problem. What decisions did they make that you like and what about their designs don’t you agree with? After this, create user personas, outlining who is actually going to be using this product and why they’re going to use it. What are their primary goals when interacting with this product?

Next, get your ideas out on paper. Sketch out thumbnails of what the design could potentially look like. These don’t need to be too detailed – get every idea, good or bad, down on paper in 20 minutes. Next, depending on the complexity of the project, you might need to create a user flow to show how the user will move through the full web or app experience. From there, create wireframes and ultimately prototypes.

At this phase, it’s time to test. Get a “sample user” (a friend or peer) to test out the wireframe or prototype. Watch how they use it and ask them to explain what they like and dislike about it. Based on their feedback and how they naturally use the prototype, make adjustments as needed. From there, it’s finally time to create it into a high fidelity design, incorporating colour and typography and ensuring that the designs are consistent across screens.

It’s a pretty straightforward process that so many people choose to ignore, but we’ve been told by many hiring managers that following this process will help you stand apart from so many other UX designers.

Showcase your projects as detailed case studies

Most recruiters only spend around 60 seconds reviewing a portfolio before they decide whether to give the candidate an interview. So it’s absolutely crucial to cleanly and logically showcase your projects on your portfolio site. You should show every project as a case study so employers can understand your thought process and get a feeling for how you’d solve similar problems if you worked for them.

Start by outlining the initial problem, how you approached solving it, and then showing your process as you went. This can include early wireframes and sketches and then slowly show the iteration of the project, including details of when you received feedback (and from whom) as you went. Also be clear about your role on the project if you had any help. Finally, show the beautiful final designs mocked up.

Conclusion

So get out there and come up with ideas for your first UX portfolio projects!

Creating your first UX portfolio is an exciting process. Even though it can feel overwhelming, try to take it one project at a time. Think about problems you really care about solving and don’t be afraid to be ambitious. Employers will respect you more for the complex problems you’re trying to solve than the beautiful visuals you end up creating.

If you ever need help coming up with project ideas for your portfolio or need guidance to actually turn your ideas into full-formed final designs, check out the UX Design Portfolio starter kit we created at RookieUp, which includes tons of projects, resources, and guides to help you craft an amazing portfolio on your own.

How did you create your first UX portfolio? What types of projects did you use for examples? Leave a comment here or share your tips in the forums!

The post How to Develop Project Ideas for Your UX Portfolio appeared first on UX Mastery.

James Brown, that funky Godfather of soul music, held an important contrast: “Thank God for the journey”. 

Between the depressing scepticism of Nietzsche and the enduring passion of Brown, there lies some wisdom for how we can approach our vocations.

There isn’t a clear-cut, authoritative approach anywhere that can guarantee a successful career, whether that be in user experience design or any other field.

This is both daunting and exciting; daunting because achieving our dreams is a unique and slippery struggle, but exciting because identifying, planning and thriving in a career can be one of the most meaningful and satisfying things we ever do. 

We might begin surmounting the daunting pathway by simply taking pause to mindfully assess our position and set some goals; once we’ve set our goals we can start taking the steps to make them happen. 

For example, we might be strategic and deliberate about our next career move, whether it’s that promotion to product manager, moving into a coveted in-house role, or striking out on our own as a freelancer.

There are troves of career advice all over the internet, but sometimes we must wrestle and go a little deeper to find wise and honest help. And that’s where it pays to pick up a book to explore the heart of your strengths and weaknesses and for gaining a more complex understanding of something outside your own experience.

Here are seven of our favourite books we recommend you dive into for the next step in your UX career.

1. The UX Careers Handbook – Cory Lebson

Cory Lebson’s definitive book on UX careers is for newbie and experienced designers alike. Industry-leading UX professionals share how they got their start and how they evolved their careers over time. Across four sections, the book covers career pathways, learning, personal branding, networking skills, building resumes and portfolios, and actually landing a UX job.

Cory is a strong believer in education as the foundation for success for UX professionals, including continual learning. He also shares our opinion that UX has many pathways—that there is no one single career trajectory within UX.

The book has an accompanying website full of links to resources building on the foundations of the book. In particular, Cory provides further reading and study options for each UX profession, including recent articles and study options from content strategy to service design. It’s a great online reference to find out the specifics of each UX stream.

Read more reviews and details about The UX Careers Handbook »

2. How to Get a Job as a Designer, Guaranteed – Ram Castillo

This is great one for newbies. Ram Castillo’s blog-turned-book is pitched at students and new graduates looking to break into the industry. The title makes a pretty big promise, but Ram does cover all the essentials to prepare for your first design job: education, design, networking, interviews and building a portfolio.

The content is grounded in Ram’s own experience working his way up the ranks in his first agency job, and he aims to help others learn from the successes (and mistakes) he made along the way.

Read more reviews and details about How to Get a Job as a Designer Guaranteed »

3. Stand Out – Denise Anderson

For designers and UX practitioners, a portfolio is a key collection of evidence about your experience. Denise Anderson’s Stand Out is an excellent guide for creating a portfolio that demonstrates your strengths. While it’s primarily aimed at helping students, many seasoned pros will also benefit from revamping their portfolio following Denise’s guidance.

The book takes you on a step-by-step journey, beginning with defining your personal brand and brand story. Once you’ve understood this, you’re ready to start building your portfolio, choosing the most appropriate projects, and designing a portfolio that communicates who you are and what you do. You’ll also find helpful handouts on the book’s associated website to help you through each stage of putting your portfolio together, and eventually building your ideal career.  

Read more reviews and details about Stand Out »

4. Pivot – Jenny Blake

Having no single entry point, people often come to UX from a multitude of different careers. Jenny Blake’s Pivot is designed to help you harness your existing skills and strengths and translate them into a new job. While not UX specific, it’s a practical read for side hustlers or anyone looking to harness an existing skill set for a career in UX.

Jenny advocates a cautious approach in her four-stage process, drawing from her own experience moving from Google to launch her own book and brand. The book teaches you how to test ideas by running small experiments, and how to learn from failure. Plenty of agile development analogies in here!

Read more reviews and details about Pivot »

5. The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Survival Guide – Leah Buley

More survival guide than career planner, this book by Leah Buley teaches readers how to make the most of working as the only UXer in a cross-functional environment. It’s aimed at helping UX professionals understand the other members of their product team, and helping those other product team members understand (and potentially cross over into) a UX role.

If you find yourself in a UX team of one, you’re likely to be charting your own course and figuring out your own career path, without many close role models to follow. Leah works through the foundations of building your team of one, first explaining the fundamentals of UX and how to build support for your work. She then goes on to work through research and design methods, and how these can be adapted (you guessed it) for a team of one.

We suggest reading it cover-to-cover and then using the techniques section as a reference when you’re embarking on a new project.

Read more reviews and details about The User Experience Team of One »

6. Mike Montiero – Design is a Job

A must-read for anyone working with clients—which is essentially all of us, whether we work agency, freelance, or in-house with internal stakeholders. Written in Mike’s irreverent style, Design is a Job is packed with pithy advice based on Mike’s personal experience managing design businesses for the past 20 years.

Mike Monteiro guides designers through designing their business, from choosing the right work, following process, presenting design, and managing feedback— including all the nitty-gritty details of contracts and actually getting paid.

An easy, personable read packed with insightful gems, you can easily read this over a weekend afternoon. But you’ll spend years remembering the lessons it contains. Pick it up if you want to improve your design business savviness, or if you need a new approach to managing clients.

Read more reviews and details about Design is a Job »

7. Get Started in UX – Luke Chambers & Matthew Magain

Of course, no list of UX career planning titles would be complete without our very own ebook Get Started in UX.

We wrote this because there was nothing else like it available anywhere—the UX community was asking the same questions but no-one had put together the essential, practical advice for aspiring UXers in such a straightforward fashion. So we collated advice from our own experience into six steps for building your UX career, starting with options for education, and assessing your current skills.

From there, all the basics are covered; from choosing the right tools for the job to building a portfolio, getting a mentor, and finally, landing that dream UX gig. You’ll also find plenty of useful templates to help you out at each step. Overall, this is a concise and highly practical guide for those looking to break into the field.

Read more reviews and details about Get Started in UX »

For more books covering every UX topic under the sun, make sure you check out our top recommendations in the epic list of UX books.  

The post 7 Books to Level Up Your UX Career appeared first on UX Mastery.

Since then, I’ve had countless conversations with other UX professionals who are considering moving to freelancing as their next career step.

They usually say they’re looking for freedom, more money, the ability to work on more interesting problems or learn new things – or even just the chance to work in their pyjamas regularly. Since I started consulting, I’ve expanded my focus into more strategy and product work across a wide variety of industries, and have met all kinds of interesting, smart colleagues.

While I wouldn’t change a thing about my situation, I’m always cautious about encouraging others to jump into the freelance world, because it’s definitely not for everyone. Here are some things I’ve learned along the way to consider before you quit your day job.

Freelancing pros and cons

Yes, it’s true that I spend most days in yoga pants, travel frequently, and work on some pretty cool projects. But consulting isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There are many things that are great about consulting, some things that aren’t so great, and some things that just depend on the day.

Schedule: One of the things I love most about consulting is being in total control of my schedule. There’s no expectation that I’m at my desk from 9 am to 5 pm. Sometimes I get in a zone and finish an entire report in one very long day and take the next morning off to let ideas percolate. Of course I have meetings and deadlines, but I can usually finagle things to work well for my clients and myself.

On the flip side, juggling your schedule can be difficult. I’m quite disciplined about getting things done, but I’ve never quite figured out a way to create a consistent schedule. Sometimes I’ve had priority work on different projects collide at the same time or I’ve said yes to a few too many things and ended up working crazy hours to get everything done. Such is a consultant’s life.

Money: I absolutely find that I make more money freelancing than when I worked in-house, even in leadership roles. I’m still experimenting with how I bill, but I tend to use value-based pricing for entire projects rather than charge hourly. I often ask clients to pay me 50% of the total upfront and the rest upon project completion, which can make managing money tricky, especially when you’re used to a consistent paycheck.

You also have to know that you’ll never be able to collect money as though you’re billing 40 hours a week, every week. You have to account for supplies, tool costs, benefits, and set aside time for administrative tasks like sending invoices, business development, and, of course, downtime. No one gives you sick time or vacation days when you freelance.

Inevitably, I’ve also run into time periods where I don’t have anything billable booked. An open schedule can be scary, so I use this time to do things like reach out to colleagues or potential clients, write articles, research new tools, try to learn something new, or catch up on administrative work. One of the benefits of this downtime is the space to learn, exploring the vast array of available online courses or just experimenting with a new method or tool.

Work environment: I mostly work from home, which means I wear what I like, can pet my dog throughout the day, don’t contend with traffic, and for better or worse, have all day access to my kitchen. All great, but it also means that sometimes the only person I see in the flesh each day is my husband.

I have to make an extra concerted effort to hang out with colleagues, so I’ve become more active in my local meetups and groups (shout out to Ladies that UX Durham – love yall!) I also found I need to be more social during the week, even if that means going to a fitness class instead of biking solo or talking on the phone while I shop.

What services will you provide?

I’ve been focused on research and strategy for most of my career. I won’t rehash the “Should I be a unicorn?” or “Do designers need to code?” debates, but I’ll admit that when I first starting freelancing, I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to find enough work without doing visual work. Turns out, I was totally wrong. Phew!

You absolutely don’t need to be a unicorn or try to tackle projects that aren’t your speciality. But it helps to have a broad set of experience and at least one area of deep expertise you can market and use to define your services. You can match what you’re good at and what you like to define the kind of projects you target, the projects you’re OK with taking, and what you will certainly turn down.

Clearly defining your services and interests are important because it tells other people what to turn to you for. if I know someone has great interaction design skills and tonnes of experience with financial products, I’ll suggest them anytime I see a project like that. If someone tells me they’ll do anything that comes their way, they probably won’t come to mind for any projects I know about.

How will you find clients?

This is a question that I get asked time after time, and the answer is incredibly simple in concept but hard in practice: treat your clients and colleagues as you would users and provide them with a good experience working with you.

More specifically, you have to do good work and other people have to be willing to talk about it. This can either mean that your clients are pleased with your work and will re-hire you or tell other potential clients, or that your peers in UX like your work and can refer you when they need help or can’t take something on. It really is true that a huge amount of success in consulting is based on networking and who you know, but that only works to your advantage if the people you know have had a good experience working with you. Right now, every single one of my clients is someone I’ve previously worked with or have gotten a good reference.

This is where, once again, it helps to have a clearly defined, slightly unique set of skills or interests. There are tonnes of researchers and tonnes of designers, but if you’re known as a researcher who loves qualitative work and medical products, people will think of you whenever they come across that kind of project. Just be sure that you don’t define yourself too narrowly.

You can also use job boards to identify potential projects or try recruiting agencies, but I haven’t found either as fruitful as having my name passed on from a previous contact. More on finding freelance UX work here.

Are you really suited for all that?

Even if all the potential pros sound amazing to you and you have the skills and network to pull off freelancing, take a moment to reflect on your personality and soft skills.

Are you detailed, organised, and willing to juggle many different client requests and manage your own schedule? Are you a natural risk-taker who can cope well with slow periods or lack of viable work? Are you assertive enough to negotiate terms for yourself? Do you mind working by yourself a lot?

There’s a lot to think about before leaving the security of a full-time job. I love freelancing, but it’s worth carefully considering the pros and cons and your skillset and personality before taking the leap. Best wishes for whichever path you choose! 

Do you have experience or tips on freelancing for UX professionals? Leave a comment on the blog or in the forums! 

The post Is Freelancing Your Next UX Career Move? appeared first on UX Mastery.

What’s important to this discussion, is that I wasn’t a junior anything—I was just a no-prefix practitioner. There were other roles in the company I was working for that were specifically earmarked as senior, however.

So why was that? I’ve always figured that for a consulting agency, referring to a senior-level practitioner and a no-prefix practitioner probably sounded better to a client as we bid on projects – and there’s probably still some truth in that.

I’d like to take this discussion one step further, however, by saying that both practitioners and employers should be aware that these “junior” and “senior” categorisations are fuzzy at best. They don’t always tell the full story of your experience when it comes to expertise and years of experience. Knowing which roles are right for you will help you navigate the job market and pave your own career pathway.

It’s simpler to classify job experience into buckets – but it’s not always so simple

People like categorising others into buckets. This is certainly true for job background and experience, where there is some value to this categorization in the employment sphere. Does a job candidate have enough experience or not? Does this person have a UX brand or not? Is this person a UX leader or a leader in any way?

When all these experience-based considerations get rolled up into the title of a job description, they are often simply classified as “junior” or “mid-level” or “senior” or perhaps “director” or “principal” or (occasionally) “intern”.

UX roles are fuzzy to begin with. And while these titles may be a good place to start, it’s also important to remember that along a number of axes, these titles may always remain fuzzy.

Years of experience

Back before my freelancing days when I was responsible for hiring, I recall candidates who had limited experience yet came across so polished that I couldn’t help but imagine them in a senior-level role. On the other hand, some candidates had years of experience but couldn’t fully explain their background or their understanding of UX. Then when I looked them up online, I found little more than self-created and not particularly impressive social media profiles.

I’ve seen job descriptions that demand 10+ years for a senior-level practitioner, and I’ve seen job descriptions that ascribe only a minimum of 3 years of relevant experience to such a role (with “relevant” being a way to add even more fuzz).

Years of experience could be considered a rough—if not the roughest—way to classify a job description. I’d encourage employers to approach this classification with caution, or at least with an allowance for *very* wide ranges of experience.

Practitioner experience

While years of experience may be a bit fuzzy, it’s certainly fair for job descriptions to ask for certain kinds of experiences. A senior-level hire should already have decent experience—if not expertise—in whatever UX areas are most core to the job. On the other hand, a junior-level hire should have enough basic knowledge to get started, but experience can be limited and expertise is not necessary.

Always remember that as long as you have a good UX base knowledge and demonstrate fit in some functional areas of UX, other areas can be learned. So good employers should prioritise a desire to learn over exact match skillsets.

As a word of caution to employers looking for a UX unicorn —those with the ability to do everything, be it design, research, coding, information architecture, strategy, etc.— These hires are fine for a junior role which lets them sample a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But positions classified as “senior-level” will likely require solid experience and an area of expertise.

Wanting this solid experience and expertise everywhere is not fair to the designated hiring manager (good luck to them!) and not fair to you if you’re a senior-level hire who needs to be everywhere with less opportunity to build expert skills – a topic which I delve deeper into in The UX Careers Handbook.

Leadership

While senior-level positions may be equated with leadership, just what does leadership mean anyway? It could mean that you’re a manager of people—responsible for hiring, employee reviews and overall management of other individuals. Or it could mean that you’re a leader of UX projects and managing UX workflow of others within a particular project. Or perhaps you’re a senior-level practitioner on a project with one or two others—and if it’s a consulting project, perhaps you’re the person who interacts most with the client.

But leadership isn’t only at work, and UX leadership value can be found in thought-leadership (writing, speaking, and posting on social media about UX) as well as UX voluntary leadership, such as running a meetup. While these examples may not represent exact matches of leadership experience with most job descriptions, they can feed into a big bucket definition of leadership seniority.

Finally, with respect to leadership, leadership has to start somewhere, so being a senior-level hire may also mean that you are at least ready for workplace leadership of some kind. As a junior-level hire, on the other hand, you certainly have no need or employer expectation of any kind of leadership, at least for the short term.

What should employers do?

It’s okay to use classifying terms like junior, or senior, or mid-level as a general description, but beware that these can be interpreted by potential candidates along a wide range of expectations.

So keep your funnel wide! Remember that UX-ers are often hard to find, so don’t eliminate good candidates by implying hard and fast rules. And when you do talk with or meet these candidates, even if you’ve set specific criteria, be ready to bend the rules when you see alternative backgrounds that you may not have anticipated.

Look beyond the UX work experience – A passion for UX that extends beyond the workplace is a good indicator of someone who will be passionate about the UX work that they do for you. A desire to continually learn and grow even beyond the job is a good sign that as a new hire they’ll have a passion for learning things that you need them to learn.

What should you do when you’re looking for a job?

Look beyond the classification – If you’re truly just starting out, a junior-level job is probably a good place to start. But if you’ve been in the field a few years, focus on the job description more than the junior/senior/something else marker in the job title.

Be ready to challenge – If you truly believe that your background and experience are a good fit for a position but you don’t quite qualify in some area, such as years of experience, remember that it’s okay to make the case for why you really are someone they want. Just remember that you’ll need to provide solid evidence for your case.

Build up your UX brand now – When an employer looks you up, if you truly end up being liminal to UX seniority, remember that your UX brand—what an employer will find when you are Googled—could be the thing that offers you credibility and the opportunity to take on a position that you really want.

Let’s leave these levels vague

There are no hard and fast definitions for junior, senior, director, principal or anything else. And let’s leave it that way. Loose ideas of what should make a good fit are fine for some general guidance, but both employers and potential hires should do what they can to keep their options open and see what UX adventures may await them!

What strategies have you used to navigate the UX job market? Leave a comment or let us know in the forums.

Just starting out in your UX career? Make sure you consult our ebook: Get Started in UX

The post What Does it Mean to be a Junior or a Senior UX Professional? appeared first on UX Mastery.

Until I woke up one day and realised I had become one and it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it wasn’t bad at all – it was great!

It all started in June 2014. I was almost three years into my career and I was caught in the middle of a hiring freeze. I was a junior designer at a government department and was eager to advance to more challenging roles. But like everyone else working in government, I was stuck. In order to grow as a professional, I had to get creative.

At the time, I had just completed my first remote test of an information architecture using Optimal Workshop’s remote tree testing tool, Treejack. My very supportive manager encouraged me to write a blog post on my experiences to share my tips and advice for using the tool. I was sceptical at first but I did it anyway, and one day in a moment of brazen audacity, I decided to tweet my blog to Optimal Workshop.

Three days later I received an email from them – they loved it. Even better, they wanted me to write for them! Everything snowballed from there. Doors opened, opportunities flourished, and I discovered things I had never imagined possible.

In less than twelve months, I went from having zero presence in UX to experienced UXers referring to me as a ‘highly respected industry thought leader’. This was followed by speaking engagement offers, conference appearances, an eBook and several articles. My whole world expanded exponentially and to this day, that growth isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

Whether we like it or not, every single one of us is a brand. What we do with our brand enables us to shape our UX careers in ways we may not have considered. I built mine by accident, but along the way, I learned how to apply my thinking in a structured way. Here are five ways to build a successful personal brand in UX and create your own career destiny. 

Know what you stand for and live it

We have to talk about this one up front, because the other four points will fall over if you don’t address this first. Who you are and what you care about lie at the very heart of your personal brand. Your values and how you live them affect the way you see the world and the ways others see you.

Take some time out today to jot down what matters to you. Brainstorm as many values as you can, then choose 4-6 that you feel closest to. It’s not about coming up with buzzwords or changing who you are – it’s about unearthing what’s already there so you can ensure that your blogs, social media presence and your other actions reflect who you are.

To help you get started, here are mine:

• Authenticity
• Inclusion
• Community
• Humour
• Perseverance

They’re really just labels of what I’ve been living these past 30 years, but putting names to them helps me stay focused. As life happens and your career (and thinking) evolves, your values and perspectives may change. That’s ok too, so don’t feel like you’re stuck with them forever.

Start blogging

I’ll let you in on a secret. When I’m writing, I’m mostly just scribing exactly what’s bouncing around in my head. There’s no formula or structured approach to it, I just record what I’m thinking in words and I write the way I speak.

Once all my thoughts are out of my head and on the screen, I edit. That’s when the real magic happens. I organise and structure the information in a way that makes sense and tells a story – fundamental UX skills we all have. You don’t have to be an amazing writer to start blogging. All you need is an idea or an opinion, and you know what they say about those!

Write about things you’ve learned, people you’ve met, bad UX, great UX, UX that isn’t digital. Whatever makes you happy, sad or annoyed: write about it. You could start your own UX blog or you could publish posts as part of your online portfolio. Publishing to LinkedIn or Medium are both easy entry points. 

Go to meetups and networking events

Get your face out there and meet other awesome UX people. Networking is not about using people or making it rain business card style at every event you attend. It’s about connecting with other human beings, giving back and learning along the way.

Every new introduction is a chance to grow and learn. You never know what opportunities will come your way or how you might be able to help them. The UX community is an ecosystem, and as cliched as it sounds, every little ripple helps us all.

Develop a social media presence

A meaningful social media presence is a must when building a personal brand in your UX career. It’s your digital professional voice and it must be heard – Twitter and LinkedIn are my top picks platform-wise.  

By meaningful, I mean a social media presence that’s relevant to your personal UX brand. You can still be a human being who tweets pictures of exceptionally well-plated food and those shoes you bought on sale for an absolute steal, but try to keep at least 75% of your content in the realm of professional publishing. Share and start a discussion about the latest book or article you’ve read or strike up a conversation with someone you admire.

Volunteer

Actively putting your hand up for UX volunteer opportunities is one of the best ways to try something that you might not get to do in your regular job. A few years ago, UX Mastery was running a UX Careers Panel discussion at UX Australia Redux 2014 in Melbourne. They were short a panel member, and when they put out a call for help on social media, I jumped at the chance.

I was working in that junior role I mentioned earlier and I had no public speaking experience, but I didn’t let that stop me. I saw it as a nice safe environment for me to practice my speaking skills, spend time with my UX Mastery friends, meet new people and have my voice heard.

The exposure I gained through that panel appearance led to two conference talks (one was overseas) which in turn, led to even more talks. Put your hand up and you never know what will happen.    

Know what you stand for, blog, network, use social media wisely and put your hand up for UX opportunities are the key elements to building a strong personal brand for your UX career. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but when applied together and in the right way, can result in a lasting positive impact.

What tactics have you used to build up your UX personal brand? Leave a comment or let us know in the forums. 

The post 5 Ways to Build a Successful UX Personal Brand appeared first on UX Mastery.

What I look for in a good job site is the ability to sort and sift through the jobs you don’t want to those you do. I’ve used some of the sites listed for other creative and general job searches too. 

For me, working remotely is important. I used to spend between twelve and fifteen hours commuting each week, so I tend to focus on job sites with a focus on remote work.  

These are some of my favourites sites, and I hope they could be the gateway to your new role, gig, or even a career in UX. 

1. Findbacon

One of the sites I’ve used for a few years, back when I was also looking for web development jobs. With a clean layout, is has a plethora of categories and ways to filter. You can also search within the tags you select while looking for a job near you or remote.

2. We Work Remotely

One of my favourite remote job boards. They don’t post Indeed or Monster quantities of jobs daily, but you can find almost any type of job here. This one is remote work only, with a simple to use interface and everything already sorted for you. Very convenient.

3. UX Jobs Board

A pure UX-only job board that leads to many other places. It has different selections based on job style (full-time, part-time, freelance), locations and the type of UX job you’re looking for. IA, User research, how about content strategy? Yep, all of that for us UX people. Their resource section is a wonderful addition and worth a look. 

4. Authentic Jobs

Authentic Jobs has good usability with selections of categories, where you want to work and quality filtering. You can also search by compensation and the type of company you’re looking for. They post a decent amount of jobs daily and weekly.

5. Smashing Jobs

Chances are you’ve encountered Smashing Magazine’s books or articles on your UX journey. Their books are as enticing as their job board, which is filled with tonnes of opportunity. A clean and simple interface with quality roles makes this one of my daily check-ins.

6. Job Bank

Of course, I can’t leave out one of the authorities in UX, which has their own job section. How much more official does it get than this? UXPA has a simple job section on their site and although they don’t supply thousands of jobs, they’re always high quality. 

7. LinkedIn

I find that LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools to have at my side. Why? The interactivity and the social aspect of being able to apply for a job, research the company and even reach out to a recruiter directly. That’s powerful, and there are tonnes of UX jobs posted every day from companies we know and love. It really is a power place to search.

8. UX Design Jobs

When you’re suffering from information overload and need somewhere to scan through UX jobs quickly, head to UX Desing Jobs. Initially, it looks like a simple job site, but keep scrolling to find top jobs from leading UX job websites – all on one easy to view page. How’s that for productivity?

9. CareerFoundry’s CareerHub

This is a top one for beginners who are or will be CareerFoundry students. CareerFoundry students and mentors actually built the careers section together as a project. The advantage? It features roles and jobs handpicked by CareerFoundry’s career team for people like myself who are just breaking into the field and looking for that entry level job once they finish their course. 

Plus, bonus suggestions from the UX Mastery community

• Indeed: www.indeed.com/q-Remote-Ui-Ux-Designer-jobs.html1
• Glassdoor: www.glassdoor.com/Job/remote-ux-designer-jobs-SRCH_KO0,18.htm3
• Stack Overflow Job Board: careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/tag/ux1
• Behance Jobs: www.behance.net/joblist2
• Dribbble Jobs: dribbble.com/jobs
• Krop: www.krop.com/creative-jobs/ux-ui-designer/2
• TheLadders: www.theladders.com/careers/search1
• Angel List (startups): angel.co/jobs2
• Crunchbase (startups): www.crunchbase.com/mycrunchbase#/mycrunchbase/discover2
• Coroflot: www.coroflot.com/jobs3
• AIGA Job Board: hdesignjobs.aiga.org1
• dsgnjbs: hwww.dsgnjbs.com/4
• Hyper Island: hwww.hyperisland.com/jobs1
• Remotive: hremotive.io/find-a-job/3
• Go Remote Jobs: h/goremotejobs.com/3
• UI/UX & Graphic Design Jobs: hwww.facebook.com/groups/uiuxgraphicdesign/1

Where do you go to find UX jobs? Tell us in the comments, or let us know in the forums.

Looking for career advice? Make sure you check out UX Mastery’s career section.

The post 9 Job Boards to Find Your Next UX Gig appeared first on UX Mastery.

On January 3, 2011, I delivered the greatest usability study ever conducted. It was, truly, an incomparable study, with a detailed report that would leave academics everywhere singing its praise from the rooftops. For the first time, my college professors would have been proud of my work. The report was perfect: beautifully typeset in LaTeX, fully hyperlinked, and methodologically reproducible.

Wasted work: page ONE OF TWO on the report’s enlightening table of contents

This world-shattering report was delivered and then…nothing happened. Two years following this report, none of its original findings translated into product action. Anything that did change was the result of subsequent, duplicate efforts.

*   *   *

As a newly-minted researcher, the burning question of “why didn’t that work?” kicked off a six year journey that’s still pressing on. At a higher level, the question is about doing useful, effective work: “what does it take for research to positively influence product and design, and how do I do that?”

There’s no simple answer; it’s a broad interplay of dynamics involving people, processes, and structure. Effective research hinges on organizational ways of working and the team’s desire to learn (spoiler alert: there are times when it just won’t work). It also lies in your own mastery of the research process, technique, and ability to influence the team.

Here we’ll focus on the last pieces, charting the growth of researcher-as-individual contributor from junior, to mid-level, to senior researcher. To make it easier to assess your own progress, we’ll look at it along three axes:

1. [Thinking] Process mastery: ownership of the research process
2. [Execution] Technical competence: technique, method, and output
3. [Impact] Organizational influence: empowerment, alignment, and direction

*   *   *

The research process

A quick baseline: in terms of “doing research” (the defining trait of a researcher) we’re talking about execution, orchestration, or facilitation of the sometimes-linear process of:

1. Figuring out what to learn
2. Deciding how to learn it
3. Uncovering or observing evidence
4. Making sense of what was learned (“synthesis” and “insights”)
5. Deciding how to act on it
6. Ensuring consistent action

The process: laid bare

We use ownership of the process as a proxy for growth and maturity in the role. Your journey begins in the middle and slowly spreads outward to embrace the whole cycle: from basic mechanics and execution toward projects, program level initiatives, and higher-order strategy. It’s an exciting ride.

*   *   *

Junior researcher

A junior researcher starts with prepackaged questions or predefined methods and executes on defined units of work. It’s hard to understand potential outcomes when you don’t have clear experience that relates your execution to specific kinds of output. Each project is a new opportunity to build experience across contexts and methods to learn the types of things you’ll find and how they feed into product.

Junior level ownership

I. Process mastery

At this execution-focused stage, your questions around projects will focus on the nuts and bolts:

1. Who? – Target audience
2. What? – Method
3. When? – When do you want it?

When a product manager says “we should do a usability test” or a designer “needs to talk to customers,” it’s a chance to hone basic skills. Growth comes through experience and reflection, forcing yourself to ask “why do we want to do this?”, “what are we really trying to find out?”, and “is this the right way to get there?”

II. Technical competence

Every interview in and of itself can be a hurdle, and it’s hard to see the forest (project) for the trees (each instance of execution). As a junior level researcher, you must become competent in executing on the basics:

• Recruiting
• Interviewing
• Interview note-taking
• Interview debriefing
• Observation
• Data collection
• Surveying
• User testing
• Simple reporting

Research synthesis outputs are facts, incidents, and simple behavioral insights. You’re ready to move on when these basic pieces can be smartly combined and deployed to ensure a successful project.

III. Organizational influence

Junior researchers strive to empower the organization with insights, and answer on-hand questions. Your influence develops on the strength of that execution, and the sense of judgment that you hone as you learn what your users need and how they do their work:

• Credible reporting
• Fair, honest judgement of design and product
• Interaction-level and usability authority

Failure to have an impact (e.g. aforementioned report on January 3, 2011) is especially instructive: “It’s so clear to me that X is true, and I believe we should do Y. But nobody else sees it — what’s happening?” There’s an outside-in perspective flip that precedes growth, akin to the ideas underlying the practice of service design. It’s not about the great studies that you can do, it’s about finding out what the team needs to push work forward.

*   *   *

Mid-level researcher

By now, you’ve developed a sense for product and design, and can deliver strong, evidence-based recommendations. This speaks to a new level of technical competence (derive meaningful insights and connect them to design or product strategy) as well as influence (be seen as a respected, measured point-of-view and valid source of insight).

Mid-level ownership

I. Process mastery

Now your questions snap a level higher to organize projects and ensure meaningful output:

1. What? – What are you trying to figure out?
2. Why? – Why is this important for us to answer?
3. You recommend Who, What (method), and When

Facility with a range of methods allow you to assess trade-offs and select methods with a reliable sense of outcome. Understanding how projects run, you work backwards from expected outcomes and proactively plan your efforts.

II. Technical competence

From the project-level vantage point, you draw on well-developed basics in new ways and adapt methods to the project at hand. It’s here you take ownership over the project, working as a research partner to push design and product outcome. Mid-level growth in execution also extends basic reporting to employ more robust methods of synthesis and communication:

• Project planning
• Project management
• Structured design and research methods (e.g. mixed-method studies, progressive iterative research while embedded in a team)
• Complex synthesis (e.g., personas, journey mapping, service blueprinting, jobs to be done)

Mid-level research outputs provide rich insights and start to depict the important stories that ground, humanize, and build out meaningful context.

III. Organizational influence

At mid-level, you work within the organization to reframe team questions and incite action with results. You realize that it’s never enough to run a good project and deliver great insights: no matter how “true” or “logical” your findings, they will not promote themselves if you don’t bring the team along:

• Embed and partner with functional teams
• Empower other project teams to do effective research
• Reframe and focus research questions
• Develop a respected point of view on product-level decisions

Understanding what comes out of different research methods, paired with a keen sense of how the organization works, is the next step in ensuring positive product and design impact through research.

*  *  *

The shift from medium to senior level started in late March of 2015 when my consulting team delivered a scientific disaster modeling system for a client. They had tried to redesign an on-premise solution for the cloud, spending millions of dollars and two years shipping a system their customers wouldn’t accept. It wasn’t usable, attempted to do everything but could do nothing well, and it ignored pages of feedback customers felt were essential. Given the messy context of the project, I ran a user-centered discovery and testing program designed to force focus on the project and help pave the way for successful delivery.

During discovery with customer proxies and subject matter experts, we built a set of personas encapsulating the goals, needs, and workflow scenarios of the system’s main users. Within our client and with their top customers we socialized the persona “Daniel” as our primary target: we claimed that if V1 could solve for Daniel’s specific needs (without specifying how), all parties would see real and immediate value from the system. Slowly, with open lines of feedback and iteration, client and customers agreed that Daniel represented their core and most pressing needs. We aligned on a goal: if, by a specified date, our system could support Daniel’s target scenarios, the project’s first phase would be a success.

We tested conceptual and functional prototypes with the client’s customers, learning and iterating until real users could achieve Daniel’s core tasks in the system. The customers, especially non-user buyers, invariably piled on feedback outside the bounds our V1 scope (much like before). With clear alignment on Daniel’s needs, we could address feedback honestly and openly, maintaining focus in development: “Given what you’ve seen so far, do you believe [this input] would help Daniel with [goal] in [target scenario]?” The client and their customers came to trust and respect our team’s ability to act–or not–on their feedback with a clear lens. Phase 1 ended as a success.

*  *  *

Senior researcher

As a senior researcher, you leverage learning in new ways beyond specific project work. Organizations already spin off more data and knowledge (in nice functional silos) than any team can make use of — you look to unlock this knowledge, frame rich stories, and foster broad alignment. This is higher order impact at a ‘research program’ level that must also be balanced with project execution.

Senior-level ownership

I. Process mastery

At senior level, you look to the higher order purpose of every project, request, and activity, often suggesting your own project work based on perceived team needs. Your sphere of awareness shifts from a pure focus on user behavior, needs, and context, and must encompass the organizational reality that supports or stifles meaningful work:

1. Why? – What is our organizational and user impact?
2. You shape, reframe, or reject the entire process accordingly

Owning the edges of the process entails focus on understanding what the organization needs, and ensuring it leads to meaningful action. It’s work that may go far beyond the standard role descriptor of user research: your job is to wrest fruit from the garden of knowledge, but, if it’s not productive, you may need to shovel fertilizer.

II. Technical competence

Moving to the program level, ownership of the research process requires you work in regular partnership with other teams to employ projects strategically. Senior level technical competence is tied tightly to ways of disseminating knowledge, increasing alignment, and ultimately fostering higher order impact than any individual project may achieve:

• Centralizing customer feedback
• Wide audience communication & presentation
• Roadmap planning
• Framing and storytelling
• Workshop facilitation

Beyond insights and rich stories, senior level researcher output is alignment, shared understanding, and direction.

III. Organizational influence

At a senior level, your work introduces new language, shapes the organization’s thinking about users, context, work, and direct organizational inquiry to align with strategic priorities:

• Strategic partner to product and design functions
• Reshape higher-order processes
• Centralize and unlock existing knowledge
• Direct organizational research focus

This includes understanding how to use individual projects to inject structure and clarity into product development and turn learning into broader organizational understanding.

*   *   *

And beyond

As you follow the path of research, a logical extension of the function includes centralizing, framing, exposing, and continually communicating your organization’s point of view on the industry and the user’s needs in context. Empowering teams to learn on their own and ensuring meaningful compassion for users’ context and needs — at organizational scale — is the beginning of “and beyond.”

It does not, however, reduce the need for project-level execution; this will always remain a difficult balance. It may mean a strategic individual contributor role, building out a research function to take on the higher order work, or something else, entirely…

This snapshot is based on personal experience, researching researchers, related reading, and some light extrapolation. If you are a researcher on the journey, at “beyond,” or managing this journey for others, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Special thanks to Abhik Pramanik, Christiana Lackner, Chantal Jandard, Alissa Briggs, and the PlanGrid design team.

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