Many UX practitioners learn by doing and researching on the fly. This approach can also help those who want to develop their careers, who feel stuck in a narrow role when job postings seem to be looking for unicorns. Kate draws on her own experience and that of her peers.

1. UX circuit training
For any fitness level
*
@katewilhelm
*

2. Logistics
*
@katewilhelm
*

3. What we’ll cover
 Who are we?
 The UX bits
 Owning your career
 UX resources
 Leaving with a plan

4. How we’ll work
 Informally
 In groups
 Toward a plan

5. Metaphor alert!

6. Metaphor alert!
 No metaphors were harmed
 …but a lot were used
 …and mixed
 Try to count them
 Collect the whole set!

7. What you’ll have at the end
 Ideas, resources, and strategies
 A playbook with your game plan
 Some energy and momentum (I hope!)

8. Who are we?
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@katewilhelm
*

9. Who are you?
 How much UX?
 New?
 Repositioning?
 What draws you to it?
 What do you want to get out of this?

10.  Information architect at
BlackBerry for 7 years
 Led User Experience group
 Love UX (there, I said it!)
 Do this career stuff myself
What about me?

11. Recipes tested in the Kate
kitchen!
http://www.thekitchn.com/

12. Little exercise
 Make a title page for your book
 Write down a statement that captures what
you want
 Share it with your group

13. Here’s an example…
 I want to work in a role that is
 Collaborative
 Challenging
 Strategic
 And lets me learn
 In an environment that is open and decent

14. The UX bits
*
@katewilhelm
*

15. UX is a house
elezea.com
Rian van der
Mervwe (via
Garrett):
Structure with
research
foundation

16. Nope, it’s a honeycomb
Peter Morville: Aspects
of UX as facets
semanticstudios.com

17. Here, let’s try this one…
benmelbourne.files.wordpress.com/

18. benmelbourne.files.wordpress.com/

19. UX designers
 Ben Melbourne:
UX Designers focus on the structure and layout of
content and how users interact with them. They don’t
normally (but can) try to be perfect from a visual
perspective.
 Trip O’Dell:
We solve problems for people with technology or
services.

20. Another way to look at it
 Trip O’Dell framed it nicely:
 Storyteller
 Artisan

21. Storyteller
Radical generalist who is really curious and likes
to engage with stakeholders, users, and develop
a vision:
 Empathetic
 User-focused
 Strategic
 Research

22. Artisan
…sweats the details whether it’s the easing in
an animated transition, the polished comp, or
the pixel-perfect CSS and assets that go from
prototype to final shipping product:
 Intensely focused
 Passionate about craft

23. UX deliverables
 Again from Mr. Melbourne:
The types of deliverables they produce include site-maps,
user flows, prototypes and wireframes.
 These depend on the problems you’re solving
 Activity: If any of these are new to you, write
them in your book

24. Discussion:
 Where do you fit?
 I fit in research and design
 I influence visual design
 What interests you?

25. Activity: Get it on paper
 Take a minute to write it down:
 Where you fit
 What interests
you

26. Example: Here’s what I did
 Research
 Myers-Briggs
 Skills Inventory
 Overkill?
 Maybe
 But it reinforced my decision

27. Career
*
@katewilhelm
*

28. What do recruiters want?
 Someone is likely filtering on keywords
 Looking for
 Experience
 Deliverables
 Accomplishments
 Not surprising…

29. What do recruiters,
managers, & peers want?
 Objectivity, openness, and self-awareness
 Ability to present ideas clearly and
confidently (good client manner)
 Willingness to collaborate and listen to ideas
 Ability to speak to the process

30. People who are…

31. People who aren’t
 Arrogant, egotistical
 Deceptive
 Dramatic
 Unwilling to compromise

32. Put simply…
 Care and be interested
 Communicate well
 Keep a sense of humour
 Don’t be a jerk

33. Career strategies
 Own it
 Formalize it
 Document it
 Stay current
 Work with crushes
 Don’t get comfortable

34. Career strategies
 Lather
 Rinse
 Repeat

35. Own it! Strategies
 Who do you want to own your career?
 Define what you want
 Done! (for now)
 Create a plan
 Use strategies
 Create opportunities

36. Or my mantra…
 Make your own sauce
www.theoatmeal.com/

37. Create opportunities
 At work
 Find gaps, identify needs
 Get stretch assignments
 Outside of work
 Volunteer
 Make your own assignments

38. Example: Here’s what I did
 On a few occasions
 Saw a need
 Asked for a mandate
 Did the work
 Built credibility
 For IA and UX work

39. Opportunities: Examples
 Pro bono: Charity or cause
 Your resume and portfolio
 Make it a design problem
 Include the career book you’re working on
 Tackle something that has always bothered
you

40. Create stories
 Think about your process
 Keep the artifacts
 Have a story to tell about
 Successes
 Challenges
 These are things you can share

41. LinkedIn
 Join before you even worry about your
resume
 Get inspired by other profiles
 Find jobs that are only posted there
 Be there for recruiters to find

42. Letting it percolate
 Which strategies look
good to you?
 What might get in your
way?
 Internal
 External

43. Activity
 Write down a few strategies that you could
start next week

44. Resources
*
@katewilhelm
*

45. Activity
 As we go through these resources:
 Write down the ones that feel like a fit
 Mention ones that you’ve found useful

46. Education
 Cognitive Science
 Human Computer Interaction
 User Experience
 Information Architecture
 Information Science

47. A note on education
 Attack of the feral professionals
 The Unicorn Institute
www.aledlewis.com/

48. The Unicorn Institute
 Skills gap:
 Presenting
 Facilitating
 Critiquing
 Storytelling
 Sketching
 Professionalism
 Leadership
*Sound familiar?
Soft skills!

49. Training
 Adaptive Path UX Intensive
 Cooper UX Boot Camp
 Follow the UX Leader (CanCon!)
 Human Factors International
 Nielsen Norman Group Usability Week

50. Conferences
 Adaptive Path UX Week
 IA Institute IA Summit
 IxDA Interaction
 User Interface Engineering UI 18
 UXcamp Ottawa
 UXPA Conference

51. Conferences
 And Fluxible, of course!

52. Organizations
 UXPA
 IxDA
 IA Institute
 uxWaterloo
 CHI (in Toronto in 2014!)

53. Mentoring
 Through a group
 At work
 Local
 Remote
 Be one too
 Good things happen

54. Websites
 A List Apart
 Bill Buxton
 Boxes and Arrows
 Johnny Holland
 LukeW Ideation and Design

55. More websites
 Nielsen Norman Group
 Smashing Magazine
 UX Magazine
 UX matters
 Whitney Hess: Pleasure and Pain

56. Twitter
 Lots of conversations
 Can see who others follow
 Can use lists
 Example: I have lists of
 Local web and UX
 IA and UX

57. Twitter is useful

58. Twitter is a conversation
 It’s easy to forget it’s a conversation….

59. Twitter: A sampling
Steve ‘Doc’ Baty
@docbaty
Livia Labate
@livlab
Dan Saffer
@odannyboy
Kris Mauser
@krismausser
Patrick Neeman
@usabilitycounts
Christina Wodke
@cwodtke
Jeff Parks
@jeffparks
Peter Morville
@morville

60. Twitter: A further sampling
Alan Cooper
@MrAlanCooper
Whitney Hess
@whitneyhess
Eric Reiss
@elreiss
Beck Tench
@10ch
Steve Portigal
@steveportigal
Luke Wroblewski
@lukew
Dana Chisnell
@danachis
Kristina Halvorson
@halvorson

61. Books: Cognitive Science

62. Books: Interaction Design

63. Books: Sketching and
iteration

64. Books: Design

65. Books: Usability

66. Books: Process/activities

67. Activity
 Which 2 books do you go to?
 Defend!
 Discuss!

68. Here’s my UX starter kit:

69. Leaving with a plan
*
@katewilhelm
*

70. Activity: Set goals
 Write down 3 goals for
 Next week
 Next month
 Next year
 3 years from now

71. Activity: Define activities
 Write down what you should do
 Weekly
 Examples: Read websites, record accomplishments
 Monthly
 Quarterly
 Yearly
 Example: Revisit and refine goals

72. Activity: Quick check
 Look at your activities
 Look at your goals
 Make sure your activities get you there
 If they don’t, you need to rethink something

73. Suggestion: Get meta!
 Planning, researching, and prioritizing are
part of UX
 Treat these as deliverables:
 your book
 your planning and learning process
 Same with your resume

74. Speaking of meta
 Part of my process for this presentation
 Could share as a portfolio piece

75. What now?
*
@katewilhelm
*

76. Let’s ruminate
 What was
 New
 Surprising
 Bad
 Useful
www.friendsofkootenay.ca

77. Parting thoughts
@katewilhelm
*
 Own your career
 It’s what you do and how you do it
 Process
 Artifacts
 Relationships

78. Soft skills really matter
 Not just what, but how

79. It’s worth repeating…
 Care and be interested
 Communicate well
 Keep a sense of humour
 Don’t be a jerk

80. Final thought
@katewilhelm
*
Cory Lebson
It may be scary—
Do it anyway

81. References
@katewilhelm
*
 Cory Lebson: These are my people: The Value in
UX Organizations
 Monique Valcour: Craft a Sustainable Career
 Nick Finck: Starting a Career in User Experience
Design
 Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman: Lone Geniuses or We
Intentionality?

82. Peer support shout-outs
@katewilhelm
*
 Trip O’Dell
 Kimberley Peter
 Diana Wiffen
 Kristina McDougall
 Mary Pat Hinton
 Steve Baty
 Mark Connolly
 Susie Simon-Daniels
 Larry Cornett