Becoming UX Designer
Hi,
I’m Jeremie Kornobis, UX designer on OpenPaaS project and I want to share my journey from webdesign/dev frontend to UX designer with you.
Early Days
I’ve been living in the web domain since the early 20’s, coding HTML and CSS stuff on middle school in computer’s club.
Since then, I’ve completed an associate degree on communication and webdesign in French college, and I have chosen to live and work in a business-oriented world before my specialization.
First Touch
I started my professional life as developer in a french administration, in order to develop and deploy a groupware solution for the 100 users who’s work in. I can now see that this job has brought insight to my whole journey from a developer profile to a UX profile.
The major pain point in this project was to enroll user to the application because two generations of tools preceded me there.
One from the direction was rejected for too complex to use.
One from the syndicates was rejected for lacking of data tracking needed by direction.
I started by search a groupware matching this two keys aspect and choose the open source groupware OBM as best solution.
Then I convinced both party to use it with pre-production platform and testing users. And I actually started development of the missing part of groupware I identified: the human resource module needed by direction.
The memento
I discovered on the first review of module my big boss was colorblind.
This news make me rethink my solution development based on colors to materialize multiple type of vacancies.
It’s give me the taste to care more of what user perceived of application than feature can be have. With political dimension of the project in the company, I started to see it’s the final user, a human being, who’s accept to use my choice of solution.
So I started several month on training 80+ users on tool, who’s mostly never use electronic agenda, get feedback from them and develop new features for specific profile as human resource management but also for any user. This ended 5 year’s ago, and solution is still used since.
The best indicator of the project success for me.
The development world
I have the opportunity to work directly with the editor of groupware at the end of my first job. Meaning living my state, family and friends and mostly everything I know to move in Paris. All this in 2 month period with the difficulty to rent a place to sleep in Paris(and not much more).
There I discover what being a developer in a team means, bug tracking. Working in the roots of application let you see all the monkey patching some people do before you to make things working…
…and the one you produced and not very proud about it.
But I want to continue, in my way, to develop user experience on application. Cleaning UI from the excel look and feel to more human friendly look and develop minors features but always user centered.
Reach a limit
But I understand it’s wasn’t enough enhancements from what I can achieve in my previous job.
So I push a UI redesign matching the new product strategy. And OBM 3 come’s to life.
This Major update done, I don’t really saw what can be done next as “developer/designer, and discover the UX design concept.
I definitively understand I’m a UX designer, living to create usage and see feedback by the users of my work.
In the same time, I see the beginning of OpenPaaS project, matching the new paradigm of groupware solution: enterprise social network.
I see my new profile doesn’t match backend developer profile needed in the early state of OpenPaaS project, with purely functional conception to begin.
Time running out, see the first UI of the project based on Bootstrap, and with it the possibility to doing early UX design on it.
The switch
The two teams actually merge in one and, without hope it at the moment, I been purpose to becoming the first and full time UX designer of the company.
I start with a Business Analyst and Software tester to speak to the distinct product owners of project to a major evolution on project: switching from desktop first to a mobile first application.
I worked on it, get used to Material design Guideline just released and give strong understanding principles, and conceive the user experience of the new applications of project.
Beyond
After 1 year as UX designer, other UX designer comes in the company, working together on many subjects and helping them on external project.
So I thinks it’s time to doing my postponed specialization and started a professional training to UX design certification in the internationally famous school Les Gobelins. An opportunity unbelievable years before, matching life dream and coming true this year.
I started this training last October and gives me the confidence to talking publicly about my journey, my aspirations and thinks, as a newly UX Designer.
I already publish articles and documentation showing my effort to spread the UX inside the team and I start to spread UX Design across the company departments with UX workshops and flyers.
