This past week has been a “week off” for me. I’ve finished work with all of my clients, and have been interviewing and looking for new gigs. Being who I am, I’ve also been reflecting a great deal on my career and where it’s taking me. I have had a ton of anxiety around what the next gig/gigs should be, which ones are “right”, and how to make a decision between them. This is, of course, a great place to be for an independent, and I am grateful for the options. There has been some key advice given to me in the past and present that has helped me to calm my anxieties and think clearly, and I’d love to share this advice here. The main point? Know where your endzone is. More specifically, know where you want to end up, the steps you’ll need to take to get there, and what success looks like when you are done.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a ton of “mentors” in my life. One in particular has been with me since my days at UCONN and is the person I always turn to for career advice. One exercise he suggested I go through was a career mapping exercise. The idea is to write down in one column the core competencies for career growth overall as well as specific to my field (examples of these core competencies include: UX knowledge, Leadership ability, Financial knowledge, etc). Then, create a time line across the top that moves out every 3 years. For each time period, I would rate on a scale from 1 to 5 my knowledge of each capability (either where my knowledge is present day or where I wanted it to be 3, 6, 9 years from now). I would also dictate, by year, the stage of my career I wanted to be in (i.e consultant with steady client list), and the steps I took to get there (i.e. networking in nyc). Some years I would grow in certain areas, some I would remain consistent. I tried to project out every 3 years until I retired which was harder than it sounds. This is a document that I look at often and try to keep up to date as my interests and abilities change.

What this exercise helped me to do was create an endzone. Every step I take in my career should somehow contribute to this endzone. Having a clear end point enables me to make decisions about career confidently. I can ask myself, does this strengthen me in the ways I’m looking to grow? Does this gig enable me to do the things I’m looking to do or at least set me up for them? Looking at the document I set up for myself and asking these questions has removed 99% of the anxiety in decision making that I’ve been facing. I know I am better prepared to drive my career and take the decision making time to focus on more important things, like concentrating on my next basketball game .

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Over the past couple of days, I’ve been helping to write user stories. For those that don’t know, user stories are the form that requirements take in some agile development methodologies. These requirements are usually (at least from what I’ve seen) a combination of business and user requirements. As myself and my coworker were going through the process of writing these stories I found myself asking the same question over and over again when validating if the story was written correctly. That question: Can someone test this story?

When we write user requirements/stories we are writing them for several different audiences. The two most important are developers and QA testers. Sometimes, however, I think that we tend to forget the testers. We want to be sure that developers can code our ideas and designs to spec, however that means nothing if they are tested improperly and are released into production in an incorrect state.

The idea behind user stories is to break down the requirements, features and intended functionality into the smallest bits possible. When you are done, someone should be able to take a story and turn it into a test case in order to test just that one piece of the pie. Writing these stories becomes an art (in a weird sense) because you want to be sure you include all the factors needed to write a test case properly. For example there is a huge different between “the user should be able to purchase the product in order to be happy” and “the logged in user should be able to purchase the product in order to be happy”. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want a bug in your system that allows non-logged in users to do logged-in type functionality. However, according to the one user story, the tester wouldn’t need to be logged in to test the functionality.

The moral of the story is when you are writing user requirements ensure that from them the developers cannot only code your designs, but that they can be tested successfully. This is a huge part of how you as the UX Designer can ensure a quality experience for users.

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I have just gotten through my first full week of UX consulting flying solo (without an agency or other a full fledge team to direct my work), and all I can say is: wow. I’ve had several revelations and reflections that I wanted to share with all of you.

First off, I say wow because, put quite simply, I LOVE this work. This type of environment is a huge part of what I’ve been missing in my career. I’ve never been so happy to go to work! There are several reasons. One, no one is responsible for me but me. I determine what I’ll be working on, and I’m the one to say whether or not it’s good enough to hand off. I feel in control of my outputs as well as my inputs. Two, the work is fun, and my team is awesome. I couldn’t ask for a better first solo gig to work on. I’m totally into the product being developed, and the team that I’m working with is super talented. Three, I get to teach people about what I do… and they listen. People are paying you to speak, to teach and to help their product and brand. Knowing that there is a timeline when you’ll be available and that you are an expert outside source completely changes people’s perspectives… well at least for now. Four, I get to use what I’ve learned and use it creatively. Because I’m calling the shots on the UX work (based on business objectives of course) I can be flexible in solving problems. This is refreshing and makes me feel like all of my hard work outside of “work” is put to good use.

Secondly, I’ve really begun to see that it’s not that serious. That any help and hard work is better than no help. Being on my own I have to realize that I’m fully responsible. For someone like me this can be overwhelming in an attempt to reach perfection. Well Lis, perfection is never going to happen. However quality, hard, informed work is better than no work at all. After each project I work on, my goal is to write what went well, what didn’t, and what I would have changed or done better. This will help me develop even more in my solo role.

I’m looking forward to working on these types of projects more and more. I feel like I’m contributing and that I’m making a difference and that is what fuels me to succeed. I can do this!

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This post is the 6th in a series I began called Reasons why your developer hates you. In this series I try to bring to light frustrations from the development world. For this week’s reason entitled “You’re not learning anything about this technology” I go back to a comment that Chris Avore made on the post for Reason #3. Check out the comment here.

Chris’ basic point is that UXers should have some sort of general knowledge regarding technology. When I started to think about this more I began reflecting on comments that I’ve heard from developers in the past. Or, simply, the look on their faces when a UXer has gone to them for the 15th time with the same question and is still not making a connection. I always tell people that in order to be a good UX designer having a technical background isn’t necessary. It is extremely helpful, but I wouldn’t call it a requirement. I would, however, say that having the ability to pick up technical knowledge is a must. And not just having the ability, but the willingness and interest as well. Here is an example:

Jane, a UX Designer, goes to Jamie, a developer, and asks her if her solution is possible. Jamie tells Jane that her design isn’t easy because of ABC. A few months later, Jane returns with a similar design, even though Jamie took the time to explain why the design isn’t easy, and asks if the design is possible. Did you even take in any information that Jamie said Jane?

Bottom line is that there are UXers out there that are highly intimitated by developers and their realm… and that is to be expected. But if these UXers brush off technology as “the developer’s job” they are doing everyone on the team AND their users a huge disservice. It’s easy to ignore something that is a challenge, but this makes the project and later similar efforts inefficient and causes the team to question your credibility, and sometimes the credibility for all UX designers and the value they add. I’m definitely not saying that you need to go out and learn to code. I am saying that you should take an interest in learning about technology and how your designs fit into your technological constraints. This is an invaluable exercise that will no only strengthen your relationship with your developer, but also strengthen the quality of your work… which can only help the end user.

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