Perhaps it’s simply the wishful thinking of a James Bond fan (I have all of the movies on DVD), but I find it interesting and useful to compare what I do to other lines of work. For example, last year, I compared user research to ghost hunting.

What can we learn from James Bond?

In both occupations, an expert is brought in to solve a problem. In one case, an evil madman and his deformed henchman are threatening to destroy the Middle East oil fields with a nuclear weapon. In another case, an electronics company wants to redesign its order management software. In both of these critical situations, we investigate the problem by conducting background research, questioning people, and observing behavior. We overcome obstacles to get to the truth and eventually conquer the problem.

Get the Briefing

After an exciting opening action sequence, Bond meets with M, the head of MI6, to learn about his new mission. M gives him the background of the situation, profiles of the people involved, and a direction of where to begin the investigation.

In user research, our M is usually the project manager or the salesperson –the individual who has had the most contact with the client during the sales process. It’s a good idea to have an internal meeting to get all the details and understand the project before the official kickoff meeting with the client. The last thing you want your team to do is go in unprepared and uncoordinated in your first meeting with the client.

Do advance research

Before engaging the enemy, James Bond examines exisiting documents and photographs, gathering background and situational information.

In user research, it’s also important to do advanced research to understand the client and the project. Examine the current interface, background documents, and talk with people familiar with previous research. You can ask the client and stakeholders better questions and you can better understand their answers if you’re well informed before the first meeting.

Don’t rely too much on technology

Bond meets with Q, the technology expert, to get the latest gadgets. And sure, the cool cars and laser watches are fun, but they only give him a slight advantage. Most of his success is due to his own wits, dexterity, and fighting skills.

Likewise, researchers need to be familiar with the latest user research technology (audio and video recorders, cameras, online testing tools, etc.), but the most value comes from people – both those you interact with and you through your skills, knowledge and effort.

Get help from others

We tend to think of James Bond as a loner, but in truth he gets a lot of help from other agents (i.e., CIA agent Felix Leiter) and by allying himself with others (i.e., Pussy Galore, Octopussy, Vesper Lynd, etc.).

User research can be conducted alone, but it’s much easier to have a partner to help you with note taking, handling the equipment, and providing another perspective. In fact, two is the ideal number of people for user research. In addition to helping run the sessions, a second researcher or designer is someone you can collaborate with to understand the findings and discuss solutions. Two heads are often better than one when you’ve both witnessed the same research sessions firsthand.

Get out into the field

James Bond doesn’t sit at a desk in a command center, observing spy satellite images and listening to communication monitoring devices. Even though that’s how a lot of espionage is conducted today, Bond knows that the most useful knowledge comes from being out in the field, talking to people and observing them in person.

Similarly, a lot of user research today is conducted in a usability lab, remotely through web conferencing and screen sharing software, and through unmoderated, web-based tools. But, like espionage, the best information is gained by going out into the field to talk with and observe people doing their usual tasks in their natural context. There’s no better way to understand users and their needs than by seeing their everyday jobs firsthand.

Observe remotely when you can’t get out into the field

In addition to going out into the field, James Bond can use remote surveillance, satellites, and listening devices to gather information.

Unlike spying, we have to get participants’ permission, but we can conduct usability testing and even contextual inquiries through web conferencing and screen sharing software. It may not be as good as being there in person, but it’s better than not being able to do any research or limiting the research to only the people we can travel to.

Spy on people

As a spy, Bond surreptitiously observes suspects. The advantage is that he can see what people naturally do when they don’t know they are being observed.  They don’t act differently; as they would if they knew they were being observed.

Obviously, it’s not ethical for user researchers to spy on people in private locations. We have to get informed consent from participants, which requires us to tell them about the study. The problem is that knowledge of being observed affects behavior. There’s no getting around this dilemma; it’s just something that we have to accept and take into consideration.

Neverthless, we can learn from James Bond in leading discreet observations of people in public places. Unlike spying in private locations, there’s no law or ethical rule against simply observing people in public sites. Remain incognito and observe what people do naturally when they don’t know they are being watched. Take note of the environment, the interactions between people, the artifacts involved, and the problems they encounter.

Interrogate the right people

In addition to observation, James Bond gets much of his information by questioning people –using force if needed.

Obviously, user researchers can never use force (however tempting that may seem sometimes), but interviewing is a key method for gathering information. Start by interviewing your clients and other stakeholders to understand the current situation, the business needs, and the goals for the project. Although observation of natural behavior usually gives you better insights than asking people about what they do, it’s still important to ask questions to clarify your understanding of what you’re seeing.

Report findings to headquarters

Because he’s out in the field and could get captured or killed, Bond periodically updates M at headquarters about the progress of his investigation. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know what was going on with the investigation.

A user researcher is often out in the field conducting research, doing analysis, and creating deliverables. Weeks might pass between reviewing the final research plan with clients and the final presentation of the research findings. Without knowing what’s going on, clients sometimes wonder why research takes so long. Providing periodic updates makes your client and team feel like progress is being made. It also keeps them involved in the research, which makes them feel more invested in the findings.

Avoid capture and escape death

At some point during every mission, Bond gets captured and set up for an elaborate death, whether it’s to be cut in half by a laser, attacked by sharks, eaten by crocodiles, or burned alive by rocket exhaust. After the villain explains his entire plan and conveniently leaves the scene, Bond narrowly escapes.

Although we rarely come across evil villains, we sometimes do get challenged by a particularly difficult client or stakeholder. With these people, it’s important to keep your wits about you to avoid getting injured. At other times, we get captured by long-winded and opinionated participants who completely take over the session, pontificating on irrelevant side-tracks and resisting all of our attempts to regain control of the session. When you find yourself in this dire situation, remain calm and look for a way to wrap up the session. If you can’t reign in a difficult participant, then it’s best to simply end the session.

Defeat the henchmen

Bond villains are always protected and aided in their evil schemes by at least one particularly dangerous henchman. Bond has to fight and defeat the henchman, often several times, before finally confronting and defeating the primary villain.

In user research projects, the villain is the problem that you’re trying to solve (such as a poorly designed application that you’re trying to redesign), and the henchmen are the people and situations that get in the way of solving the problem (such as an IT manager who says the new application has to be created using SharePoint). To solve design problems, you often have to defeat these organizational “henchmen” that cause the problem to exist in the first place. Achieving this coup may require more than interface redesign; it may require changing business processes.

Kill, when necessary

Okay, this one only applies to James Bond. Although it may be tempting at times, unless you’re properly licensed by the British government, please refrain from killing participants or clients.

Sleep with beautiful women

Yeah, sadly, this one too only works for James Bond. There are Bond Girls, but there are no Research Girls (or Guys). It’s better to just keep your mind on the research.

Call in reinforcements

In addition to henchmen, Bond villains often have an army of fighters to defend their hollowed-out-volcano or underwater fortresses. Bond doesn’t attempt to defeat this entire army himself. He calls in British special forces units to fight off the villain’s army, while he focuses on defeating the villain and his main henchmen.

User researchers don’t solve user experience problems alone either. We find problems and recommend solutions, but we need an army of reinforcements (designers, developers, project managers, and clients) to fix the problems. It’s truly a team effort to solve user experience problems. Don’t attempt to go it alone.

Defeat the villain

At the end of the mission, James Bond always defeats the villain, usually surrounded by explosions and massive destruction. But Bond doesn’t always defeat the larger enemy, and some villains (such as SPECTRE leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld) return again in the future.

For a user researcher, “defeating the villain” means recommending solutions to the problems found. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that those recommendations will be implemented correctly or at all. If we simply hand over our research findings and walk away at the end of the research phase, it’s likely that the problems will persist. That’s why you should remain involved throughout a project to fight the user experience villains as they continue to resurface.

Conclusion

By this point, you’ve either realized that user research and espionage have more in common than you originally thought, or you think that I’ve made a big stretch comparing the two. Either way, there’s no denying that we gained a different perspective and new insights about the user research profession. If you’re a user researcher, you may never watch a James Bond movie the same way again.

There is one key reason why I love professional wrestling: seeing that one moment where I can still suspend disbelief.

After reading two articles about what designers can learn from Ghandi and the Red Baron, I thought, wrestling taught me a lot more than this! So, what can designers learn from Professional Wrestling; a set of guys running around in their underwear? Actually a tremendous amount. I’ll share three key insights. Prepare yourself and set aside your judgements that this is white trash entertainment.

1. The Story

This is the most important part is wrestling, as well as design. In wrestling, without a story, you have just two guys rubbing eachother in their underwear, which is less than exciting. The story is what people buy into and makes them tune in. A great story has people wanting to see what happens next. You see the same thing in design. When you present to a client, executive, or team, you don’t present just a design; you present a story. You tell them how everything is set up and how it has all fallen into place; sharing the problems and the opportunities within this design. You tell them why the design matters and find that hook to pull your client in.

Walking into a client with no story is inviting them to give their opinion and random comments. Setting the stage for a story focuses their feedback. It gives them rails. It tells them you have a vision and a rationale and end point with the design. It empowers you with more to control over the direction and outcome of the design.

2. The Promo and art of selling

One of the most important parts of getting a story across in wrestling is the promo. You can have an amazing story and amazing wrestling, but without the ability to connect to the audience, it’s useless. If you can’t make people buy into the story and believe it, you’ll go no where. How many times have we all seen great designs crushed. Part of our role when we go in and present, is to take ideas, protect them, bring life to them, and sell them. Get the design, the potential and the story across to the client. Being dynamic and connecting in presentations is just as critical as the design itself. Not only that, but you have to believe in what you’re selling. You have to buy into your own story, you can’t just fake your way through a great presentation.

The best wrestling promos are the ones that are extensions of personalities. It’s the same with presenting your designs. The best designs are the ones that are extensions of what you love. Why would a client buy into something if you can’t even believe it. You have to be excited and enjoy what you do, because if you don’t, why would other people?

I can never stress how important it is to be a great presenter, and be “on” each time you’re in front of a client, no matter how simple the presentation may be. It’s something I see a lot of designers drop the ball on because they see the designs as selling themselves. The bad news is most often, they don’t.

3. The Patterns and spots

After watching wrestling for 20 years, and training (yes, I trained) for a few years, you learn there are patterns and spots. To simplify, patterns are common elements and spots are usually predefined moves that wrestlers have worked out before the match. Patterns are used to develop the way matches are put together.  Spots often represent a high point in a match to get the crowd moving.

Both regular patterns, and the ability to break patterns when needed are critical in great matches. In our design world, we hear about patterns non-stop. Desktop patterns, mobile patterns, gesture patterns… and we stick to those. We’ve heard presentations and read articles on those. Then we see new designs that come along and twist them or break them and create a new pattern. Or create a one-off for their design; but it works. We can’t always be a slave to patterns or we just end up the same as everyone else, but using them is what makes it comfortable and soothing. Just remember that sometimes we need to throw things out and say “what are we going to do for this to support our story, our goals, and how do we make people fall in love with this”. Don’t be afraid to change even the most common elements.

A spot, by contrast, a more of a signature element. A unique piece that brings the design together. You have the story, you’re presenting it, and now it’s time to pull out the piece that people cheer for. Most wrestlers have spots they perform exclusively. These are their signature moves, and out of respect, other wrestlers don’t do them. In the design world. This is like the animated control on the Path mobile application, or the genie window effect on a Mac. Moments that those designs are known for. In each story, and subsequent design you create, what are your signature elements? What are the moments that people see in your design that they connect to emotionally. That they do a little cheer for when it happens and they tell other people about about. Don’t have any? I’d recommend thinking a little more.

In closing, when you need inspiration for design, it’s not always looking at Apple or the obviously products that are there. Look for the non-obvious sources and what they can teach you. Pull from everything and bring something no one else has to the table.

Print and digital: even now, commonalities

My background is print. However, this still has a lot of use in terms of the web (for Western audiences, at least). For example, research on users of digital text draws parallels between reading in print and reading on digital devices. In the West, we read top-left to right, and then down the left-hand side of the page. In print, the most important items are put in the upper-left corner, and we in the West read web pages in the same way. We have also been culturally conditioned to look for captions under images, and to respond to color more than to black-and-white.

Other people I know who’ve come from this route

My friend Bill Dorman made the switch from print to digital. Bill and I founded a literary magazine that lasted a year before he moved cities and began to work for one of the first magazines to review web sites. After that magazine folded, he transitioned into writing on-line copy, then SEO copy, and finally IA, taxonomy, and hierarchy. Bill now works freelance in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

What Did I Do

I began my writing career at my college newspaper (The Alestle at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville). The editors there taught me to write. After that, I published freelance for a few years, even starting my own magazine for year. After that, I moved into the business side of print with sales, sales management, and market research. Later, I worked in digital publishing with a national call center. I updated content both for a customer care intranet and for the company’s first Internet Web site.

Why I Did It

I always wrote strong prose and began writing for the college newspaper. Moving into print was a natural progression. Later, I moved into the business side of print. After I taught public school for a time, I explored places that I could find a new niche and I think that UX is a high growth market that is currently underserved, at least by UX experts.

How I moved into UX

I spend some time teaching public school and when I explored ways to move back into the private sector, I realized that UX was a growth industry. Also, many in UX have technology backgrounds, even though the research was suggesting that users reacted to web pages in ways similar to print pages. I am currently working as a freelance UX consultant with small businesses and not-for-profits that do not have a large budget for full-fledged UX projects.

What I Bring to UX from It

With my marketing background, my first thought is the customer—called the user in UX. One thing that surprises me in the UX culture is that the focus on the user is still being sold as the most important thing. In fact, I recently read a forum post that said to move into UX, one has to shift perspective to the user. This suggests to me that the focus on the user is not completely ingrained in UX culture. No one in marketing would say that to move into marketing one has to begin to focus on the customer: that’s given. I bring to UX design teams a complete focus on the customer/user. (I have to admit, I prefer the word customer.)

Another thing that I bring is a first-step approach to content over design. Much of the current writing on UX focuses on shifting the UX design first to the concept of the content and lastly to design of the look. Print publishing always begins with concept and then content first. The design is always focused on making the content more accessible. Good design surrounds the content, not the other way around.

What I’ve had to Work On

UX if filled with jargon that I’ve had to learn. There is also a large amount of technical aspects, mostly programs that are great tools for UX teams. Also, though many in the UX world say that UX is not design, many UX professionals have design or other technical backgrounds, and most UX job postings require technical backgrounds. My experience is in writing and marketing, not coding. I do have some HTML skills but not enough to sell my skills as an HTML expert. Given all of this, I have had to go back and learn some technical skills so that I can at least interact with designers and others on the backend of UX design.

Tips for Those Making the Move

A quick survey of UX job posting suggests that employers are still looking for designers. For a marketer, especially a print marketer, you’ll have to show that you bring concepts and processes to the table that others simply don’t have. Also, you will have to bone up on the technical aspects, especially the tools that are most related to marketing (A/B testing, eye tracking, mouse tracking, etc.) Don’t try to compete with designers unless you already have lots of design experience.

 For a marketer, especially a print marketer, you’ll have to show that you bring concepts and processes to the table that others simply don’t have.

What I’ve Found about Moving into UX

Most UX is outsourced unless it’s a very large company  (and even then maybe not). Even in the outsourced industry, many UX consulting companies outsource those projects to freelancers. So, a corporation may hire UX consultants for a site redesign, and then UX Consultants may contract with a wireframe expert, a testing expert, and so on. Be prepared to hustle for work.

Also, UX is a generic term for anyone who works on design. I’ve found that a number of designers will claim UX as a proficiency, even though a short conversation shows that he or she relies solely on individual judgment. The market right now equates page design with UX. So when you begin talking about thinking through ideas, testing, taking time, and so on, many in the UX field and many UX customers may not understand or even think that a marketing-based process is important.

Image NC-CC by martinaphotography

How does one end up in UX after counseling delinquent girls and brain injured individuals? This question is one I am asked frequently once people find out the somewhat unorthodox route I took towards my career in UX. With some explanation, the connection between the two areas becomes much clearer and there is greater understanding for how my background in psychology has laid the groundwork for a career in UX.

Others Who Have Followed A Similar Path

It is difficult to think of the connection between psychology and UX without thinking of Donald Norman, as he is the person who set the stage for incorporating aspects of Cognitive Psychology within Interaction Design, one area of User Experience.

Certain basic principles of cognitive psychology provide grounding for interaction design. These include mental models, mapping, interface metaphors, and affordances. Many of these are laid out in Donald Norman’s influential book The Design of Everyday Things.

from Wikipedia

Susan Weischenk, “The Brain Lady” also comes from a background in psychology. She has written books, including Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?, online articles such as “The Psychologist’s View of UX Design” and has her own blog “What Makes Them Click” where she applies psychology to understanding people for better design.

What I Did

So, how exactly does Psychology relate to User Experience in the practical sense and why did I make the transition from helping people in one context to designing for them in the other? After earning my Masters Degree from Columbia University, Teachers College, I left New York City and moved back to Philadelphia where I worked briefly with juvenile delinquent girls, between the ages of 9 and 13 years old, living in a group home.  With a great mentor and supervisor, I learned how to provide the specific kind of counseling that these girls needed. Lurking beneath the “tough” girls who often threatened others with violence were artists, poets, and overall creative souls. The tough girl behavior was a defense mechanism and how they survived in their world. The girls learned to trust me and share their more tender side. Skills that I learned and started becoming comfortable with during my training in graduate school such as active listening, observation, empathy, and collaboration, I focused on and improved in this setting as well as in my next job. (For more on what dealing with delinquents can teach you about UX, see Brett Lutchman’s post on that very experience). My other job, and one I held for many years, was as an outpatient case manager and clinician in the Drucker Brain Injury Center’s Community Re-Entry Program at MossRehab Hospital. I managed care, therapies and provided counseling. These clients had transitioned from an inpatient stay and were ready to return to career, school, or activity pattern based on their prognosis and level of injury. Frequent collaborative meetings were held to discuss treatment plans and make changes as necessary. On a daily basis, I observed people in various settings, including their own natural home and work environments, to better understand what they were experiencing and their specific difficulties to develop a plan that would help improve their lives. These are the same approaches I bring to my work as a UX designer.

How I Moved Into UX

After the birth of my first child, I needed to find a career that offered more flexibility; one that did not take as much emotional energy and allowed me to work part-time. Working with a brain injured population was one of the most rewarding, yet difficult experiences I have ever had in my life, so the decision to leave did not come easily. I worked with incredibly smart, talented people from different disciplines, within a collaborative environment, much like the team I currently work with as a UX Designer. As I searched options, I decided that web design could be a fun and flexible career. I began taking classes at Penn State Abington for website design.I learned C++, Javascript, Flash, HTML, User Interface design, and usability (among other classes). Once I finished that program, I began to design and develop websites for small businesses. I learned more about user experience, an area related to what I was doing with web design, but involving what I had learned and practiced in the field of psychology. I realized that the skills I had used in my “other life” in Psychology were so aligned with what is practiced in UX that it was a very natural fit.

What I Brought With Me to UX

Ability to understand people’s motivations

Psychology is the study of people’s behavior. Behind that behavior are motivations why someone is doing what they are doing. UX is very similar. We need to understand the “why’s” to design for the behaviors we are trying to elicit, all while making the user feel good about their experience so that they repeat these behaviors.

Research

To understand behaviors that help make our product useful to our clients and their users, we need to conduct research. My background conducting research almost daily in graduate school helped me ease into this part of user experience.

Problem Solving

There is never just one way to solve a problem. Every problem has multiple solutions. Being able to think quickly and offer useful solutions to accommodate multiple variations and desires of the client while satisfying their users is a skill overlapping psychology and  UX. I had a brain injured client who revealed that following her brain injury, her partner began to abuse her. Helping her to develop a variety of options, quickly was important. While the solutions I am expected to come up with in UX are not life-threatening, they can help improve the interactions with a client’s product.

Listening

This skill is one of the most important to learn in life, and oh, so hard for many of us. To make a proper psychological assessment, use of active listening skills helps gain insight into someone’s motivations. Graduate programs in psychology provide a great deal of training and practice in the use of active listening, indicating the level of importance it brings to assessments and therapy. So too, in UX, listening and assessing what our users are saying (or not saying) is one of the most important skills used to assess their behaviors and motivations for performing certain actions.

Observation

As with listening, being able to observe behavior provides such important clues into what a person’s motivations are. Staying out of the users’ way and allowing them to figure things out is a very difficult thing to do, but necessary to see if our design is doing what it was intended to. The only way to do this is to observe and allow the natural process to occur without our influence confounding the results. Evaluations of incoming brain injured clients allowed me to practice this, as it was solely based on observation. The plan of action that needed to be taken became clear, just by watching someone engage in daily activities, such as trying (and often failing) to cook from a written recipe.

Staying out of the users’ way and allowing them to figure things out is a very difficult thing to do, but necessary to see if our design is doing what it was intended to.

Written and oral communication skills

The ability to communicate clearly and effectively is another skill where there is overlap between Psychology and User Experience. This enables an atmosphere of trust and respect to be created which helps get approval from clients concerning design recommendations that are made. The main difference between the two is in the mode of communication. Where I mostly wrote daily notes and reports in Psychology, I now design wireframes with annotations, prototypes, sketches, personas, and storyboarding to explain my process and thinking.

Empathy

Whether in a therapy session or designing for our users, identifying with them through empathy only makes us better at what we do by stepping outside our mindset and into that of another. Whenever I sincerely empathized with my clients and their particular situation, whether a teen girl trying to protect what she believed to rightfully belong to her or a brain injured person who could not remember a conversation he had the night before, it became evident that I cared about them and wanted to help. By demonstrating empathy, I gained a wealth of information that improved the therapeutic process. This naturally translates to UX as showing we care about how the user interacts with our products helps to improve how they interact with our products.

Whenever I sincerely empathized with my clients and their particular situation, whether a teen girl trying to protect what she believed to rightfully belong to her or a brain injured person who could not remember a conversation he had the night before, it became evident that I cared about them and wanted to help.

Collaboration

Probably one of the most enjoyable aspects has been the collaborative process, both on a transdisciplinary team of therapists and working as the user experience designer on a team with designers, developers, product managers and marketers. There is nothing like many individuals expressing themselves (much like a really large, loud family) in the design process to make it fun while coming up with the best solutions for the users.

Iteration

Any time there is a plan of action, there needs to be the ability to change course when things are not working as planned. This is true both in a therapeutic setting as well as when designing. Life is ever changing, as should our work.

Looking to Make the Move?

With an open mind and a great deal of willingness to learn new skills and improve existing ones, transitioning from Psychology to UX can be smooth. My best advice is to network, find a mentor, participate in local groups, attend conferences and read. No matter what discipline you may be coming from, think about the tasks you performed in a generalized way and how they may transition to the field of UX. —- Brain image CC-by-NC from labguest

When I tell people that I have a background in architecture, I usually follow that statement with “as-in-designing-buildings” because people often assume that means that I have a computer science degree and was a software architect. But no, by “architecture” I am referring to the years I spent hunched over a drawing board and building models out of balsa wood and cardboard.

UX and Architecture

I am sure that the connection between User Experience Design and Architecture is not an unfamiliar one; even here on Johnny Holland there is a post “Interaction Design and Architecture: A Video Primer” that highlights eight videos in which people talk about the connections between the two fields. But, as someone who studied architecture and worked as an intern architect, when people ask me what the connection is between them, my response is two-fold. Firstly, an important part of architecture is the design of the navigation, orientation and way-finding through and within spaces. User experience design also encompasses the design of those aspects; the difference is in in the materials used to embody those designs. To quote Christina Wodtke:

Much like our real world namesakes, we design spaces for human beings to live work and play in. The big difference is the materials we work with…

Secondly, as an architect, you represent the voice of the client throughout the design and build process. You are constantly mediating between the various engineers and tradespeople, while representing the needs of the client. Similarly, as a user experience designer you are representing the needs of the end-user throughout the product design and development process while mediating between the various stakeholders such as project management, development and quality assurance.

What Did I Do

I didn’t know what I wanted to do when it came time to apply for university. But, then I went for a visit to Carleton University that happened to coincide with “Kosmic”, an annual party put on by Carleton’s School of Architecture. The school had been completely transformed, through the magic of enormous corrugated cardboard structures and a lot of creative lighting, into a “Through the Looking Glass” themed-world. My mind was made up, that school was where I wanted to go.

After graduating from Carleton, I found a job in a very small Ottawa firm. As a part of the internship to become a licensed architect in Canada there is a requirement to log hours across the full-range of what an architect does, such as: doing design sketches and producing working drawings; running client meetings; conducting on-site inspections with the contractors and sub-trades; as well as producing any change requests or addenda as changes are made throughout the construction phase. Since our office was small, the two architects were able to let me get experience in almost every area that I needed to get experience in; until there was a recession.

How I moved into UX

Late in 1996, things really slowed down in the office, to the point where the architects had to let me go. I was making ends meet doing contract work, when I heard about a new Master of Architecture program that was going to be starting in the fall of 1997 at Carleton University. This new program was going to explore the relationship between “traditional” architecture and the design of “new” virtual spaces and interfaces. Unfortunately, this program no longer exists, but in 1997 I was accepted into the inaugural year of the Master of Architecture, Design and Technology program. After completing my first year, I went back to working full-time at the architecture firm for the summer. But, after receiving a phone call from a classmate about a summer position as a UI Designer at Corel, I went for an interview and was offered a contract for the summer. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I went and spoke to the two architects – they practically packed up my desk for me, right then and there. They told me that I had been working for them for over three years and had a clear understanding of what it was going to be like to “be” an architect, but I had no idea what it would be like to “be” a UI Designer, so they convinced me to take the contract. When the summer ended, I stayed on part-time at Corel through the fall and winter while I finished my thesis and then started full-time after graduation.

I stayed at Corel for eleven years.

What I Bring to UX From It

There is so much about what I learned from architecture that can be applied to User Experience Design, but here are a few of them:

1. Ideas aren’t precious.
   At Carleton, at various points during our projects we would hang-up our work for public display and present our ideas for critique from our peers, professors and visiting critics. Early sketches and quick massing models were presented and discussed, as were our final, laboriously rendered, drawings and meticulously crafted models. From all the presentation and discussion of my own projects, and those of everyone around me, I came to realize that ideas aren’t precious. Ideas are there to be discussed, debated and critiqued; but in order for that to happen, the ideas must be made concrete. It is through this transformation from idea to object where people display their design skills, by showing their ability to articulate their ideas through the material of their craft, be it a sketch or a model or a mock-up or code. It’s that concrete manifestation of the idea that can then be communicated to others and iterated upon, in order for it to improve and not be something that is coveted as a precious design artifact.
2. S**t happens. or Nothing ever gets built as planned.
   In school, as we worked back and forth (from sketch to model, then back to drawing, then back to model again) the models and drawings never matched each other, and we were criticized if they did. The goal of this translation back and forth was to have one manifestation of the idea inform the other, and to continually improve as you went from one medium to another. Once I started working in an architecture firm I quickly realized that the same held true for “real” buildings, nothing ever gets built as planned. These changes need to happen for a myriad of reasons: the requirements change; steel structure of the existing building isn’t exactly where the as-built drawing said it was going to be; and on, and on, and on. But it’s just a regular part of the process of translating a working drawing of a building into its built form. The same holds true for User Experience Design. Nothing will ever get built as planned. Changes need to happen for a myriad of reasons as the implementation is underway, but it’s just a normal part of the process for translating interaction designs and visual designs into products.
3. Listen to others, especially those that know better than you do.
   In my last year of my undergrad I had a professor, who told us, time and time again to listen to the tradespeople, because they all knew more than we did. For example, a drywaller with twenty-five years experience, probably has some pretty good suggestions on how to improve a bulkhead detail, they may have suggestions as to how to better anchor it to the ceiling, or how to support it in a way that would use less material and would therefore reduce its weight and cost. The tradespeople had experience and knowledge to be learned from, if we were willing to listen.  Similarly, as user experience designers we get to work with a wide range of people: clients, project managers, developers, quality assurance specialists, just to name a few. Each of them have their own area of expertise, or trade, and we, as designers, can learn from their experience and knowledge.
4. Seeing the Big Picture and the Little Details.
   In the architecture firm I worked in, by the time we were creating the design details in the working drawings for a building, we each had a clear image of the building in our minds. So, for example, if the siding contractor told us that the siding needs to be out 2” further than what was shown in the wall section detail, we would have been able to quickly consider the implications of this in all dimensions at both a macro (how will this affect the wall detail at the top, at the bottom, and where it joins the adjacent walls) and the micro (how will this affect the details at the window, door and louvre openings in the wall). Not to say that architects have a monopoly on this type of spatial thinking, but similar to industrial designers, architects can quickly understand the implication of one change across a variety of dimensions. As a user experience designer, the mental gymnastics that were previously required to mentally flip from plan to section to elevation at both a macro and a micro level are now used to visualize the relationship between the elements in a product. This helps me to understand the implications of a change to one element and visualize how it cascades through the inter-related pieces in the design.
5. Know thy client.
   At the early stages in the design process, the architects would go through a requirements gathering phase. For example, if it was a residential project, the architects would go and spend time with the client in their house. They would observe how existing spaces in the house were used and what worked and didn’t work for the client. Some of these observations came directly from what the client told them, and others were uncovered by being an objective viewer and seeing first-hand how the spaces were being inhabited. Only later, as a user experience designer, did I understand that what they were doing was a form of contextual inquiry, to help them gain insight into the living patterns of the client so they could design a space for them which would better fit their needs and living patterns.

What’s the Difference?

Aside from all the similarities in processes from requirements gathering to design iteration, to mediation and negotiation during the construction phase, the one obvious difference between architecture and user experience design is the lifespan of the resulting product. Compared to most buildings designed by an architect, the majority of products created by user experience designers are relatively ephemeral. In some ways, this is a good thing as rapid, iterative releases allows us to continually improve and modify our products in response to changing requirements and customer needs. There is no easy way to do A/B testing for the design of a detail in a building. But, as an architect, the implicit permanence of designing a building carries with it a sense of responsibility. Once that design takes its place within the built environment, its life span is typically much longer than the products we create as user experience designers. I can’t help but wonder if we would have better designed products if some of that responsibility and sense of permanence of architecture found its way into what we do as user experience designers.

As an architect, the implicit permanence of designing a building carries with it a sense of responsibility… I can’t help but wonder if we would have better designed products if some of that responsibility and sense of permanence of architecture found its way into what we do as user experience designers.

What I’ve Found About Moving Into UX

To do well in either architecture or user experience design, the ability to communicate well is key, and the most important part of communicating is listening.

As designers, we need to listen to our clients and their customers to understand their needs and requirements. We need to communicate our designs to both our clients and our development teams in a way that they will understand. Our ideas need to be translated into designs and made concrete, through user scenarios, workflow diagrams, mock-ups or wireframes so that they can be discussed, understood, tested and improved upon. Communication becomes even more important once those designs start being built. As I already stated, nothing ever gets built as planned. Therefore, communication is key in working with the development team to evolve and refine the design as it gets built, and to manage the expectations of the client throughout the development process as those changes are occurring. And, a lot of that communicating is listening.

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Picture from lightmediumbold

Research plays a vital role in UX, as we need to understand our users and their motivations in order to design products which meet their needs. Market research is all about finding out what people do and why. But how many companies have combined market research and UX teams? I’m going to outline what it’s like to work in this kind of team and share how my background in market research led to a passion for UX.

UX and Market Research: Why Can’t We All Be Friends?

There are a lot of similarities between UX and market research. David Kozatch noted many of them in an article he wrote in 2008 about breaking down the barriers between UX practitioners and market researchers. Earlier this year Richard Anderson wrote about the labels applied to user research and gave the example of Yahoo combining their UX research and market research teams. He argues that ‘it is important to understand that great benefit can be achieved when the two work together’.

I’m not aware of any well known UXers who started out in market research (or at least, who openly admit it!) but I’ve seen many talk or blog about techniques frequently used in market research such as Whitney Hess on user interviews. At the recent dConstruct conference, Kelly Goto’s talk was about the importance of understanding the emotional context in which people are using products through ethnography and other research techniques.

Doing Market Research

Few people actively plan to work in market research and my career planning was, in retrospect, a bit haphazard! I went to a talk at university which described market research as being a suitable profession for those who were nosy interested in people. There may also have been a prize draw involving champagne, and with that I was sold.  More seriously I had always had an interest in psychology, communication and analysis so I thought this might be the right path to follow.

Having graduated with a degree in English, I started my career working for a large market research agency in the continuous consumer panel division. This involved analysing a large set of data about people’s purchasing habits in order to provide insights for clients. Many hours were spent trying to be creative in PowerPoint! I then moved to another agency which focused on ad hoc consumer research. My role there involved managing the whole research process from taking a brief, working out how the sample should be structured, designing a questionnaire, analysing results and presenting them to clients. The purpose of much of the research we conducted was new product development; clients wanted to gain a deep understanding of customer behaviour and attitudes in order to develop appropriate products and test them out with real prospective customers before launch. Often we tested different mock ups of concepts and packaging to see which resonated best with the target audience. Although I didn’t know it at the time, there were some similarities with UX research.

As is common in large research companies, the interviewing was done by a specialised fieldwork division so I wasn’t actually speaking to users very often.  I began looking for a new challenge.

How I moved into UX

I started in my current role as a member of the research team for a b2b media company 4 years ago. We conduct surveys and interviews with professionals in different sectors in order to provide insights to shape the development and marketing strategy for a range of magazines and websites. As the delivery of information digitally has become increasingly important to the company, the focus of our team expanded to include UX. We’d been conducting usability testing for several years, seeing it as a natural extension of qualitative research like depth interviews, but it was the emergence of User-Centred design that really struck a chord. It just made sense and seemed to sum up things we’d been trying to communicate in all our work. Now we build personas, conduct UX reviews and user testing on wireframes, prototypes and live sites, alongside more traditional market research activities. I became so interested in UX that I’ve been completing a part time MSc in User Interaction Design over the past 2 years to really get up to speed with the theory.

What I Bring to UX From It

During my research agency days I learnt how to distil large amounts of data about people’s attitudes and behaviour down to the most relevant insights, which I think is very important in UX roles. I’ve also had a lot of experience giving presentations to different stakeholders and fully understand the value of simple and clear communication, which has also helped me in my current role.

A thorough grounding in research methods is really useful for UXers too, as you need to know when to use a survey compared to a depth interview, and how not to ask leading questions. Representing the voice of the user also comes naturally as I feel I’ve spent my career aiming to do that.

What I’ve Had to Work On

As you might guess from my background, I’m not naturally a very technical person. Since I’ve been working in UX I’ve become much more interested in technology which has resulted in significant investment in Apple products. But I recognise a better knowledge of how websites work would help me communicate with developers. I have very little knowledge of coding, so this is something I’m working on. I’m also not trained in graphic design so at the moment my recommendations go as far as basic wireframes and sketches using tools like Balsamiq. I have picked up some best practice design guidelines but I’m still learning.

Tips for Those Making the Move

I’d advise anyone working in market research who is considering making the move to UX to go for it! You have a lot of transferable skills and if you’re interested in how people interact with technology, it could be for you. Try to immerse yourself and read as many of the books and blogs as you can. There are a lot of great free and useful events you can go to such as UX book club and UPA meetings. These are excellent ways of meeting other UXers and learning about the field. There are also training courses and conferences (for example, UX London) if you can find the funding to go. One of the best things about UX is that its practitioners are from a wide variety of backgrounds and are generally very willing to share their knowledge and experiences.

One of the best things about UX is that its practitioners are from a wide variety of backgrounds and are generally very willing to share their knowledge and experiences.

What I’ve Found About Moving Into UX

I’m happy to have found my way into UX as it has opened up a new set of opportunities. People’s behaviour and needs change as technology moves forward, so the challenge of designing products to offer great experiences is always fresh. It is a growing field and there is a vibrant UX community to learn from. I hope that sharing how I made the move helps others to join us.

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Image CC by bixentro

As an IA/UX designer, there are many experiences and skill sets that have contributed to my success. While I have always had a passion for and been involved in design, many of these other experiences have involved working with people, ranging from the military  to sales. However, one that stands out for me was being involved in social work, namely working with delinquents in a halfway house. Working with young people is extremely challenging, especially when they are engaged in criminal activity and believe they know everything.

How I Got Into It

The social work was basically a full to part-time swing job (based on the season) for me as I was continuing my education in design/business and working towards entering the design field full-time. Most of the staff who worked as social workers also had other goals that they were working towards that had nothing to do with support working as a full time career.

I got in the field because a friend of mine from the military was already involved and  asked if I was interested in working with him (he was able to pull a few strings to get me in). We hadn’t seen each other in about 5 years so it was good to re-connect with him and find a job working with people.
Being in the military, I had developed thick skin and knew what it was like to be surrounded by various temperaments of people; so I jumped at this opportunity.

After getting hired and going through extensive on-the-job training for Crisis Prevention Intervention & Dealing with Difficult People, I was ready to fly solo.

What I Did

I managed a halfway house and developed relationships with delinquents who were released from the system based on various criminal activities, and were making their way back into society. Duties included managing a schedule for the youths to adhere to, encouraging them to find jobs, conducting open discussions on problem resolution and basically leading a group of aimless youths to work together and become better human beings.

Remember, I was hired to do all this and much more with a group of teenage boys who didn’t want to work, or remain inside the house, and most of them simply wanted to sleep in, fight, break the rules and stay out late or not come home at all.

Needless to say, this was an uphill battle, and I believe very strongly that it was this consistent resistance to both authority and change from these delinquents that became my greatest takeaway from this field and followed me into the UX industry. To sum it up, that takeaway was the age old task of designing circumstances & interacting with people to solve problems.

What I Brought Through With Me

1. A backbone of steel, and a fearless stance to look someone in the eye and not back down.
   This has helped me many times when dealing with difficult clients. In the beginning of my design years, I was way too bold and direct as a result. Over time, I have learned to turn that down a bit and execute soft approaches when dealing with difficult clients.
2. Empathy and the ability to listen
   Many of these youths have a story. There is usually an unfortunate set of circumstances that have been compiled and dumped on these youths which explains why they are the way they are now. It is important not just to execute authority, but to be a role model and earn trust. This is done by placing myself in their shoes and imagining what it must be like for them. At the end of the day, I go home, these youths are still in their unfortunate situations.
3. Diplomacy
   How I relate to these youths is very important. Everything that someone says from a position of authority is interpreted as a threat or an attack. Even though these delinquents may be wrong in a situation, there is a certain tac that is involved when trying to lead someone to see the error of their ways. You can’t just point it out to them, you have to paint a picture where the error is clearly visible for them to see. This technique has helped me greatly when presenting my findings regarding a review or a new design vision. You just can’t tell the client their wrong and that you’re right. You have to perform a gap analysis and show them areas of improvement and sometimes allow them to figure out the vision themselves and take credit for it, even though we as design professionals already know the answer.

What I’ve Had to Work On

Over the years, one of the main things that I have had to work on would be soft skills. How to delicately approach clients, bite my tongue, not receive credit, and remember that it’s not about me. It’s always about the end user and the final design.

Working with delinquents have made me tough. But you can not display that toughness all the time. You can’t come across as a tough guy because these youths will want to challenge you and will never trust you. On the other hand, you can’t be a soft nice guyperson as well- and for the exact same reasons. They will try to challenge you and run the show. Throughout my employment as a youth worker, I have had to learn the balance of being in between. This has helped arm me when working in the professional design industry.

Tips

Like the theme “Anyone can cook!” from the movie Ratatouille, I say the same for design. “Anyone can design”. Don’t grade yourself against others, compare yourself to your last design. Learn from best practices and view websites and apps that get good reviews. Ask questions and immerse yourself with people who know. Be humble and try your best to contribute to the field. Contribution brings reciprocation.

What I’ve Found About Moving Into UX

The biggest thing I’ve noticed is the tremendous amount of people time that is included when designing. In order to kick off a project, you’re meeting with people. When leading Conducting meetings, you’re meeting with people. JAD sessions and going through the iterative design process, you’re meeting with people. Conducting interviews, focus groups and testing, you’re meeting with people. And finally when re-visiting the design for stats and results, again, you’re meeting with people.

We all know that user experience designers come from a range of different backgrounds. But what do these experiences bring to UX? In our first of a series of articles, Boon Chew reflects on his start in computer science.

Human-Computer Interaction has strong roots in Computer Science, and user experience design is almost exclusively a technology-focused practice. How much does UX design share with its engineering-focused sibling? I’m going to share some thoughts about my experiences from making the transition from software engineering to UX, and how my past career has made an influence in my roles as a user experience designer today.

Computer Science to User Experience — a strong legacy

A number of notable UX experts have come from a strong CS background. Alan Cooper, founder of interaction design company Cooper and author of the seminal book The Inmates are Running the Asylum, is also widely known as the Father of Visual Basic. Jared Spool, who is one of the industry’s most prominent speaker and usability expert, also had his beginnings as a software developer and programmer. I also know many UX practitioners who were formerly web developers, most of them specializing in front-end programming. A handful work in hybrid roles, juggling UX and software development in their day-to-day work.

Needless to say, UX is a natural route for CS practitioners keen on improving the user experience of interactive systems and beyond.

Why?

I pursued Computer Science because I wanted to work with computers. I was also excited about the web and in particular web design. I never got into design very seriously, feeling that I needed to start from scratch to learn the fundamentals – and engineering school was demanding enough. Still, I grew to love software engineering and found developing for the web very interesting and fulfilling, so that became my focus of my career for several years.

What  I Did

In my eight year career as a software developer, I worked primarily on web applications. While my first job involved developing Java applets for a NASA research project as a Computer Engineering student, my first ‘real’ job got me building web applications for a telecoms solutions company. It was the early 2000s, and the big Internet boom meant almost every software developer in the world were involved in building software for the web.

I started off working on many projects where I was the sole web developer, and I grew acquainted with many web frameworks and web technologies, both front-end, back-end, as well as rich internet applications. In short, I was a generalist developer for the web, and for many years, I was responsible for translating requirements from project managers and sales executives into usable websites.

I increasingly worked with teams of other developers, but my teams were fairly small and grew no larger than 5 people. It was a very business-like environment and long hours in the office were very common. Despite the challenging nature of the job, I continually pursued a deeper interest in the craft of web development across several different industries – first in telecoms, then in a technology startup, then as a prototype engineer in a research division of a large Fortune 500 company.

Interestingly, it was business innovation and research that sparked my interest in user experience. I already had a strong love for web and graphic design, but I couldn’t have predicted being in the UX field – it was like a whole new world had opened before me.

How I moved into UX

In 2006, I was hired into a research team specialising in developing prototypes with the aim if generating innovative and creative ideas for a large Fortune 500 company. There was a big buzz around business innovation and design thinking, and I poured myself into as much literature as I could to get a handle on the creative process. But it wasn’t until two years later that I came across About Face 3 by Cooper et al, which completely changed my perception of running software projects. The book provided me a practical methodology to apply user-centred design into my work and it made so much sense, it was very hard to go back to the way things were.

Also, one of the main motivations pushing me towards UX was my desire to create better digital experiences. I constantly struggled to influence design decisions as a developer, partly because I was so far removed from any business or design context. I also lacked the necessary skills and design experience, which often left me frustrated thinking that my contributed a part to the overall experience influenced only part of the solution.

One of the main motivations pushing me towards UX was my desire to create better digital experiences. I constantly struggled to influence design decisions as a developer, partly because I was so far removed from any business or design context.

At the end of 2008, I enrolled in a Masters program in Human-Computer Interaction to kick-start my career in UX. It was a difficult transition, and after I graduated I still continued to work as a developer cum UX designer before making the leap into UX full-time — initially as a contractor, then finally as a full-time UX designer at SapientNitro.

What I Bring to UX From It

It’s hard to pin down specific things that bring to UX from CS. A lot of it I probably take for granted, such as understanding the intricacies of web technologies, complex software practices, and how design and technology can feasibly work together in one seamless whole. Often times, UX seems like an extension of my overarching goal as a technologist to deliver amazing experiences. I’m also not unaware of how poor implementation can happen when designers don’t understand how even the best ideas still need to translate well into engineering. These days, it takes a lot of different skills to deliver complex solutions way beyond the ability of individual engineers, designers or entrepreneurs.

Often times, UX seems like an extension of my overarching goal as a technologist to deliver amazing experiences.

I’ve also noticed that I’ve developed good practices as a developer that benefit my productivity, especially when it comes to using complex production tools, managing digital artifacts, multi-tasking, and prototyping. For example, I’m as comfortable using visual design tools such as Omnigraffle, Fireworks, InDesign and Illustrator as I am using the Eclipse IDE. I keep a healthy trail of artifacts using version control systems, dropbox, and other means. The tools seldom get in the way of my work, and I pick up new tool skills very quickly.

Finally, I think that all that software problem solving has come in handy. Some design problems are extremely complex and require some heavy analytical work. I seem to have developed enough patience to break down complex problems into manageable chunks, structure it in a more coherent solution, while putting my information architect hat on.

What I’ve Had to Work On

All the benefits I described have not come without a price. I obviously lack experience and exposure in many aspects of design, such as the design process, visual literacy, creative savvy, and working in creative teams. I’m learning a lot of this on the job now, but I can’t say it’s been easy – I sometimes struggle to comprehend my teammates who have worked in the field for much longer, as part of me silently begs for more answers on “how things work around here”.

I’ve had some experience facilitating teams in brainstorming sessions and running meetings, but I still feel I have a long way to go in running a full-blown workshop to generate compelling ideas and solutions. There’s a lot to learn here, too – some professionals dedicate their entire lives to this one craft.

I’m also fairly new to a role that involves more client-facing opportunities. This requires a lot of savvy, preparation, good people skills and good communication skills as well. I don’t think UX can exist in a bubble (unlike some software roles), and as a designer, I’m constantly required to take a stand and provide compelling reasons for my decisions, while considering the business and user goals. That’s one hard task!

UX can’t exist in a bubble (unlike some software roles), and as a designer, I’m constantly required to take a stand and provide compelling reasons for my decisions, while considering the business and user goals

In addition to this, I have to have a firm handle on what the overall experience should be. I’ve learnt from others and from my own experience that no single UX method rules them all. Things can get overly complicated and overwhelming very easily, and I’m still developing my own personal style and approach that works best for me.

Tips for Those Making the Move

UX is a very subjective, diverse, and inclusive design practice. It pays to be intellectually curious, to prefer problem solving through collaboration, and be comfortable tackling complex problems. As a UX designer, you will gradually have to dig deep through social, behavioural and technical layers to ensure your designs can hold up well in specific contexts. And since no single person can provide all answers, you’ll have to be resourceful and be thinking on your feet a lot.

I would also encourage stepping completely away from the computer for a while, at least until you’ve developed a personal approach to practicing UX. Start by putting some methods into practice and learning from that. Generate designs prolifically and with the assumption of throwing away much of what you’ve designed through rapid iteration. Don’t be afraid of starting from scratch with your designs repeatedly and testing them – it will build confidence in your ability to research and design.

Also, force yourself to design with others. This will help build a richer perspective of the world and how to design for it, and you’ll learn a lot about collaborative design in that process.

And while you’re at it, keep a journal of every lesson you’ve learnt. Not just written, but artifacts, concepts and sketches too. These will go handy in preparing a portfolio when you’re finally ready to hit prime time.

What I’ve Found About Moving Into UX

While the transition hasn’t been easy, I don’t regret the decision I made to switch. There is a lot of demand for UX designers of diverse backgrounds, and CS represents one of the primary foundations for UX as a domain. While it isn’t necessary to code while doing UX, a strong CS foundation provides a real world basis for UX problem solving. As technology gets even more complex, the role of a UX designer bridging the gap between technology and people is becoming increasingly important. I’m grateful for the opportunity I have now, and see no end to the possibilities ahead.

This is the first of a series of Johnny Holland articles on the different stories and skills people bring to UX. Have your own to add? Please contact us.

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Photo: NC-by-CC-2.0 by deltamike