Information that will change our lives. ;)

[dean]

1. I’m in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2. I’ve had UX in my job title for 5-6 years now, before that I had other ill fitting titles which basically revolved around solving problems for people. (https://the-pastry-box-project.net/dean-birkett/2014-october-26)
3. I work for a company that build assistive tech software solutions, primarily for children on the autism spectrum - the main product gives nonverbal children a voice.
4. Accessibility. I was freelancing for a while, then an opportunity came up to work more in this field. I love solving problems that have a huge impact, sign-up flows for holiday booking companies are fun but seeing a nonverbal child send a text message telling his mother than he loves her is much more important. I also love running usability tests, and research on the whole.
5. Cats!!!

[luismuv]

Hi fellow UXers,

1. Brisbane, Australia
2. I’m in my transition from Front-end Development and design to UX
3. Currently, I have the option to implement UX principles into my company’s websites and internal systems. Now my challenge is to do my best to add value and get more experience in this field.
4. Pretty much everything. I prefer to record users working with our systems than interviewing or testing in the room with them. So I’m not very comfortable with this process so far.
5. Dogs but prefer sloths lol!

[inca431]

Hi, My name is Chris and I live in Los Angeles, CA. I’m coming from broadcast production, mostly editing for television and I’m excited to be moving into UX. I feel that my skills working with giants in the entertainment industry have prepared me pretty well to focus on Users, their needs, AND balance it with client desires. What I love most is that I’m hoping to wear a variety of different hats, sometimes doing research, sometimes creative, lots of collaboration, and working with people… Dogs…

[paddy]

Super Idea Hawk.

• Where in the world are you?
  Galway, Ireland. Beautiful medieval city on edge of Europe, great arts scene. Growing startup/tech sector. Very large
  Medical Device Tech sector also. Christopher Columbus visited here before finding America. (Checking the weather I believe).

• What stage of your career are you at?
  Been working in Graphic Design and Publishing for ages. Sent the past few years learning and studying as much UX related stuff. (Currently doing a BSc in Design & Digital Technology). and building up a portfolio of work. (which needs to be updated a bit http://paddyux.webflow.io/) Haven’t looked to move jobs yet, probably moving to Australia in next year or so (My wife is Australian).

• What are you current challenges?
  Studying mostly, finding time. Getting real work experience is always a challenge in UX. Convincing people to ask and trust what user are saying.

• What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
  Done some live user testing which was great. Seeing user find problems you missed is real bonus.

• Cats or dogs?
  Dogs are people too.

Paddy

[fvila]

Hi all,

I live near Paris, France,
I’m a baby boomer, and I’ve done a variety of things in my life
My current challenge is that my company having been merged into a larger one, my job has become much less interesting
I’m passionate about making interfaces and products simple and useful for users
Cats I guess

For more about me, check out my portfolio: http://fvila.fr/portfolio_responsive

[wispfox]

What I hope to achieve is a better sense of community. I want us to get to know what drives each other and how we can better network and support each other, whatever stage of the journey we’re at.

Where in the world are you?
What stage of your career are you at?
What are you current challenges?
What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Cats or dogs?

I’m in the greater Boston area, MA, USA.

Just starting to try to get into UX. Working on a friend’s design project to try to get something into a portfolio eventually, since it seems like every UX job - internship or not - wants a portfolio.

Current challenges seems to be focus, really. There’s SO MUCH, and it’s actually really difficult to get a general overview of what to do during a design project. So far, I’ve figured out overarching goals for my theoretical users and for the business, some flow/journey thoughts, and done some initial mockups in balsamiq. I’m trying to figure out who to ask to be my sample users for user testing (probably friends and family, to start, preferably not people who are already in UX). I asked a bunch of questions when my friend initially explained his idea, just to get a better idea of what he was thinking so that I could figure out who the users might be.

I want to know All The Things! More seriously, it feels like an excellent combination of software testing (which I did for 10 years) and psychology research - which I have a masters in and just left a PhD program due to insufficient support on the CS side of an interdisciplinary program. I also really like writing documentation for things, because otherwise I forget things or I don’t understand them, so a good reason to need to explain things and write them is lovely. I don’t know if there’s anything I’m not at least curious about. But I’m early enough that it’s hard to say that there is anything specific that I’m passionate about. That said, I’m really interested in diving into accessibility, once I finish getting my foundation stuff in UX done.

I have cats, I like both, and actually I like darned near all animals (not cockroaches because of how they move, mosquitoes because they carry nasty things and their bites itch, and ticks because of the aforementioned nasty things).

[natalie_eustace]

1. Where in the world are you?
   Christchurch, New Zealand. Moved here after the huge earthquakes to complete my masters (everyone thought I was crazy).

2. What stage of your career are you at?
   I’ve gone and done all the studying I ever want to do now (other than courses and workshops for growth), and the last thing I finished up with was a Masters in Human Interface Technology. I’ve been working in UX for 3 years solidly now . I work for a company who produce software that helps solve crime and ingest and analyse large amounts of data to find patterns and connect the dots.

3. What are your current challenges?
   With an expanding team across different timezones and locations, keeping up with everything and making sure that we are communicating and helping out where we can is becoming quite important. We are also fighting the never ending battle to try get access to our users (we have a bit of red tape because of the area we are in) in order to help make our designs more data driven than based around interviews, personas and SMEs.
   Another challenge currently is figuring out specific target markets and what problems we are actually trying to solve, rather than just porting across old functionality into our web solution.

4. What aspect/s of UX are you passionate about?
   Really all of them, mine’s less based around the process and more the fact that the things we help design and problems we can help solve make a difference in the world. We can do our part bit by bit . I’m also really into sketching and ideation with copic markers.

5. Cats or dogs?
   I love both, but we recently got an 8 month staffie bull terrier x and she’s stolen my heart .

[mlucas]

• Where in the world are you?
  Sydney , Australia
• What stage of your career are you at?
  Early stages only 2 years in after 7 years doing graphic and web design
• What are you current challenges?
  I have found myself being the ‘Lone wolf’ in companies. Challenge is to win over the entire company to adopt more UX practices. I’ve recently won the need to do usability testing.
• What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
  I’m passionate about solving problems, working in a team to work out the best way to solve these problems and validating our assumptions with testing and its great to check the analytics and see that my suggestions impact the project and are proven by task completion rates
• Cats or dogs?"
  Dogs

[Aleksandra_Ilinskaia]

1. Where in the world are you?
   I am currently studying at 2 universities simultaneously. One of them is located in Saint-Petersburg, Russia and another one in Lappeenranta, Finland.

2. What stage of your career are you at?
   I guess I am at the beginning of my career. Almost done with studying, will get master’s degree soon. I have experience with helping to create front-end parts of a couple of websites.

3. What are you current challenges?
   To complete my thesis sucessfully and find a decent job that I will love.

4. What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
   As it is shown in my research (survey that I publicated) I am interested in the UX design methods and when they can be used.

5. Cats or dogs?
   Both!:o

[AshleaMcKay]

1. Where in the world are you?
   Canberra, Australia

2. What stage of your career are you at?
   I just passed the 5 year mark

3. What are you current challenges?
   Building a greater depth to my technical expertise and figuring out ‘where to from here?’

4. What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
   User research and usability testing. I love it! I’m also quite passionate about mentoring and UX leadership stuff.

5. Cats or dogs?"
   I’m a crazy cat lady- I have a black cat named Wednesday

[eduardo_roxius]

Hello people! Nice to see this growing community and such a cozy place. Hope to see a lot of nice discussions here. Nice to meet you, my name is Eduardo.

1. Where in the world are you?
I’m from Recife, Brazil, but currently on my first year in the MFA program in Interaction Design at Umeå University, Sweden.

2. What stage of your career are you at?
As UX and UI designer I’ve been on the market since 2012, matching web front-ending, design and interaction design. I started my “official” studies on IxD last year, with my move to Umeå.

3. What are you current challenges?
Screens! And objective-thinking mindset of people.

4. What aspects of UX are passionate about?
Research and Prototyping. Concept development will always be great, but without a good research it will be inconsistent. Prototyping is great because you validate concepts and discover new things… and have fun!

5. Cats or dogs?
Dogs, preferably the ones with lot of energy to play

[HAWK]

Welcome @Roxius – glad you found us! Wow, I bet Brazil --> Sweden was a pretty big culture shift!

[eduardo_roxius]

Definitely! The weather is a great concern – I moved from 28-38ºC to 24 - (-24)ºC – but the culture is what marks, even though Umeå is full of international people… and the food. I miss Brazilian meat so bad! Hahahaha

[HAWK]

I miss Brazilian meat so bad!

Heh, I can imagine! I spent some time in Brazil a few years back and the meat was standout. Everything has a LOT of cheese on it though, which I found interesting.

[SteveCrow]

Where in the world are you?
The Monterey area of California

What stage of your career are you at?
I’m at the very start of a transition from video production to UX Design

What are you current challenges?
Figuring out how to reposition myself credibly on sites like LinkedIn, my own web site and in my written resume

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
For me it’s all about delivering solutions that people actually want to use, that are both functional and easily understood

Cats or dogs?
I’m warming up to cats but I’m definitely a dog person. Plus I’ve never had an allergic reaction to a dog while cats can be problematic - but they can also be very very cute as in this example:

Trailer for Kedi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgYAuo9UYoE)

[laura_ldp]

1. Washington, DC
2. Beginning UX, I’m a mid-career professional, currently conference planning, with a bit of design in my role, and I really enjoy the design part. I’ve talked to some folks, and sounds like UX is in line with my strengths.
3. Getting momentum going to make a career shift! This community is part of my momentum motivation.
4. People-centric design.
5. Dogs, but prefer plants.

[leonbarnard]

1. Richmond, California
2. Mid-plus? 12 years now…
3. Keeping my skills sharp and figuring out “what’s next?” for my UX career
4. Shepherding design from idea to implementation
5. Grew up with cats but find myself more drawn to dogs lately. On the fence about ever owning one though.

[Louise]

@mlucas hi! Congrats on winning the need for usability testing, that’s a major milestone.

I admire you, being the lone wolf is the hardest job on the planet, you have to watch companies sometimes, they can take advantage of the fact you are in the early stages and they’ll have you doing the entire user-centered design process - to save them having to hire anyone else. Has this happened to you? Would love to hear more!

Louise

[HAWK]

Great question @louise_campbell1 – I’ve split it out into a new topic so the conversation doesn’t get lost in the noise here. Hope that’s cool with you.

[Roi_France]

1. Where in the world are you?

• Philippines.

2. What stage of your career are you at?

• Currently working as a software QA. Studying and doing a lot of research to prepare myself for transition as a UX designer.

3. What are you current challenges?

• Positioning myself in UX designer career, studying and researching while working in a different field. To acquire experience and practices.

4. What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?

• To Design and to Innovate. I am also interested to learn the psychological side of understanding people with different behaviors, how to serve them based on their needs using technology (simple to complex).

5. Cats or dogs?

• Dogs.