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Karen McClellan
Karen McClellan

961 Followers

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Published in Modus

·Aug 12, 2019

How to Project Manage Your Own UX Portfolio

5 steps to help you stop pushing pixels and start telling a story — This cotton candy video making the rounds on Twitter immediately reminded me of my portfolio: Me: Stuffing hours and hours of work, sweat, and tears into case studies My Portfolio: Nothing to see here, just a tepid pool of gray sugar water Building a portfolio is hard for two…

Design

5 min read

How to Project Manage Your Own UX Portfolio
How to Project Manage Your Own UX Portfolio
Design

5 min read


Published in RE: Write

·Aug 12, 2019

Best Advice I Got in Design School

(Just in case there aren’t enough opinions floating around) — This week, I’m wrapping up an accelerated grad program in product design at CMCI Studio, so naturally I’m reflecting on the end of an era with all the attendant nostalgia, regrets, and gratitude. Here’s a collection of the best advice I’ve been given this year. Some of it I’ve lived…

Design

4 min read

Best Advice I Got in Design School
Best Advice I Got in Design School
Design

4 min read


Published in Modus

·Jul 23, 2019

The Art of Being a Maker

An engineer-turned-creative technologist talks about the practices of problem-solving and creative thinking — In this world that is so focused on impact, it’s hard not to put all our focus as creatives on that end product and its ROI. But what we make is only an outcome. How we make a thing is more important in many ways — it shows how gritty…

Design

7 min read

The Art of Being a Maker
The Art of Being a Maker
Design

7 min read


Published in RE: Write

·Jul 23, 2019

How to Write Your First Product Requirement Document

Plus the resources you need to get started — I’m writing a product requirement document (PRD) for the first time, and I’ll admit, I didn’t know quite where to start. But I did know one thing: I knew that I was skeptical of such a time-intensive, technical document. Before I came back to grad school, I was a project…

Agile

3 min read

How to Write Your First Product Requirement Document
How to Write Your First Product Requirement Document
Agile

3 min read


Published in RE: Write

·Jul 3, 2019

The Elusive UX Research Process

(Since there’s not one, I made up a framework instead) — UX designers identify as problem solvers, because we’re always breaking big problems down into smaller, step-wise problems and solving them one question at a time. A big part of solving problems is just understanding the problem really, really well. And that, my friends, is called UX research. …

UX

5 min read

The Elusive UX Research Process
The Elusive UX Research Process
UX

5 min read


Published in RE: Write

·Jun 27, 2019

Solutions Are Easy, Problems Are Hard

Spend the time figuring out what’s actually wrong — A professor once told me, as he was evaluating one of my early UX design projects, “You’re not wrong, you just could be more right.” And then he told me to dig deeper into the problem I was trying to solve. Notably, he didn’t tell me to bang my head…

Design

3 min read

Solutions Are Easy, Problems Are Hard
Solutions Are Easy, Problems Are Hard
Design

3 min read


Published in RE: Write

·Jun 19, 2019

My Favorite Color Is the User

On changing the rhetoric of design — We all know that cliche meeting, where you walk in to pitch design, intent on getting feedback on fundamental product design and its impact on key user needs, but someone won’t stop talking about the fonts. Or the grayscale of the wireframe. Everyone thinks they’re a designer. Whether they are…

UX

2 min read

My Favorite Color Is the User
My Favorite Color Is the User
UX

2 min read


Published in RE: Write

·Jun 18, 2019

A Love Story about Dabbling

What you find in unexpected places — I’m strongly drawn to any metaphor that helps explain me to myself, so it’s no wonder the Enneagram fascinates me. According to that framework, which supposedly describes your most inner motivation, I am an Enthusiast. A person who seeks out whatever is new and exciting. A person who lives in…

Design

2 min read

A Love Story about Dabbling
A Love Story about Dabbling
Design

2 min read


May 4, 2019

Prototyping in Code

When wireframes just aren’t enough — I built an app prototype with code. I needed to test an interactive feature set that lets users visualize their current mood by personifying a blob. Javascript seemed like the best way forward. It was also a great chance for me to push my front-end dev skills. If you just…

JavaScript

7 min read

Prototyping in Code
Prototyping in Code
JavaScript

7 min read


Published in Modus

·May 3, 2019

Leadership Is a Matter of Mindset

Being a good UX designer requires leadership, and how you ‘show up’ is key — When we talk about UX education, it’s easy to get stuck on the technical or the strategic. But there’s something more. If we, as budding UX designers, hope to succeed in a field that is so dependent on hearing what others have to say — our clients, our users, and…

UX

5 min read

Leadership Is a Matter of Mindset
Leadership Is a Matter of Mindset
UX

5 min read

Karen McClellan

Karen McClellan

961 Followers

Product Designer, Reader, Writer

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