Own Your UX Education
I’ve only ever been in one fight in my life.
It was in fifth grade and Jimmy Mazza did something stupid to make me mad.
So I did what any fifth grade boy who wanted to look tough in front of his peers did–I challenged him to a fight…
After school…
Three o’clock.
The clock struck three and there was Jimmy waiting on the field with what looked like an entourage ready to see us go fisticuffs. Jimmy looked almost too eager to be there.
I go up to Jimmy, not knowing what I was doing, or what I’d do.
We exchange words, and he starts coming at me.
You know what I did??
I started retreating.
After field-trotting backward a hundred feet or so, Jimmy gets closer to me and all of a sudden I see his right arm wind back and his knuckle sandwich coming right at ‘me Gulliver’ making contact with my face…almost like it was destiny. The contact was accompanied with a loud THWACK not unlike the sound made by a husky Uncle at a pentecostal church service.
I stop. He stops. I stand there caressing my face in complete and utter shock. I can still see my reaction in my mind’s eye. It must’ve looked exactly like, “I didn’t think you would actually hit me Jimmy! I just thought I would jog backwards away from you the whole time!
I’m actually glad he hit me, I must’ve looked ridiculous!
I walk back to the bike racks hanging my throbbing head in shame still processing what just happened, while Jimmy (being hailed as a champion by my classmates) got to hold his up (even higher) on his way home from school that day.
What does this have to do with owning your UX education?
Nothing. I just thought it’d be an interesting way to start the article! ;)
No, I do have something in mind.
I had the recent privilege of being a panelist at General Assembly Denver’s #DesignInTech event. Of all the interesting questions asked by the graduating students, the one that stayed with me the most was from a young lady.
She asked,
“How do I continue to further my UX education?”
Isn’t this the $100,000 question these days? Businesses want “experienced” designers only. “Rockstars” and “Ninjas” are still being asked for (despite the unfortunate monikers) in job descriptions.
The reality is, no “Rockstar”, “Ninja” or “Unicorn” started that way. They began as apprentices who were given the golden opportunity to eventually become journeymen. Someone (not unlike our Creator) saw in them not who they were at that given moment–but who they would eventually become.
I love superguest Dan Mall’s recent talk about this. He said it perfectly:
“We should replace the internship with the apprenticeship.”
We ought to see what people will become and give them a chance to get there. We ought to hire for attitude, and train for skills. We ought to have more leaders like Dan Mall.
The hard truth unfortunately is that this notion (especially in corporate culture) is somewhat of a pipe dream. Most are more concerned with “synergy”, “low-hanging fruit” (old people body parts?) and “moving the needle”.
So, what do we do?
Remember the young lady who asked how to further her education in UX? This was my answer:
Own your education.
- You must get your hands dirty
- Read A LOT
- Listen to podcasts
- Go to great industry conferences
- Go to local meet ups
- Find a mentor
- Look into practitioner training like NN/g or Interaction Design Foundation
- Practice what you do
- Start a side project
- Speak & write about what you know (best way to learn something is to teach it!)
Be relentless like Ling Lim and persistent like Chris Coyier. Both are great examples of owning (and sharing) their education, and not letting anything stop them!
You’ll be that much further ahead when that golden chance is given to you.
Even if you’re a seasoned pro, you may find yourself interviewing with legends like Zeldman (Legend of Zeldman?), or Chris Coyier, or the guy who writes the #DesignInTech reports (John Maeda) himself for example.
My 15 yo son Brian (who’s almost as big as me, I’m 6’2”) is training in Brazilian Ju-Jitsu right now, and could probably get me in a submission hold without ever having to throw a punch if he wanted to. He’s owning his education on how to defend himself.
If I (like my son) had taken the time to prepare before the 5th grade and owned my “after-school man” education…I would’ve had Jimmy Mazza wetting his pants in a submission hold.
But I didn’t. I threw myself in the fire completely unprepared and unaware of what I was getting myself into…and I failed.
More importantly…I learned to own my crap.
It may (or may not) come as a surprise to you, but my highest level of formal education is a GED. I, like many of you reading this (and frankly many in our field) am a self-taught designer for the most part. While I have a couple of certificates (sitting in a box in my garage), I had to dive in head first in the deep end when I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I didn’t depend on others. I owned my education, and got myself to the place where I could get my foot in the door somewhere where I was empowered to grow into a journeyman, and eventually a master.
Even after I first got my foot in that first door, it didn’t take long for my non-“rockstar” experience to be discovered. I almost lost that job. I told my boss I’ll do anything to stay there and he suggested enrolling in some classes. I owned my education and went to those design classes every night after work for a year and a half.
This field has been good to me. I’m not blowing my nose with Benjamin’s, but have always been able to comfortably provide for my wife and now six children.
So while I still don’t know how to fight…I have learned (and continue to learn) how to fight for my users!
And that’s enough for me.
I encourage you wholeheartedly to continue to do the same!
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” — Archilochus
