How being a TA helped me become a better UX Designer
Once upon a time…
I had a dream: to learn UX/UI Design. After 3 intense weeks of bootcamp I was already saying to the Lead Teacher: “Can I become a TA (Teacher Assistant)?”.
It seemed too early but that was a growing desire. Helping my colleagues was something that came naturally to me and I believed that was my next move for 3 reasons:
- Consolidate/practice the tools and the Design Thinking process;
- Practice UX Strategy so I could manage it afterwords by myself;
- Learn basics on how to teach;
- Help my future students achieve their goals, sharing my experience and empathizing with them.
“Can I do this?” I thought…
At Ironhack the mindset is basically to fail fast. I had the opportunity to test and learn with and from the students.
Different cohorts = different needs
In a bootcamp is important to understand what’s most valuable for the students to learn depending on their necessities as a group.
We provided different workshops and materials having into account their feedback and what they needed.
Reinforcing specific tools, organizing team buildings when they were most stressed, organizing our weeks having into account their needs to stop and giving them the necessary free time to work.
Being a TA is an ongoing work for those who look at students as their main concern and are not afraid to test, get feedback, iterate and try again to provide them with the best experience.
Research Methods
Surveys
As UXers we research with our users to understand the main pain points and how may we improve their experience. We learn from them. So every week we send a survey with that purpose and implement changes in the next week based on that and whenever possible.
Since this is constant I also think that gets to a point where it could be biased. You’re asking the students to point problems so they will always do so instead of looking at the solution and the improvements. So caution with this one!
Retrospective
These are super fun. They really helped me iterate about what we did and what we could improve. It also makes you think of what went right and appreciate your own work and growth!
We used The 4Ls: Liked, Learned, Lacked, & Longed For:
- Liked: What did you enjoy the most? What surprised you positively?
- Learned: What new technical or non-technical skills did you learn during the process?;
- Lacked (internal factors): What could have been improved by the team during the process? What did you miss?;
- Longed for (external factors): What did you wanted to have during this process but couldn’t? What was unavailable and you think could be a plus or made your life easier?
Check other more fun retrospectives from Atlassian:
1 on 1
We used these in 2 formats:
- To receive students’ feedback;
- Go give feedback to the students.
Since we were 4 (1 Lead Teacher + 3 Teacher Assistants) we organized ourselves to provide precise and valuable information so they could understand and actually act on it. For example: saying that they are super nice is different from letting them know that is important to check on their alignments and use rulers for that purpose.
Learning
Everyone mentions how amazing it is to be a TA after finishing a bootcamp because you get to do it all over again.
You consolidate the tools and the process of course but not from the lessons. The students are my priority and working for them involves hard work. I couldn’t pay attention to most of our lessons. So you may ask: “How did you improve your skills then?”.
Workshops
They say that teaching is the best way to learn and guess what? They’re right. Deciding that you want to lead workshops helps you think of how you would like that subject to be introduced to you, so go to its roots.
A good example is the Daily UI. We give the students a screen for them to copy for 30 min every day so they can train their User Interface skills. This seems simples but you have to consider:
- Presenting them different tools and knowing how to use them (Adobe XD, Sketch and Figma, in this case);
- Browsing for easy, medium and difficult challenges for them to copy;
- Understanding at what point they are on their learning path. We’ve presented not only hi-fi but also asked, for example, for them to reverse that process and work on that hi-fi’s mid-fi.
So this involves you working on a whole bunch of tools and knowing how to use them. Also, thinking and finding the best and easiest way for them to understand how that works.
You can do this by searching on Behance and Dribbble for apps and dividing them by difficulty.
Remember the “alignments” example I gave early one? Here it is:
The first image is the original one. The second is the one done by the student. This is a way I found to correct horizontal alignments on Sketch and send it to them so they could have the right perception.
You can check another workshop that I gave to them (related to Case Studies since my background is also related to Content Management) down below.
Classes
Presenting a fresh new topic for a class is refreshing. Is knowing that the way you explain a whole new different concept for them will have an impact later on. So… a lot of responsibility. You need to be prepared not only to present the most important elements but also to be ready for questions.
On the bootcamp we learn by doing so sometimes the theoretical part may be a little bit harder to explain. We present examples on how to do it but it’s important to know how did it all started and why you do it like that. That equals studying the subject to a point where you feel comfortable enough to share it with them.
Helping out the students
Doing a bootcamp as TA is almost as stressful as doing it as a student. It’s not a regular job at all. You feel their pains as your own most times and you’re there for them not only for technical questions but also emotionally.
Since we’re all in our first year yet there’s a lot we’re not sure about yet so we also have to check existing tools, find new ones, explore Sketch/Figma/Adobe XD new releases.
Final Projects
I’m highly sensitive and sometimes I feel like I empathize too much with other people. So as you may imagine whenever faced with final projects in a fast-paced environment you get stressed. Super stressed.
But having to deal with such different personalities and kinds of reactions to stress was amazing for me to start to understand how to deal with it.
If you feel like this, please read my tips here. You should take care of yourself first to take care of others:
My main purpose as a UX/UI Designer is to empathize with stories that have their own needs and emotions related to them. I believe that with more and more experience I’ll be a better and more balanced empathizer.
Conclusion
It was without a doubt one of the best experiences of my life. I want to keep learning because I want to keep sharing it with others. It’s so rewarding.
Nowadays I can say that I’ve met amazing people that I’m sure will grow into whatever they want to be. But for now, amazing UX/UI Designers.
And always remember to Test > Fail > Fail better.
