Last year, I wrote a post wrapping up the career accomplishments and experiences that I had in 2009 (read Lis in 2009 for more). This year, I wanted to take a different approach for my last post of 2010. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to take a break from pretty much everything. During this time, I’ve been thinking about and reflecting on where I am in my career, and where I want to be this time next year. I was able to come up with some pretty good places to focus my attentions and I’m proud to say that I’m in a great place going into the New Year.

Which is exactly my point of this post. Have you taken the time to review your year? Have you asked yourself what you’ve accomplished vs 2009 and have you reached your goals? AND have you done some thinking about where you want to be this time in 2011? I think, that this is important to do. Whether you take 5 minutes or 5 hours to do some thinking, it’s a huge step to predicting and desigining your 2011 experience. That’s what our careers and life are afterall, just one big user experience, except in this instance we are the user. So take the time to craft your experience based on your tasks, needs, and wants… you’ll be amazed about how much further along you’ll be… and how much happier as well.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ever use a business application (i.e. ERPs, CRMs, Inventory Management) and think to yourself “why is this experience so awful”? Maybe I should ask have you ever used a business application and NOT thought that to yourself. Well the folks over at Software Advice want to get your feedback. They have put together a survey of Ten Consumer Web UI Themes that they think would be useful in business applications, and they wanna know which UI Theme we most want to see. So, go ahead on over to their post and take the Survey and let’s help make these apps better!

We hear this debate all the time… people either can or cannot be strong at both visual and UX design. My personal opinion on the situation is that someone can be strong at both, but that having one person play both roles on the same project is not the ideal situation.

Several months ago I came across an article on UX Booth about Decoupling Usability and Visuals and I couldn’t help but see how the author’s point of view relates to this debate.

In the article, the author talks about pulling apart the visuals from the usability in order to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of both. I would agree, and I would argue that pulling them apart is much easier and efficient when there are two different people representing each role. This pulling apart is a huge part of making a design, and further, a product or site successful for the user. When that pulling apart is done by the same person, one would assume that biases towards one or the other would appear, and the solution would be weighted one way or the other… either towards the visuals or towards the usability.

By having separate minds pull apart these two intersecting points, a more pure and holistic solution can be found. A balanced compromise can actually be achieved, one that will end up being better for the user.

So, give the article above a read and let me know what you think. Whether you are someone that agrees or disagrees or even if you’ve found further research on this point. I’d love to hear more from you!

Throughout my travels and chats, I find myself consistently surrounded by someone of this tremendously awesome UX community… I know, I’m lucky right?? Anywho, one of the things that I’ve noted is that many of us believe that we are just not good enough at what we do (including myself). In this post I want to highlight and debunk some thoughts around the lack of self confidence I’m noticing.

First, a lot of times we just have a general lack of confidence in our work. We believe that we don’t really know UX Design as well as some of the big names, and because of that we are just not that good at our jobs. So, I started thinking… who is it that I think is good enough at UX Design, and what am I doing differently than them. Now, experience levels are always different and I understand that. But at the foundation of this profession, how is what I’m doing different and “worse” than the people that I look up to? I think that this is an important question to ask yourself. What really are you doing differently? Is there anything that sets you apart? Russ Unger debunks this thought in his presentation Opening the Kimono. Take a look at the slides, is there anything in there that looks completely foreign to you? For most people, I would guess not… I would guess that Russ and the guys used the same process and deliverables as all of you. Therefore we ARE doing the same things, and have no reason to think that we aren’t “good enough”. Our process and deliverables might need shaping, but they are the same.

Which brings me to point number 2 if the things in that presentation or others do look foreign to you, what are you doing to change that? If you really aren’t good enough, or think you aren’t good enough, what steps are you taking to be better? There is a ton of information and knowledge out there that can increase your talent, so if you aren’t going out and finding and absorbing it it means that you don’t really think you need to at this time OR that you don’t have the time because you are busy doing UX Design. I never again want to hear “I’m not good at this” (or say it) without hearing “I’m not good at this so I’m doing ABC to get better”. There is always an action to take if one truly believes that they need to take it. AND if you are already taking an action to be better than have faith in your work ethic and the output of your efforts!

So the formula to seeing and believing in your abilities as a designer is to 1. look at those around you that are doing what you think you should be doing and ask yourself where are the gaps between them and me and then 2. close those gaps by educating yourself, working harder, etc. By doing those two simple steps, you should be able to gain more self confidence in your abilities because either you are working towards closing the gaps, or you realize that the gaps weren’t ever really there. Interalize the good work that you are doing to be better, or the work that you do in your day to day work life. We are all contributing to the greater good of making the world a better place for our users… believe in your part!

Lately, I’ve been meeting with several friends and colleagues who are interested in starting a blog, and all have been hesitating to make it a reality. In my loose research, I’ve found that the majority of them are all hesitating for the same reasons. In this post I want to highlight those reasons and debunk them in the hopes that more of us will get out there and share our ideas.

Let’s start off with the reasons that I have found that people are not blogging. In no particular order they are:

1. I don’t have anything to say.
2. Someone has already said what I have to say OR I think that someone has probably already said the same thing, and said it better than I can, so why bother?
3. People will think that I’m an amateur, that I’m annoying, an idiot, etc.

Let’s start the debunking of these ideas with a general context setter. The first thing that I would do (and did do) when I wanted to improve my blog and my writing was to create an experience theme. Defining an experience theme for my blog allowed me to not only stay on target with the type of content I was writing, but it also helped me to determine the tone of my writing. So, you might be curious as to what they theme of my blog is. It is simply put “Lis’ experience in the world of User Experience”. Everything I write here is something that I’ve gone through, thought about, experienced, etc within the UX field. This helps me to stay on topic and ensure that I’m creating a holistic experience with my writing. To read more about experience themes and how to go about creating one, be sure to check out Cindy Chastain’s article on Boxes and Arrows: Experience Themes.

Now to the debunking…

Reason 1 – I don’t have anything to say. This, is just not true. If you do any work in any field, you develop thoughts and experiences that are worth sharing. Just because what you have to say might not redefine your field, or change the Earth’s angle of rotation, doesn’t mean that you have nothing to say. What you mean is “I have nothing earth shattering to say”. And guess what… neither do alot of successful bloggers, including myself. What I say here doesn’t change the world, it’s simply what I think, experience, feel, or observe. What makes it interesting (hopefully) is that the audience can relate to it, reflect on it, develop an opinion on it, and move forward with that knowledge, reflection or opinion. So, you have a lot to say, it may not be earth shattering, but it’s there… trust me.

Reason 2 – Someone has already said what I have to say OR I think that someone has probably already said the same thing, and said it better than I can, so why bother? Let me ask this: Who cares if someone has already said it? People have written a million posts on Agile and UX, but that doesn’t stop me from writing about it, because I want to voice my opinion… even if that opinion has already been voiced. Writing a blog is about my take on things, not about surfacing completely new information all the time. If new information is all people wrote about then there would be a lot less blog posts in my Google Reader every day. I read posts with similar content to posts I’ve already read to get someone else’s point of view. So, if you aren’t blogging because someone else has already said what you have to say, then you are lying to yourself. Because there is only one you, and that means that nobody could have said your point of view for you. Be brave and let it out!

Reason 3 – People will think that I’m an amateur, that I’m annoying, an idiot, etc. Please tell me, who are these prestigious people that you get to read your blog? These people that you believe are all knowing and that would, for some reason, look down on what you are writing. Tell me, because I would love to get their readership here. I rarely get negative comments about what I write, and I don’t think that people look at what I write, disagree with it, then think negatively of me as a practitioner. Even if someone disagrees with my opinion, they still respect that I had the guts to post it in the first place. Also, who do you think is so important that is reading your stuff? What makes them know so much more than you? I know that when you first start posting, you feel almost naked. You hit that publish button and think “oh my gosh, what if people don’t like this?”. Well, if your blog is so popular, even though you haven’t been writing that much, that you have people instantly going to your site to read a post as soon as Publish is clicked, can you please email me and let me know how you got the traffic that you did. Because honestly, especially when you start off, the only people that are reading our friends, colleagues, and family anyway. Those people already respect and appreciate you, so they won’t think you are an annoying or idiotic at all. And if people do, even after your readership has expanded, then who cares? It’s your opinion right? For every person out there that is negative I bet there are 10 people out there that admire your courage.

So, I know this has been a long post, but hopefully I’ve gotten my point across. That is, there is no reason not to blog if you have the desire to do so. Yes, it is scary, but that fear is not based on any reasonable fact. Today, we have debunked the majority of those fears and have shown that they are ludicrous. You do have something to say, it doesn’t matter if others have said it because they are not you and you have your own opinion, and people will not think you are annoying or idiotic because most don’t have the courage to write themselves and admire that you do.

Knowing what we know now, we can go out and share our ideas with confidence. After all, how else will these ideas get out there, and how else will we be able to share them with each other? I love other people’s ideas… share them now so that I can take them in and love/argue them… please! Now, go forth and write.