How do your UX skills stack up?

I recently blogged about an interactive version of Elizabeth Bacon’s sundial showing the various fields of user experience design, and how we can use it to find our own skill gaps, or assess the nature of our team and/or prospective hires for HR/management purposes. Thomas Yung generously built an interactive version that we’ve made available on the UX Mastery website. We’re getting people to post their results in this forum thread so we can all compare and discuss.

Here’s the results of my own self-assessment using the UX Sundial: http://uxmastery.com/ux-self-assessment-sundial/#?uuid=2694697d-df65-a73d-b306-2386bd8f504d

What does yours look like? Where, and why, do you want to improve your UX skills?

Create your own sundial >

Here’s mine:
http://uxmastery.com/ux-self-assessment-sundial/#?uuid=61b6866c-9f3e-30ab-0f24-f5f3f7884885

I would like to work on building up my skills in; branding, service design and interaction design. I love research and running usability evaluations,but I do work for a service driven gov department (both within the department and with the public) and a lot of the roles in my workplace are heading in the direction of service design. I’ve had a little bit of a taste of that while working on our mobile app but it would be nice to expand on that. I will still do the testing and research work but it would nice to be more involved in detailed design too.

Thanks for starting this thread!

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I do have a question in regards to how you rate yourself using this scale. I’ve seen it and read about it but find it difficult to rate myself. Am I supposed to rate each of these in terms of each other. Say, I know more about and have more practise with interaction design, does this mean I then base that as the highest and rank everything else from that? Or do I do it based purely on experience (say in years), etc. What makes a 10 and what makes a 1?

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I’m glad you asked that question! I was meaning to give more details on how to use it.

The sundial does two key things for you:

  • It defines the skills that are needed in the UX space, and
  • It provides a way to include your ratings on a visual scale

But it doesn’t include a specific test we can each take to produce results on a curve. It’s mostly a subjective scale (and therefore limited in how it can compare apples with apples). Where it really gets useful in when it’s used for opening conversations about skills, experience, interests and opportunities for further growth - especially with someone who knows you and has seen your work. It is these conversations with UX peers and work colleagues that will give you the juicy insights as to where you stack up when compared to the rest of the field.

But to get your own ratings down to start with, think about a few of the times when you’ve used skills from the twelve areas in the past:

  • Did you consider them cursorily, or did you spend a lot of time on them? Depth of engagement with activities can help indicate skill.
  • How confident were you in knowing what you were doing, and in getting a good result? Being mostly lost and reactive suggests a lack of fluency.
  • Were the results a shambles, were they fairly successful, or were they amazingly effective? The end results a big part of defining if you’re good at something!
  • How many skills in each area do you have? More skills in a particular area allows you to rate yourself higher.

To help you think about these times, you may like to check Elizabeth’s original sundial for additional details about activities included in each area: http://uxmastery.com/wp-content/uplo…xD_Sundial.jpg

Of course people might often exaggerate their competency if they feel they’re being judged negatively, but even when people are honest with themselves I think they still tend to err on underestimating their knowledge and how it can be useful to an employer or client. The sundial will hopefully help people see the breadth of experiences that can be brought together under the UX umbrella.

Here’s my self-assessment sundial. Good on you Luke and Ashlea for being brave enough to post yours first! :slight_smile:

Natalie, the way I rated myself was by considering 1 = I know so little about this topic that I would be uncomfortable offering it as a service to a paying client, and 10 = I am a thought leader on this topic, and am invited to present at conferences and have written books on the subject.

I don’t feel confident rating myself a 9 in any discipline, as I really am a good generalist, and this reflects my varied interests. I’m conscious that it means I’m not as T-shaped as I probably should be, so I need to work on becoming more of an expert in one of those areas where I’m already strong.

However, part of me wants to round out my skills the areas where I’m weak, like industrial design, which would empower me to dip my toes in the design of physical products, rather than purely digital ones. I guess we’ll see! :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tips on how to use the rating :).
This is my attempt taking into account that I am relatively new to this field, and also limited to the types of projects I do in my job and how far through the process we go with each one. I’m hoping to get a lot better and slightly more well rounded! Especially want to have a chance to do more research :).

http://uxmastery.com/ux-self-assessment-sundial/#?uuid=263ace21-d288-9e9a-8830-217124e3a0d1

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Hello. My name is Yuda. i am really new to UX/UI design. i am doing a lot of game design right now(not that a lot :D), but i know UX/UI is become more important part in game nowadays. i want to learn a lot and create good UX/UI for my game.

I found this self-assesment sundial from Luke, he really kind to show me how to use it. and this is mine
http://uxmastery.com/ux-self-assessment-sundial/#?uuid=c8871526-3305-90b9-8151-77cfc4d7e58a

Actually, i dont really know if my skills really that high, but since i am doing game designing, i am doing a lot of design research and visual design. i try to make my game is simple yet have good depth so player dont get bored so easily. i dont know what is information architecture and technical communication because i never learn it. i really want to learn more about it. i hope i can grow my skills more. :slight_smile:

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