Lis in 2009
Posted on December 30, 2009 in Non-work "work", User Experience by LisView Comments

As the end of the year approaches we see more and more “year end” posts and articles come through. At first, my cynical, sarcastic self thinks “gah I hate all these wrap up, year end articles!”. Then reason takes over and I realize it would probably be a good exercise to reflect on what I’ve done this year. So, here is my year in review.

Sitting back and thinking I realize that 2009 has been a HUGE year for me.

1) I went independent, which meant deciding to do UX on my own. Working for myself has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, and this year I brought that dream to life.

2) I began volunteering with the NYC IxDA. Due to this I’ve not only learned a ton, but I’ve met a slue of awesome, intellegent and talented people. IxDA has helped me to get myself out there and become part of the UX Community here in NY.

3) I spoke on my first panel (you can see me here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2600736) at this November’s New York Entrepreneur week. This was an invaluable experience that I absolutely loved doing and hope I get the chance to do again.

4) I’ve interviewed, met with, talked to, gotten advice from a LOT of awesome people. All of these pieces of advice have allowed me to start to see success as an independent worker and also as a UX Designer as a whole. A HUGE HUGE HUGE Thank You to everyone who took even a few minutes of their time to talk with me and answer my many questions. Hopefully I will get the chance to repay the favor one day.

5) I found one of my niches in the UX Community with my current UX Therapy group. These talented folks meet every week to begin to sort through the issues and good times that we find in our jobs, as well as to exchange ideas and help each other grow. I owe you guys a lot!

6) There is a ton more that I’ve accomplished this year (found the NY Tech community, attended more meetups and events that I ever thought possible, managed to function on almost 0 sleep and still made it to the gym to work out and destress) but I think the most important is that I started to believe in and have confidence in myself. I believe that everything I mention above and everything I’ve done this year has contributed to this accomplishment. All the people that have encouraged me and all of the experiences have meant and continue to mean so much to me.

2009 will go down in history as one of the best, most stressful, and crazy years of my life. Knowing that everything has been preparing me for even bigger and better things, I can’t WAIT to see what 2010 has in store. Stay tuned here to find out :-) .

Happy Holidays!
Posted on December 23, 2009 in Uncategorized by LisView Comments

As tomorrow begins the holiday that my family celebrates during this season, I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone out there wonderful holidays no matter which you choose to celebrate! Given that tomorrow and Friday are non working days for me, I’m going to take some time to plow through today and then shut down my brain for a few days and enjoy my life. I wish that you’ve gotten or will get the chance to do the same.
Look for something insightful (or at least an attempt to be insightful) next week and have a safe and Merry Christmas!

Thoughts on Agile & User Experience
Posted on December 16, 2009 in Uncategorized by LisView Comments

I don’t know that I’ve ever written about this topic before, but it is one I’ve definitely done a great deal of thinking on. Most of my thinking was done a few years ago while at a company that was just implementing agile as a development methodology. My gears started turning again when, yesterday, I came upon David Farkas’ article on this topic: How UCD and Agile can live together.

I love the way that he begins to define and categorize the different terms and phases within this realm. One thing, however, that I think is missing (and may not be appropriate for this article) is the idea that UX is ideally always iterative and therefore should fit pretty well into an agile environment. Otherwise, I mostly agree with the Phases that the author defines. Having a UX strategy is what I believe makes the entire process work. There needs to be solid ground (the purpose and overall “how” in this case) for the entire team (both UX and dev included) to stand on, in order to move quickly, efficiently, but with purpose.

I’d love to hear your take on the article and/or my comments on it. What is he missing? What did he get right?

Also, if you’re in the NYC area and are interested in this topic don’t forget to check out the Agile Experience Design meetup. Great discussion going on there!

Reason why your developer hates you #5
Posted on December 9, 2009 in Tech, User Experience by LisView Comments

A few weeks ago I started a series on Reasons Why Your Developer Hates You. Check out the first post and others to get some ideas on the reasons I’ve brought up. Today is reason #5 why your developer hates you: “we don’t like when you make us do work”.

I got this statement from a developer colleague & friend in what I thought was a joking manner. And I think it some respects it was meant as a joke, but then when I started thinking about it further it made a lot of sense. I don’t think the phrase, however, captures it all.

We’ve gone through several different reasons why your developer hates you, and those all contribute to today’s point, which I think is a very valid one. Think of it from a UXer’s perspective. You’ve been a part of this team, done a ton of work brainstorming, contributing ideas, forming strategies and solutions and then, after finding at least some success you move on to a different focus. Out of nowhere you get an email or call…. “I need you to update the *insert deliverable here*. Bob thinks that we should do XYZ instead.” There are many different examples for what I’m trying to demonstrate, but basically someone, somewhere has decided that the solution that everyone has agreed upon needs to be changed. This can be a good thing in our view if it’s based on user research, new information, etc. However, when it is based on opinion or “gut feel” then it’s extremely frustrating.

I’m going way out on a limb with this one, so developers *please* provide feedback. But I’m assuming that this is parallel for developers. How so? This is a little bit harder to grasp, but as we’ve talked about before, developers have standards & best practices that they follow in their field as well. When we come to them with a change that is based on opinion (even if it is not our own) then it screws up the whole vision they have for their solution (sounding familiar). This is causing more work yes, but it is also causing “useless” work. Work that will need to be redone later on to improve this solution, which was put in place to improve another solution, and so it goes. But if we brought forth a change based on system research (i.e. I think this will decrease page load by 1 second based on this article) I don’t know that there would be this overall feeling of “stop making me do work”, because this work would not be “useless” but would prove helpful and be based on some sort of background and knowledge.

The idea that someone is mad because you make them work is valid, but not someone who’s hugely talented like my friend that proposed this idea. There has to be something there that isn’t contributing to the greater good that makes someone feel put out.

So I would love to hear thoughts on what you think it is… developer or UXer or both. Why do developers, better yet talented professionals in general, hate when you “make them do work?”