General Assembly's UXDi - Week 7

This week, we focused on presenting ourselves as UX Designers.  We had time to build out our portfolios by expanding on our last project in a way that is unique to our personal goals as UX Designers.  Towards the end of the week, we began to focus on honing our elevator pitches so that we can sell ourselves in just a small amount of time.  

Topics Covered this Week

  • Service Design
  • Human Interface Guidelines
  • Style Guides
  • Designing for Mobile
  • Project Management Principles
    • Waterfall Framework
    • Agile Framework
    • Lean UX
  • UX Storytelling

 

Guest Lecture: Designers + Developers: Best Friends Forever

 

Janet Taylor is a developer turned designer, and Steph Monette is a designer turned developer, so they had a lot to say about how designers and developers can work together.

Highlights from my notes:

  • Designers and developers are both designers on the same team, they just use different tools.
  • Create a shared language.
    • Designers need to learn the language of the developers to make their feedback more actionable.
    • Developers need to understand the design process and like to be a part of it.
  • Understand the overlap: Good engineering yields good UX.
  • A couple good questions to ask in the interview process:
    • "What are you doing to cultivate a good design culture in your organization?"
    • "Tell me where design sits in the structure of your company."

 

Outcomes: Portfolios

  • Your portfolio is a UX Design Challenge, just like all other UX Design Challenges.  Use the same research, tools, and design process as any other project!
  • Consider all the audiences that may look at your portfolio and the kinds of things that each audience will be looking for.
  • Put your best work first, otherwise it may not be seen.

 

Elevator Pitch

This week, we all practiced pitching ourselves in front of the class, as if we met a UX Hiring Manager at a networking event.

Questions we aimed to address in <2 minutes:

  • What do you do well?
  • How is your focus connected to your background?
  • What would you like to do?
  • What is your why?
  • How this connects to the job you want
  • How it applies to a recent project

 

Project 5 Intro

At the end of the day on Friday, we were all assigned with the groups we will working with on our last project and the real company we will working with!  I will be working with Honeit and I'm excited to meet with them on Monday!