#this is what happens when my literal ux design job does not give me enough tasks to entertain me

[antlerknives]

currently working on the early stages (ie. user research) of a spotify user interface redesign as a personal portfolio project and i am ridiculously excited about it

[spacecadetspe]

A snippet from last year…

Jun. 29, 2023

Still no sign of a suitable job. Mom says if I don't have one by the time I leave, she'll help pay for further education, like a UX-UI boot camp. I wouldn't mind. Learning new languages and designs is pretty interesting to me. The thing is, a lot of the field is saturated at the moment. Getting a certificate might be a good thing, though.

Cheese and crackers, I need to consult my cards again. I have no idea what direction I'm supposed to go in from here. Maybe I'll talk to my aunt about trying to get published. I've got manuscripts galore to work with, one of which has already been completed. I'm sure it won't be a whole lot of money, but it'll be something I can work with. Maybe I ought to get back in touch with my former contacts about doing audiobooks. I used to love reading stories. Again, it's not a fortune, but it'll be something I really enjoy doing, and I can make future contacts in the field.

I figured I would be resting more at the Archipelago, considering the things that have been happening lately. W is testing his boundaries more, usually while I'm not around, and it seems to be having a negative effect on Fortitude. Mom mentioned that W plays a little too rough with her, and I mentioned it to Fortitude and his first reaction was the equivalent of "Does everyone have a problem with my parenting?" To an extent, I understand. W doesn't have a lot of people he can roughhouse with, since he's one of the biggest boys in his age group, so he plays rough and wrestles with Fortitude.

I quickly put that ego to bed though. I told him I didn't actually want him to change the way he treated W. The kid enjoys being able to play freely like that, without worrying that he'll hurt someone. He gets so guilty when he does that I'm well aware that it really is just innocent play. I just asked Fortitude to remind W that not everyone likes to play rough, and some people are more delicate than others.

Fortitude is perfectly willing to accept personal responsibility for the things he does. But when it comes to having parental conversations like these, he's lately been taking my information-gathering a bit personally. And granted, my mother and family aren't always going to agree with how I choose to parent my kid, but by and large I think we have reasonable standards set up. The kid says he has chores, and he occasionally does, but what he describes as chores is just his morning routine; make the bed, take a bath, brush his teeth, and Lysol the doorknobs and bathroom counter (I'm so tired of getting sick every time he comes over).

After another conversation with Fortitude, I reminded him that W has another parent who doesn't give a shit about personal responsibility or boundaries, which is why we do what we do. We're meant to guide him, to show him how to walk the path, and no one is going to do it for us. His father and his sycophant girlfriend sure as fuck aren't going to help.

I tried to call Fortitude out for being so sensitive about this; he should know I'm not constantly out to get him. And carrying the weight of his ego on top of literally everything else is exhausting.

Besides that, instead of spending more of my time in the Archipelago, I've been joining Morpheus and Vassilios on the front lines, protecting the Dream World. Looks like the Oni have taken an interest in us, this time. Morpheus said they were there in the name of conquest or resource gathering or whatnot, but my position is firm; they can come in and participate on our terms, or they can leave us alone. But it looks like that wasn't a good enough answer for the Oni, so they challenged us. Not the best idea, as you might guess. Ten percent of their initial forces left with their lives.

So it was with a certain heaviness that I trudged through my day, feeling the expectations of all the people that needed me. Fortitude needs me to check his ego more often, and when I call him on it, he's too tired to acknowledge the needed change. I don't blame him, but there's a part of me that is so tired of carrying the load for others.

Part of the reason I tend to isolate myself is that I feel like I don't belong. I reach out as often as my energy will allow, but when it comes to managing the chaos around me, sometimes it all feels like a giant weight on my shoulders. I want someone else to reach out for once. I'm already exhausted by my job hunt, the death of my grandmother, the betrayal of my friends, my divorce... I can't handle this anymore. I can't handle the responsibility for anybody else's ego, trauma, or reactive impulses. I want someone else to do it, to pick up the slack and tell me I don't have to hold on so tightly anymore.

And Phantasos did that. Phobetor did that. It was so heavy yesterday that I was almost physically sick with the effort. So I reached out to Phobetor, who I'd been keeping distance from. I can't believe how easy it is, when you're desperate. And he was there in an instant, closer than I remembered... I'd been waiting for him to reach out, but it never occurred to me that he was waiting for something, too. Stars, I've missed him.

And last night, I went back to the Archipelago. I invited Morpheus, but I doubt he came. Phantasos says he doesn't dissociate much. I got invited into a studio of sorts, where the oneiros was a bit embarrassed about his collections of posters... all of which had been promiscuously modified. I recall him shoving a microphone into my hands and ushering me back out, probably as an attempt to recover whatever dignity he had left. But luck is on his side. I don't have any interest in shaming him, and if at some point I see my own face on his wall... well, I suppose that might be an opportunity for me to explore later.

[renzocarlos]

How to Make People Wanna Be Like You

I like to describe myself as a ‘bibliophile,’ a lover of books. But that love only applies to the commercial fantasy genre. Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon, the New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist, is probably the first non-fiction book I ever thoroughly enjoyed—or finished reading without the need to force myself. This little book (with dimensions smaller than a piece of Kleenex tissue) offers ten transformative rules to motivate creatives to come out of their shells and reach out to others so they can get discovered and become an inspiration to an audience.

Photo: AustinKleon.com

Back in September, I read an insight by customer experience expert Gerry McGovern that stuck with me ever since. He argues that “digital is mainly garbage.” Simply put, almost everything you post online is pretty much filler, so get straight to the point. This mindset literally evolved the way I write moving forward, focusing only on what needs to be said then deleting everything else. And Show Your Work! does precisely that.

One of the reasons I’m uninterested with non-fiction is that I find they often discuss something completely different, resulting in hundreds of redundant pages. Show Your Work!, on the other hand, keeps it short by talking about relevant and essential details and ideas; each line of text provides something valuable. The book is over 200 pages, yet Kleon holds your attention by adding various illustrations, quotes from known artists, and blackout poetry. If I could, I would recommend it to a friend by telling them just to read the whole thing. I marked the pages containing interesting points with a sticky tab—and there’s practically one on every other page that includes the main content.

Photo: Flickr

Show Your Work! is an aesthetically pleasing book mostly aimed at visual artists, designers, and other creatives. Still, there are a lot of pieces of advice that can be applied to any career. Speaking as an interactive media management individual, I combined all my learnings into three key takeaways:

Don’t Hog Information

When chocolate chip cookies were first invented around the 1930s, the baker Ruth Graves Wakefield didn’t take the recipe to her grave. Instead, she shared it with the world, allowing it to continue existing in food places and everyone’s tummy many decades later. This sweet, hunger-inducing analogy links to Kleon’s advice to not be a hoarder and share your knowledge with the world. “The act of sharing is one of generosity—you’re putting something out there because you think it might be helpful or entertaining to someone on the other side of the screen,” he remarks.

Everyone has something to contribute in their respective fields, whether they’re just starting or have been in the game for a long time. Share valuable and educational information you use to grow your career. Provide links to blogs, articles, resources, and tutorials. When you share something with someone, chances are they’ll share with you back.

Teaching someone that knowledge is even better. If you’re not well-rounded about the subject matter or confident enough to do so, then that’s okay, too! There’s always someone else who can do the teaching for you. Be helpful; it’s enough to point the people one step behind us in the right direction.

Forget thinking of it as losing your competitive advantages. “Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work,” Kleon says. “People feel closer to your work because you’re letting them in on what you know.” So give away your treasured trade secrets and out-teach your competition. There’s always knowledge to be shared, and benefits we can reap by doing so. Let’s not waste it.

Connect with People

Great, you just learned about a free event where they teach all the exciting things about UX. But who do you share it with? Your network, of course!

People who attained great accomplishments in their lifetime didn’t do so by shunning the world. “Lone genius is a myth,” writes Kleon. So get out there and reach out to people. The relationships you make and the people you meet can help you become successful.

Networking is the perfect opportunity to gain access to the fundamental resources and experiences that will further advance your career. Having connections with all sorts of professionals is beneficial. But searching for the right people who hold the same interests as you is what substantially impacts your craft.

Humans tend to desire meeting others they identify with. As Kleon puts it, “These are your real peers—the people who share your obsessions, the people who share a similar mission to your own, the people with whom you share a mutual respect. There will only be a handful or so of them, but they’re so, so important.” Find someone who is passionate about typography or idolises Don Norman as much as you then do your absolute best to maintain that bond.

It’s hard to admit but it’s true: you can’t do everything by yourself; you need to collaborate with others. The good news is that you don’t need to be the perfect candidate in your profession to network. All it takes is having something to offer and the ability to share your knowledge.

Get To Work

Excellent, you now have a network of people who can share their expertise with you and provide support on your work. But there’s no work for them to look at if you’ve done nothing.

There comes a certain point when you need to pause making connections and start doing. When describing the people he looks up to, Kleon notes they “...aren’t schmoozing at cocktail parties; they’re too busy for that...Instead of wasting their time ‘networking,’ they’re taking advantage of the network.” Stop spending too much of your energy searching for every little piece of knowledge you can get. By using your current resources and dedicating time to do well on what you do, others may come to you for your wealth of experience.

Overnight success is a myth. Achieving goals through hard work and perseverance isn’t. Your dream job at Google isn’t going to be handed to you the instant you receive that certificate or diploma. “Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams,” TV writer Shonda Rhimes once said. “But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.”

Photo: Zen Pencils

[nancydsmithus]

15 Questions To Ask Your Next Potential Employer

15 Questions To Ask Your Next Potential Employer

Robert Hoekman Jr

2019-09-20T12:30:59+02:002019-09-20T10:34:39+00:00

In my book “Experience Required”, I encourage in-house UX professionals to leave companies who refuse to advance their UX intelligence and capability. There are far too many companies these days who understand the value of UX to waste your time being a martyr for one who will only frustrate you. Your best chance of doing a good job is to avoid a bad position.

Smartly, during a recent Q&A about the book, an audience member asked how we can avoid taking these jobs in the first place. What kinds of questions, he wondered, can you ask during an interview to spot red flags before the company stabs the whole flagpole into your sacred UX heart?

Know What You Want To Know

There’s the usual stuff, sure, such as asking why the position you’re applying for is currently open. What the company’s turnover rate is like. Why that turnover rate is so low or high. A little Googling will easily enough net you a decent list of broad questions you can ask any employer.

But what you really want is to get UX-specific. You want to hone in on precisely what your life might be like should you take the position.

Your best chance of doing a good job is to avoid a bad position.

“

Sadly, I lacked a great answer at the time to the question about interview questions, so I let it eat at me until I woke up at three a.m two days later and started writing notes. That morning, I emailed my reply to the moderator.

Ask A Great Question, Then Shut Up

To devise the list below, I considered what kinds of things I’d wish a company knew and understood about UX prior to working with them. I can operate in all kinds of situations—as a UX and process innovation consultant, this has been my job, and pleasure, for nearly 13 years now—but I want to know from the start, every time, that the effort will be set up for success. These questions aim to uncover the dirty details that will tell me what I’m walking into.

Much like a good validation session or user interview, these questions are open-ended and designed to draw out thoughtful, long-winded responses. (One-word answers are useless.) I strongly recommend that when and if you ask them, you follow each question with a long, stealthy vow of silence. People will tell you all about who they are if you just shut up long enough to hear them do it. Stay quiet for at least ten seconds longer than you think is reasonable and you’ll get the world.

People will tell you all about who they are if you just shut up long enough to hear them do it.

“

I’d ask these questions of as many individuals as possible. Given that tech interviews are often hours-long and involve many interviewers, you should be able to grab yourself a wealth of good answers before you head out the door to process and sleep.

If, on the contrary, you are given too little time to ask all these questions, prioritize the ones you’re personally most concerned about, and then consider that insufficient interview time might be a red flag.

Important: The key to the answers you receive is to read between the lines. Listen to what is said, note what is not said, and decide how to interpret the answers you get. I’ve included some red flags to watch out for along with each question below.

The Questions

Let’s get right to it.

1. How does this company define UX? As in, what do you believe is the purpose, scope, and result of good UX work?

Intent

Literally every person on Earth who is asked this question will give a slightly, or wildly, different answer than you expect or hope for. At the very least, the person interviewing you should have an opinion. They should have a sense of how the company views UX, what the various UX roles have to offer, and what effect they should have.

Red Flag(s)

The UX team has a very limited role, has no real influence, and the team, for the most part, is stretched so thin you could put them on a cracker.

2. How do the non-UX people on your product team currently participate in UX decisions? Follow-ups: Describe a recent example of this kind of participation. What was the UX objective? How was that objective vetted as a real need? What did you do to achieve the objective, step-by-step? How did it turn out? What did you learn?

Intent

Find out how the entire product team approaches UX and how collaborative and supportive they might be in acquiring and acting on good research insights.

Red Flag(s)

They don’t participate in UX decisions.

3. What UX roles exist in the organization, and what do they do?

Intent

Determine where you’ll fit in, and how difficult it might be for you to gain influence, experience, or mentorship (depending on what you’re after). Also, build on the previous question about who does what and how.

Red Flag(s)

UX people at the company are heavily skilled in graphic design, and not so skilled in strategy. The current team members have limited influence. Your role will be similar. Strategy is handled by someone else, and it trickles down to the UX team for execution.

4. Who is your most experienced UX person and in what ways does that experience separate them from others?

Intent

Determine the range of UX intelligence on the team from highest to lowest. Is the person at the top whip-smart and a fantastic leader? Does that person mentor the others and make them better?

Red Flag(s)

The interviewer cannot articulate what makes that person better or more compelling than others. If they can’t answer this question, you’re speaking to someone who has no business making a UX hiring decision. Ask to speak to someone with more inside knowledge.

Noteworthy, but not necessarily a red flag: If you learn that the most experienced person on the team is actually someone with a very sleight skill set, this can mean either there’s room for you to become an influencer, or the company puts so little value on UX that they’ve selected only employees with a small view of UX. The latter could mean you’ll spend all your time trying to prove the value of bigger UX involvement and more strategic work. You may like that sort of thing. I do. This would not be a red flag for me. It might be for you.

5. What are the company’s plans for UX long-term? (Expand it? Reduce it? How so, and why? Is there a budget for its expansion? Who controls it and how is it determined?)

Intent

Map out your road for the next couple of years. Can you rise into the role you want? Or will you be stuck in a cul-de-sac with zero chance of professional growth?

Red Flag(s)

We plan to keep doing exactly what we do now, and what we do now is pretty boring or weak. Also, we have no budget—like, ever—so if you want to bring in a consultant, attend a seminar, hire another person, or run a comprehensive usability study with outside customers, well, good luck with that.

6. How do UX professionals here communicate their recommendations? Follow-up: How could they improve?

Intent

Learn how they do it now, and more importantly, whether or not it works.

Red Flag(s)

The interviewer has no answer, or—far worse—has an anti-answer that involves lots of arm-waving and ideas falling on deaf ears. The former can, again, mean the interviewer has no business interviewing a UX candidate. The latter can mean the UX team is terrible at communicating and selling its ideas. While this can be overcome with your much better communication skills, it will almost certainly mean the company has some baggage to wade through. Poor experiences in the past will put other product team members on defense. You’ll have to play some politics and work extra heard on building rapport to get anywhere.

7. Who tends to offer the most resistance to UX recommendations and methods and why? Follow-up: And how much power does that person have?

Intent

This person will either give you the most grief or will give you the great opportunity to improve your communication skills (remember: design is communication!). Knowing who it is up front and how that person operates can tell you what the experience will be like.

Red Flag(s)

Executives, because they distrust UX. If you lack support at the top, it will be a daily struggle to achieve anything substantive.

8. What do UX practitioners here do to advance their values and methods beyond project work? Please be specific.

Intent

See how motivated the UX team is to perpetuate UX values to the rest of the company and improve how the team works.

Red Flag(s)

They don’t.

9. What do you think they should do differently? Why?

Intent

Discover how your interviewer feels about UX. This is, after all, a person who has a say in hiring you. Presumably, this person will be a big factor in your success.

Red Flag(s)

Keep their noses out of product development, stop telling the engineers what to do (speaks to perception of pushy UX people).

10. Describe a typical project process. (How does it start? What happens first? Next? And then?)

Intent

Find out if there is a process, what it looks like, and how well it aligns with your beliefs as a UX professional.

Red Flag(s)

You’ll be assigned projects from the top. You’ll research them, design a bunch of stuff in a vacuum with no way to validate and without any iteration method, and then you’ll hand all your work to the Engineering team, who will then have a thousand questions because you never spoke to each other until just now.

Bonus Question

How and when does the team try to improve on its process? (If it doesn’t, let’s call that a potential red flag as well.)

11. How has your company learned from its past decisions, and what have you done with those learnings?

Intent

UX is an everlasting experiment. Find out if this company understands it’s supposed to learn from the work and become smarter as a result.

Red Flag(s)

No examples, no thoughts.

12. If this is an agency who produces work for clients: What kind of support or backup does this agency provide for its UX recommendations, and how much power does the UX group have to push back against wrongheaded client ideas? Follow-ups: How does the team go about challenging those ideas? Provide a recent example.

Intent

Find out how often you’ll be thrown under the proverbial bus when a client pushes back against what you know to be the right approach to a given problem. Your job will be to make intelligence-based recommendations; don’t torture yourself by working with people who refuse to hear them.

Red Flag(s)

The interviewer says the agency does whatever the clients demand. You will be a glorified wireframe monkey with no real power to change the world for the better.

13. How does the company support the UX group’s work and methods?

Intent

Determine how the company as a whole thinks about UX, both as a team and a practice. Is UX the strange alien in the corner of the room, or is it embraced and participated in by every product team member?

Red Flag(s)

UX is a strange alien. Good luck getting anyone to listen to you.

14. What design tools (software) does your team use and why? Follow-ups: How receptive are people to trying new tools? How does evolution happen?

Intent

Know what software you should be familiar with, why the team uses it, and how you might go about introducing new tools that could be better in some situations.

Red Flag(s)

Gain insight into how the team thinks about the UI portion of the design process. Does it start with loose ideas drawn on napkins and gradually move toward higher-quality? Or does it attempt to start with perfection and end up throwing out a lot of work? (See the next question for more on this.)

15. Does a digital design start low-fi or high-fi, and what is the thinking behind this approach? Follow-up: If you start lo-if, how does a design progress?

Intent

You can waste a lot of hours on pixel-perfect work you end up throwing out. A company who burns through money like that is also going to be the first one to cut staff when things get tight. No idea should be carried through to its pixel-perfect end until it’s been collaborated on and vetted somehow, so you want to know that the company is smart enough to start lo-fidelity and move gradually to hi-fidelity. Hi-fi work should be the result of validation and iteration, not the start of it. A lo-fi > hi-fi process mitigates risk.

Red Flag(s)

All design work starts and ends in Photoshop or Sketch, and is expected to be 100% flawless and final before anyone sees what you’ve produced.

Running The Interview

In an unrelated Q&A years ago, a hiring manager asked how to spot a good UX professional during an interview. I answered that he should look for the person asking all the questions. I repeated this advice in Experience Required.

Now you can be the one asking all the questions.

And in doing so, not only will you increase your odds of being offered the gig, you’ll know long before the offer shows up whether to accept it.

If you, dear reader, have more ideas on how to scavenger-hunt a company’s red flags, we’re all ears. Tell us about it in the comments below.

(cc, il)