Updates to my 2015 UX Book
It’s been a year since General Assembly and Grand Central published my book The Practitioner’s Guide to User Experience Design, and so I thought I’d post a few updates and new thoughts.
From the comments
Update 1: The title should be more clear about the introductory level
What better place to start evaluating a UX book than with comments from the readers? As of today the book has a Goodreads score of 4.1 out 5 stars from 29 raters and 8 reviews. Not bad! Certainly better than I’d give it, but I’ve always been hard myself. Goodreader Lucas Terra gave it a ★★☆☆☆ after reading, though he mentions me working at NYT which I have never done. He thought “the book felt quite shallow/introductory to the theme,” and I couldn’t agree more. On the other hand, I recently met someone who made an entire career change using just my book! That blew me away but she was just the kind of reader I hoped to reach.
Update 2: Include stories from other people (product managers, designers, marketers, developers, my co-teachers, etc) to fill the gaps
Pia, also from Goodreads who averages 2.34 stars (and gave me 3!), says “examples were quite mobile app focused.” I constantly felt this would be an issue and the imposter syndrome loomed heavy as I plotted down stories and annecdotes from my mobile centric career. But alongside the added experiences of others in the field I would stress that the UX process is the same regardless of technology: learn, make, show, learn, make, sho…
My experiences since 2014
Update 3: Include some framework for making decisions by evaluating variables presented by coworkers, subject matter, and technology
Since submitting the manuscript I transitioned to a dedicated UX research roll with Yahoo, taken on freelance projects for startups, agencies, and multinationals corporations, spoken at conferences in Stockholm, Amsterdam and Mexico City, expanded my teaching role at Parsons, and became a full-time UX instructor with General Assembly which included starting the immersive program in Singapore.
“More examples” is the obvious update to a book like this but I’d also want to include more “it depends” disclaimers. Students moan when they hear the refrain but since experiencing more working environments, some of the existing examples in the book fall flat. The goal of this change would be to prevent readers from seeking axiomatic recommendations, and encourage constant truth-driven sluthing when presented with a problem.
Update 4: Add a chapter on practical advice for new professionals
Workflows, negotiating salaries, performance evaluations, how to do your taxes as a freelancer and other practical advice is sorely absent in the book. Industry professionals wiling to answer these personal questions while sitting on panels in my class always elicit Oohs and Ahs, and then the students react.
The cutting room floor
Update 5: Put the games back in!
Thank my editor for sparing you an entire chapter on video games. In fact the original manuscript was 70K words longer than the published book, but this here’s my post and ain’t no one gonna edit me! So here it is in it’s entirety, Chapter X.
Update 6: Work on sub-section structure, eliminate ALL passive voice, write an actual conclusion, add more visuals, and refine my writing voice across the board — strive for conversational!
I still like the general structure of the book, 5 chapters broken up into my background in literary criticism and information science, a picture of the holistic UX process, why its important to avoid unnecessary UI innovations, and how all members of a team from CEO to customer service rep play a role in shaping a user’s experience. The writing however leaves much to be desired.
New thoughts on the field
Update 7: Expound on the original UI concepts and user research I’m most proud of that are currently lying dormant in my Dropbox
I think I can contribute the most original thought to the UX field in news and media products because it’s where I’ve spent the most time as a practitioner. My favorite place to start conversations with media companies around their user experiences is on the topic of Voice & Format. A few examples: VICE has a distinct voice in a familiar format, blogs encourage unique voices in a (then) new format, Instagram/Twitter/FB impose format while remaining agnostic to voice, and the Buzzfeed listicle uses a unique format whose success depends on a distinct voice.
The other area I’d like to contribute more thought to is prototyping and usability testing. These are probably the most saturated areas of expertise in our field but thats because they’re the most tangible, malleable, and valuable to a business. Paper prototyping is still #1 for me as my latest mantra stresses (validate at low fidelities), but new tools make it easier to push out higher fidelity work. I see students getting absorbed in prototyping work the most because it can be quite fun, but that is a pitfall. I’ll forever be citing Stephanie Houde’s What do Prototype’s Prototype to help students not waste time building something complex while trying to answer a question that can be validated with a simple sketch.
Update 8: Include student work from the likes of Lauren, Vina, Talisa, Jenny, ngee, Touna, Sanam, Alivia, Scott, Katie, Melissa, Grace, Jean, Jeannie, Samira, Marga, Nina, Ning, Maureen, Erica, Purwa, David, PJ, Ruohan, Sophie, Andrew, Carolyn, Jen, Vivek, Mike, ES DEE BEE, James, Ny, Zoe, Wei-Li, Darvinder, Talia, Cynthia, cynthia_wx, Will, Stephanie, Michael, Angela, Naaja, Atin, Ebenezer, Lana, and Andy.
Not because they were better than any of the rest (I love all my students equally), but because they taught me the most. If we’ve spoken in the last year you’ve probably heard me say something like “I finally took the sage advice of doing what gets me excited to wake up in the morning.” I’m of course talking about my switch to becoming a full-time teacher while consulting and freelancing part-time. The work my students do makes me so proud, I’d find this update difficult to put to words.
