Information that will change our lives!

You’re very welcome – it must be exciting to have things under way!

And welcome @kylee_hill14 – welcome to the team. Let me know if there is anything specific we can help you find.

Where in the world are you?

  • Sydney, Australia

What stage of your career are you at?

  • Part time design student
  • part time illustrator
  • full time BA.
  • Stage is “confused”.

What are you current challenges?

  • Finding a mentor
  • Developing a good independent practice
  • Finding a full time UX role.

What aspect/s of UX are you passionate about?

  • Co-design with the people whom tools impact the most.
  • Using digital nudges to overcome life’s bad patterns.

Cats or dogs?

  • Depends on the persona we are designing for. Research has suggested that cat owners are more discerning in their relationships and prefer science fiction, while dog owners are more gregarious and enjoy love stories.

I think any pet solution should have flexibility to handle multiple personality types, but it seems like poor product management to have to build a cat-dog… A cat would be less work to get started, so maybe if I teach it to fetch? A bit of a hacky solution but it would get the job done as a first iteration.

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You win the prize for best answer to this question ever. Actually – I reckon this actually DOES deserve a prize, don’t you @Lukcha?

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Ha, great answer! And yep, I agree @hawk. We’ll have something in our box of prizes we can sort out. Stay tuned @joshua_shuv :slight_smile:

Thanks, that’s fantastic!

I’ve already gotten to work but may need to pivot a bit.

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Hi Everyone! My name is Stephanie. First time posting here. :slight_smile:

Where in the world are you?
Washington, DC, USA

What stage of your career are you at?
Mid-level, been in UX for 5 years (and a Master’s in Human Factors Psychology prior to that).
Role: Lead UX Researcher for a startup product company

What are you current challenges?
Researching events that don’t happen frequently.

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Research and strategy - how to leverage research to lead the direction of a product.

Cats or dogs?
Both! But I’d love to get a dog. :slight_smile:

Welcome Stephanie, welcome to the madhouse – thanks for posting.

Ha – interesting challenge! How are you handling it?

Thank you for the welcome, Hawk.

I am still figuring it out! :sweat_smile: Only on my forth week at this new gig, so I think I’m still golden. Thinking about experience mapping with people who have experienced/witnessed events that have happened in the past to get deeper understanding of them. Trying to re-live what the person experienced before, during, and after the event occurred.

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Hi Hawk , you run a good ship !

Where .
Sunny South Africa .
Stage
Africa Representative for the Interaction Design Foundation , Copenhagen.
Challenges
Zero , since UX arrived .
Passion
Global distribution of UX into EVERYTHING .
Dogs/Cats .
Had them both, loved them both .However , I am off to marry Permaculture to UX so I wont have to deal with that choice any longer . I will of course assist to develop CatUX & DogUX as it seems to be a undiscovered territory .

  • Where in the world are you? Columbus, Ohio, USA

  • What stage of your career are you at? Senior Manager of a team of UX/UI designers working primarily on credit account management websites

  • What are you current challenges? My team is too small for consistently quality designs and we don’t have formal usability researchers

  • What aspect/s of UX are passionate about? Leading my team to create the most highly intuitive, problem-solving user experiences we can.

  • Cats or dogs? Definitely Dogs.No question.

Why thank you! (BTW I got your message via the blog and have passed on your details to Paul.)

Welcome Anne. It’s great to see increasing numbers of senior UXers joining us here. If there are themes or topics of interest that you’d like to see more of around here, please hit me up. It’s important to me that members in your position get as much value out of their membership here as people transitioning into a UX career do.

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Thanks. I’m definitely interested in seeing the variety of backgrounds and positions around UX that participants bring to the table. I am very focused on growing our practice so we can do better work.
Anne

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Thanks Hawk , appreciated .

Talking to Paul

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Hello! My name is Sara and I live In Michigan.
I have only recently discovered Ux Research and I am in the very beginning stages of learning this field.
My current challenges are that I only have a high school diploma (I’m 26). I’ve recently became blind in one eye so I had to take a couple years off working to adjust to my new sight. And lastly, I have found little or no help for getting any career advice from others (simply because they haven’t heard of this field).
The aspects that drew me into finding more information was the research part of the job. I love to people watch, pick others brains, help others in need and most of all i love creating things!
I’m a cat person.

Hey @sara_allen730 – sounds like you’ve had to overcome some adversity – good on you. I’m glad you’re here.

What kind of help do you need? We can support you.

It might be helpful for you to connect with @smpratt01 – Stephanie is also new to our community but is a senior UX researcher. She will no doubt have advice about getting into the field.

Thank Your for the reply HAWK.
Well for starters I would like to know if i need a college degree to even start, Or if just “certificates” would suffice. Near my home there is a University that offers a free UX class however they want you to come up with $1,000 for copies of your completion certificates. Money I don’t have at all at the moment :cry:
I also would like to know from people who did go to college, what degree they found most helpful. From the tid bits I’ve found online I’ve seen anything from a BA in business to psychology to computer design. So I’m a little confused on how so many can have different degrees yet the same job title.
Lastly, I would like to know about this portfolio everyone talks about. My idea of a portfolio is kind of a scrapbook of all your ideas, tests, and outcomes of those tests but I could be wrong. My other question pertaining to portfolios is, Is it possible to even make one without any experience?
Other than that I’m just interested in the different aspects of the job and how people got there.
Thank You in advance for any help!

Hi there! I am momma of 3 , from Iowa… yeh I know right?! … Iowa.
I am a dental assistant/photographer… looking to get away from portrait photography and focus on natural photog and turn my passion and drive where I would like to be successful in UX … I have sketch and photoshop , just trying to make headway as a newbie.
My challenges seem to be to learn even close to what I should know with all the time I feel Ive spent understanding and practicing on sketch for a start up company that went under sad to say.
I am passionate about the psych behind it as well as the ability to create and turn my work into something that will
stimulate all that sees it. After all vision is said to be the strongest of senses . Its a feeling of accomplishment and I also get drive from being a stay at home parent juggling life of my kiddos and still having the availability to feel successful which I have yet to feel in my life.
Cats or dogs… hard to say… I have a few of each … well one three legged rescue cat Jazzy. Been the best cat ever. hehe. and an Aussie best frisbee catcher and friend . And a 150 lb newfoundland that smothers you when you try to pet him bc I made the mistake of holding him when he was little . ha.

Hey Guys

Phil here! coming to you from Toronto, Canada

What stage of your career are you at?
UI/UX Designer mostly IOS/Android
What are your current challenges?
Making magic happen, while learning code
What aspect/s of UX are you passionate about?
Design Research, Testing and Prototyping
Cats or dogs?
Does Snoop Dogg count???

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Hi!

I’m so glad to find an active community and hoping that by joining I can meet some new people who share similar interests.

Where in the world are you?
I’m based in Syracuse, New York

What stage of your career are you at?

I suppose I’m mid-career and new-ish to UX.

What are you current challenges?

I’d like to learn more about UX research, process, etc. but having a hard time knowing where to do this. How to fuse my visual designer background with UX? Do I go back to get a Masters in HCI or do a boot camp? Part of my challenge is feeling old.

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?

I’d love to learn more about research and psychology. I also love the challenge of organizing content.

Cats or dogs?

Both! A Russian Blue Tabby Mix and a beagle.

Thank you.
Deb

No, you don’t. Any education or relevant experience is helpful, but nothing suggests that you’ll do better with a degree at this point. The trick is getting plenty of experience under your belt.[quote=“sara_allen730, post:121, topic:2229”]
a BA in business to psychology to computer design. So I’m a little confused on how so many can have different degrees yet the same job title.
[/quote]

Because UX isn’t a single job. There are people that a researchers, others are designer or analysts. They all still work ‘in UX’ but specialise in very different aspects.

In this context, a portfolio is a collection of your work, demonstrating your process as well as the outcomes. Here are some of my favourite examples: http://uxmastery.com/10-inspiring-ux-portfolios/

That depends on what you mean by experience. You can use fictitious projects or ones that you did pro bono.

Does that help?