My SxSW2012 Proposal
User Experience Design has become one of the most sought after skill sets for startups and enterprise software companies alike, drawing a great deal of interest from people outside the field. Many people, however, don’t know what it takes to become one, and many don’t even know where to start.
Overview
Unlike traditional talks, this one is drawn from a real life case study of a young recruiter at TheLadders who decided he was passionate about product design, and specifically wished to learn how to become a user experience designer. Starting this past May, we have worked together weaving a unique syllabus of reading, research, hands-on experience and the practice of ux craft across the disciplines of information architecture, interaction design, content strategy and usability testing.
Drawing from my article “7 Steps to a Kick-Ass UX Portoflio,” we have intentionally designed his mentorship so that he can ultimately get a job as a user experience designer. To better understand the needs of his audience – in this case recruiters and hiring managers, I required that he read Steve Mulder’s excellent book – “The User is Always Right.” Then he was sent out to interview key people including recruiters and ux hiring managers to gain a better understanding of what their needs, goals, desires, and pain points during the hiring process. Most of this wasn’t new to Caleb, since he is actually a recruiter responsible for sourcing ux talent at TheLadders; the company we both work for; but this process allowed him to craft personas that would help guide us crafting his mentorship so that he could gain the types of skills, expertise, and knowledge that hiring managers care about.
My talk will present a this framework for mentoring which includes how to structure the learning of ux theory, process, and more importantly, craft and best practices for those interested in either becoming a mentor, or becoming a user experience designer. My talk will present this unique journey which Caleb and I have undertaken – treating his career transition as a worthy design problem in and of itself. We’ll provide this case study with complete materials as well as the journal that Caleb kept along the way to becoming a user experience designer.
Stay tuned for more!
Resources
7 Steps to a Kick-Ass UX Portfolio