Diving into UX
It seems as if everyone I talk to about my new career in tech has the same sage advice: Jump in.
I’ve always had trouble with this. When I was four years old, I knew how to swim well. I had been around water since I was a baby, but I didn’t want to dive in. I wasn’t scared of the water. I knew how to swim. I wasn’t scared of the deep end. I swam there all the time. I was afraid of the in-between — that time when your feet aren’t firmly on the ground or in the water.
The in-between space is scary for me. I need to have a grasp on what I’m doing. Feet on the ground. Check. Feet in the water. Check.
My parents tried to get me to dive into the pool, but I was stubborn. They took me to a swimming instructor who offered me a veiled threat: I could dive off the diving board or he would throw me in. I quickly marched up to the diving board and dove in. It seems I preferred to be in control more than I feared diving.
So although this sound advice to jump in seems like common sense, it scares me. I’m frozen at the end of the technology driving board, arms raised showing the world that I do in fact plan to dive in . . . just give me one more minute. I plan and read and research and read again. I do all of this while I stand, feet firmly planted on the diving board, staring at the water, at the possibilities.
Discovering User Experience Design
I’ve been going to a variety of meetups that discuss JavaScript, front-end development, women in technology, and user experience (UX) design. At a NOVA UX meetup, the speaker mentioned that UX included several areas: design, research, testing, and writing.
Naturally, the word writing sparked my interest. I knew that graphic designers fit well with UX/UI, but I wasn’t aware until this meetup that psychology and content writing also play a large role in the field.
This connection was again confirmed when I attended a Code Writer’s Workshop. I spent the entire day jotting down notes on JavaScript and front-end development — trying to decode this new language — until Kara DeFrias, the keynote speaker, caused me to put down my pen and listen.
She was a captivating speaker, but that was only part of the reason. She was also an English major who kept saying yes until she became a user-experience expert.
Her story and journey resonated with me. But, unlike me, she jumped in without overthinking or fearing the unknown. She had called into check the inner voice that doubts.
My inner voice still makes me hesitate: “I’m a writer who is . . . ummm . . . thinking about maybe becoming a developer or UX designer.” But I left that keynote determined to silence that voice and take a leap into UX.
Learning the Basics of UX
The more I discovered about UX, the more I realized that it combines my love of people and how they tick with creating content. So I started testing the water by reading the UX classics:
Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things
Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think
Content Strategy
Besides learning the basics (e.g., sketching, personas, wireframes), I am focusing on content strategy, research, and UX writing.
I recently participated in Mike Donahue’s UXPA webinar on UX content strategy, and he emphasized the importance of creating content that informs the design, not vice versa.
UXers, he argues, should design to deliver content. He compared this process with designing a drinking glass. You don’t design the glass and then figure out the beverage — the content. Instead, you design the glass to enhance the content.
Positioning UXers as strategic thinkers and including content in every step of the process reduces the amount of iterations and changes the conversation.
My First Interactive UX Workshop
After the webinar, I was even more excited about UX. My head was racing with ideas and I hungered for more. This excitement temporarily silenced my doubtful inner voice because without too much hesitation, I shed the weight of the girl who just stands on the diving board hesitating and I dove in. No threats needed.
And I didn’t just dive. I did a somersault. (Okay, it wasn’t a perfect 10, but it wasn’t a belly flop.)
I attended an interactive workshop on voice-user interface (VUI) and designing an Alexa skill.
I walked into the room of approximately 50 UX designers, and in a team of four, I voiced my opinions about the use case we were making for our Alexa skill.
I even challenged a woman who held firmly to her notion that the user would share her exact experience. I gently reminded her that others may have a different experience, and we needed to decide on our target user. In the end, our target user became this woman. Let’s call her Peggy. (Personas are important and allow us to empathize. See, I’m getting the hang of this.)
I’ve learned that compromise is key, and she was insistent that Peggy was the targeted user, probably because she felt comfortable staying in the shallow end rather than venturing into unknown waters. So I chose my battle: I let Peggy become our persona, and fought instead to remove some wordiness in our use case. (Who wants a long-winded conversation with Alexa or Siri!)
This workshop also reinforced the importance of voice and word choice, which are topics I have studied and taught for several years. Drawing on Paul Grice’s maxims, the presenters emphasized that UX designers must be concise yet powerful with the content and that the sentence structure must match the context.
The structure of a college essay, for example, differs from the way one speaks, so designers need to keep this in mind with VUI. The goal is to make artificial intelligence mimic the way humans naturally talk to avoid frustrating the user.
In the words of Krug, don’t make them think.
Saying Yes to Opportunities
Even though I’m excited about starting a career in UX, I will continue to code. In fact, the one thing I’ve learned is that knowing design makes you a better developer and coding makes you a better UX designer. Knowing both areas allows for better communication between teams and a better end product, which is the ultimate goal of any company.
The organizer/planner in me wants to have a clear path with detailed steps along the way, and to some extent, pursuing UX writing while also learning JavaScript provides me with a framework. But the part of me that needs a clear route is the one who often stands frozen on the diving board, so I’m embracing DeFrias’ advice to always say yes to opportunities.
The image of the girl who stands afraid on the diving board is replaced with this one: The sun glistens on a woman as she takes three steps toward the end of the diving board. Her hands no longer hang unsure at her sides. Instead, they shoot straight up beside her ears, pointing toward the sky, toward opportunity. As she reaches the end of the board, she dives with her eyes wide open into the pool of possibilities. Before she hits the water, she whispers, “Yes,” and she smiles to herself.
Originally published at blog.lindseynphillips.com on August 25, 2017.
