Bridging Freelance Disciplines, Brief Interviews — Tara O’Con
“A user’s relationship to a digital interface is very similar to an audience’s relationship to a live performance,” Tara O’Con told me atTuffet in Williamsburg, Brooklyn during our first 3 Whats and 3 Whys Periscope. We asked Tara what she does, what are her goals, and what are her obstacles, and for each response, we asked Why three times.
Tara is primarily a freelance performer and choreographer. She is part of the original creative cast of the immersive theater piece THEN SHE FELL by Third Rail Projects that runs Tues-Sun nights in Williamsburg. And her own work has been commissioned and presented by several dance and theater organizations in and around NYC.
Earlier in her career, Tara had a day job in customer service, troubleshooting users’ experiences on a web site. She found herself answering the same questions over and over again and thought, “The customer experience reminds me an awful lot of an audience experience for one of my shows. They’re walking in with no context other than their own, and it’s the choreographer, performer, or designer’s job to take care of them, earn their trust, engage, and anticipate what questions they might have.”
And so she decided to add user experience design to her freelance toolkit. Her first few clients are small business owners who needed help with their web sites.
As she looks to expand her client base, Tara is running into a branding problem. How does she help potential design clients see the relevance of her performance experience? How to bridge disicplines is a question many multi-faceted freelancers face, and she’s considering taking professional development courses to add credentials to her resume. But, is there a way to sell her skills without making an investment in more education?
Watch or listen to our interview to hear Tara’s thoughts on these issues and Tweet your thoughts to Tara if you’ve wrestled with these questions yourself.
You can find Tara at http://taraoconexperiencedesign.com.
This post was originally published at brief.ai.
