Information that will change our lives. ;)

@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

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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. :slight_smile:

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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.
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Well, hello there folks!

Where in the world are you?
-I’m currently in the Seattle metro area of Washington State, USA.

What stage of your career are you at?
-Does exploratory count? I recently took a career aptitude test and UX design came up as a highly compatible career choice for my personal qualities.

What are you current challenges?

  • Haha, figuring out what UX is all about! I didn’t study tech or any form of design in school; however I do have a science background and from what I’ve found from research so far is that UX design and the scientific method are highly comparable.

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
-Well for now, I’m not exactly sure what part of the spectrum I fall into. I literally began research a few days ago. But from the videos so far, and the forums I’ve been reading through I’m very interested in the user research side.

Cats or dogs?
Dogs. Always dogs. Don’t get me wrong, cats are enjoyable (I love virtual cats, haha! [too much detail?!]) but dogs have a special place in my heart.

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Where in the world are you?
I am currently located in munich, Germany

What stage of your career are you at?
I´ve currently 7 years of expereince in ux not including my university time where I also worked in UX topics.
I´ve worked as external UX consultant as well as an internal consultant for national and multinational projects. Currently I am in an for a (in germany) well kown online company for travel reviews.

What are you current challenges?
Currently I´ve the opportunity and challange to work in all phases uf user centered design together with a bunch of other ux experts to getour travel content platform to the next level

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Psychology, Ergonomics, Interface design, research, engineering

Cats or dogs?
I am allergic to cat´s and dogs
But I´d like to have an Tucan or one of those beautiful parrots
(free flying for sure … not in a cage)

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Where in the world are you?
I’m from Chennai,India. A country with its own traditions and culture.
What stage of your career are you at?
Basically an Engineer,I was doing Graphic Designing and suddenly one day got to know about UX. Now I’m taking care my organizations UI and UX Needs serving our clients across the globe.
What are you current challenges?
Learning and researching about the Human needs and their view towards technology. Human minds are changing day-by-day and crating something that will give comfort to them is a challenging thing.
What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Usability Tests. That let us study about different kinds of users.
Cats or dogs?
I like dogs, but opportunities are less of having one.

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Hi everyone! I’m new here, and wanted to drop a line to say hello. Here’s my stab at answering the five q’s:

Where in the world am I?
Proudly representing Colorado here. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

What stage of my career am I at?

I’d say early-to-mid career, at least as far as UX is concerned. I’ve worked as a professional web developer and designer for the past four years. Most recently, I worked for two years creating interactive digital sign designs before jumping ship to take a role as the only UX Engineer for a midsized company providing software to investment advisors. I’m not a spring chicken, but I recognize that I still have a lot to learn.

What are my current challenges?

My biggest challenge is coming into a company with an already well-established, complex product that was created without any emphasis on usability. Prior to coming on, there was no UX/UI designer on-board, and what had been done previously was outsourced. They workflows required to provide a great UX are not in place, and I’m currently working to get those pieces on-track.

What aspects of UX am I passionate about?

I enjoy making complex processes easy. My pragmatism and empathy is what drives me to make the best product I can. In the past, I’ve worked with products in industries I can identify with. Although I can identify with wanting to manage my money responsibly, my lack of experience in the financial professional field is a limiting factor. Right now I’m working both on bolstering my UX skills, while also trying to learn as much as I possibly can about the financial world to help gain that empathy and problem anticipation that has made me good at what I did in the past.

Cats or Dogs?

Cats and dogs are great for different things.

Cats are wonderful for when you want to feel in-touch with another intelligent creature. The way I feel when my cat gets up from across the room, wanders over the couch and plops herself down on my lap for belly rubs is indescribable. Humans really don’t choose the cat; the cat chooses you.

Dogs are great for when you want to feel loved unconditionally. It’s tremendously comforting to know, at the end of every bad day, no matter how much money I have, no matter what terrible things I’ve done in life, no matter what harsh words I’ve said to my friends or had for myself, my dog is always there to love me. Completely, totally, unconditionally, without thought or question.

Right now I only have a cat, but I’m going to get a dog this summer. I’m tremendously excited.

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Yes! It totally does. If there is anything in particular that you’re curious about or could do with guidance on, just say the word.

What kind? (I’m a cat person but people’s choice of dog has always fascinated me.)

  1. Montréal, Québec, Canada
  2. What stage of your career are you at?
  3. I’m a User Experience Designer with over fifteen years of experience; much of it spent working in and around web design environments which has allowed me to acquire specific competencies in User Research, Requirements Gathering, Information Architecture, Interaction Design and Content Strategy.
  4. After so many years, I’m still struggling about merging the science and the art of design in a beautiful and thriving force.
  5. People. Yes, people. I’m passionate and enthusiastic about creating solutions that make people’s lives easier.
  6. Definitively cat.
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Oh man, this is always the $64,000 question, isn’t it? Growing up I had a Shiba Inu/Terrier mix (picture a smaller Akita with floppy ears and a bit of a beard), and she was a pretty awesome dog. It’s a pretty specific mix, though, and I don’t think I’d be able to find another.

Ultimately I’ll probably head down to the shelter where we got our cat and see what’s available when I’m ready, which may not be for another month or two. There are so many good dogs looking for homes, I feel like it shouldn’t take long to find something cute, lovable, and loyal that won’t destroy all of my furniture when I bring it home.

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

What stage of your career are you at?
Trying to transition in UX, working on my portfolio, continuing to self-educate

What are you current challenges?
Getting experience and developing a portfolio while working working full-time

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Making products that useful and enjoyable for people to use rather than the frustrating experiences they so often stuck with

Cats or dogs?
Cats. I respect their indifference to most people.

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Where in the world are you?
Thessaloniki, Greece

What stage of your career are you at?
Finished architecture school, trying to transition in UX, full of anxiety what my next steps should be, unemployed but decisive about UX pursuit.

What are you current challenges?
Get myself started without any help from my environment. I need guidance on how my pursuit should continue, but my only source is internet, which can be very helpful, but also sometimes very disorientating…

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Technology doesn’t have to be difficult and for the few… Anyone should have a direct approach and easy communication with it in order to make each ones lives better in every relevant aspect…

Cats or dogs?
Dogs for love and company. Cats for independence.

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Hi, I’ve been reading around the community for a couple of weeks, but decided to jump in and participate.

My name is Decio
Where in the world are you?
Brazil

What stage of your career are you at?
I’m 40 now and have led a design team for the past 12 years. We didn’t have a history of doing UX, really, although the design team as a whole have engaged in some UX activities like research, journey mapping and wireframming throughout the projects we took, but not in a structured way. I’ve been studying UX as a new venue for my career and also as a way to make a more professional approach to designing products in my company.
As for the future, the possibility of moving to Europe, mos likely Germany is something I would really like. Other possibility would be working from home which appeals a lot for me, since I didn’t have much opportunity to be around my daughters. But I am still trying to figure out how or if a remote career in UX could work.

What are you current challenges?
Taking into account there’s so much to learn and explore, focus would be one of them. Understand all the aspects of UX and how to make them work in a culture that have a lot of difficulty in working with agile and lean process, let alone a whole UX process to design new or redesign existing products.

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
I am very creative and analytical, and very much problem solving oriented. So I think what I like most about UX is the possibility of gather tons of information (or few of them) and somehow turn that into something that makes sense for the audience as a product.

Cats or dogs?
Dogs, most definatelly. But nothing against cats. (I think) :slight_smile:

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Such a brilliant idea, @HAWK

1. Where in the world are you?
I’m in Douala, Cameroon. A messy but so lovely tropical city… Can’t be objective about it because I was born and grew up here :slight_smile:

2. What stage of your career are you at?
It took a long time to “find my way”. I did my undergrad in Economics, then dropped out of my Master’s to work in Finance for a few years. I felt terribly bored, so I quitted and went back to school to study… Agriculture! Once more, I dropped out to start a startup and that’s where I discovered Balsamiq and literally fell in love with Design.
I was doing all my wireframing with Balsamiq and Prototyping in Keynote, with no knowledge of the jargon I’ve learned lately… It’s only last year that a friend of mine told me that I’ve been doing UX Design for 3 years, and that I should not be shy to call myself a Designer. I absolutely love what I do, and now work as a Product Lead for a startup here in Cameroon.

3. What are your current challenges?
I moved back home from London just 4 months ago, and have to readapt to a very unstructured environment with a very different set of (unwritten) rules. UX wise specifically, almost everything is different from what the literature has defined so far… That makes it a big challenge but also a joy to be doing UX work here, because we are defining local principles to some extent. And I am lucky to be jumpstarting the movement locally. Happy to expand on this if any questions :slight_smile:

4. What aspect/s of UX are you passionate about?
User Testing and tweaking designs from there. I love putting our work in front of people and see them playing with it. More generally, knowing that I am working on a product that has a meaningful impact on people’s life is a powerful feeling.

5. Cats or dogs?
Cats. I had 5 in my parents’ house when I was younger… But today, my wife is allergic so I can’t have any :cry:

Good be here, and happy to connect with all of you!

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Great to hear from you both @deciopenna and @steve – I love that we’re hearing from people in so many amazing countries. Maybe we should start a photo thread.

@steve Wow man, what a journey! I can commiserate with that longer path, as I’m sure @SteveCrow can.

Keep up the hard work, and welcome to the community.

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That would be lovely @HAWK, whenever you want :slight_smile:

Where in the world are you?
Lower Hutt, Wellington, NZ

What stage of your career are you at?
Hmmm… I have been doing this for about six or seven years, though for the first few I didn’t know what UX was even though I was doing it (or some of it).

It all started with discovering the world of usability and an IA project where I was lucky enough to be mentored in the art of user testing (online and 1-1). Then after a few more years, a few more IA projects and such things, learning as I went to do all sorts of UX things I got a job with ‘UX designer’ as the title. Initially I had a huge does of imposter syndrome :blush:, but they still like me and what I do, and I am lucky enough to be in a job with variety, the chance to research what I don’t know, and keep learning.

What are you current challenges?
Forms and tables. Working on an in-house application for an education provider - tables as far as the eye can see. On the horizon is a website redesign and IA project, but I have to get through the forms and tables first.

What aspect/s of UX are passionate about?
Reminding managers that user testing is the way to go. Knowing that I (or what I have been involved in creating) is not 100% right, just heading in the right direction and input from others adds value.

Cats or dogs?
Cats. Like dogs, but I admire the self assured way of a cat. And how they get to sleep a lot.

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Yay! A fellow Kiwi. Welcome @gillian_halba :slight_smile: