Becoming a UX Specialist, Generalist, or Both - David Thomas, 2016

1. Becoming a UX
Specialist, Generalist,
or Both
by David Thomas
Creative Director, Mad*Pow

2. 1. A little about me
2. A little about Mad*Pow
3. A lot about UX
4. A lot of discussion

5. David Thomas

6. Creative Director
@MadPow

7. @cultivasion

8. /in/cultivasion

9. Been getting paid to
design for 15 years

10. I’ve worked for
small agencies,
large corporations,
some freelance,
some charity

11. Consumer goods,
start-ups, travel, real
estate development,
publications,
finance, and a lot
of healthcare

12. Born ’n bred in
Louisville

13. This is Lauren

14. This is Finn

15. Lauren + Finn

16. Me + Lauren + Finn

17. I’m in a band
#LeavingLondon

18. The Karate Kid
is the best
movie of
all time

19. Daniel and Mr. Miyagi

20. Marty and Doc

21. Luke and Obi Wan

22. The Wonder Years is
best TV show ever

23. Obama you’re fired.

25. Mad*Pow is a design
agency that improves
the experiences people
have with technology,
organizations and
each other.

26. Research & Validation
Experience Strategy & Service Design
Content Strategy & Creation
Motivational Design
Interaction Design & Visual Design
Usability Testing & Accessibility
Brand Development & Guidelines
Digital Marketing
Front-End Development
Application Development
Project Management
Design Training

27. Design for People

28. Health Insurance
Patient Care
Financial Services
Education
Sports & Entertainment
Technology

30. Boston, MA *Portsmouth, NH
Louisville, KY Oakland, CA

31. I get to work with
65 +/- awesome
people every day.

40. Flexible vacation
policy

41. 35 hour work weeks

42. Summer Friday’s

43. Coffee @P&TY

44. It’s about human
capital and culture

45. Ok, so back to
talking UX.

46. UX is difficult to
describe.

47. It’s ambiguous.
intangible. holistic.

48. If someone was to ask
you, “What do you do?”

49. How do you respond?

50. Do you tell them your
job title at your
company?

51. Or, maybe you get
brave and try to explain
what you UX is…good
luck!

52. Who here is a
UX Designer?

53. Sorry to be the first
to let you in on this
little secret, but a
UX Designer is not
a real thing.

54. “As designers, we can’t design ‘an
experience.’ It is an emotional, interior
state of being. The best we can do is
design for an experience.”
– Andy Fitzgerald, Senior UX Architect at Deloitte Digital
UX Unicorns and Other Fanciful Creatures (2012) – http://bit.ly/1oJqvsk

55. So if I’m not a UX
Designer then
what am I?

56. www.aaronweyenberg.com/uxgenerator/

58. www.aaronweyenberg.com/uxgenerator/

59. They want us to
be unicorns!

69. So, a job title is one
thing, but really what
type of worker am I?

70. 1. Compartmentalist
A compartmentalist is a person well versed
in their specialty, but doesn’t know anything
beyond that. Compartmentalist's throw their
hands up when the work goes beyond their
area of expertise or produce poor results.

71. “A compartmentalist isolates
themselves from other disciplines
around them, not really learning what
they do or how they do it.”
– Jared Spool, CEO UIE

72. TII
HardSkill#1
Weak
Soft Skills
HardSkill#2
HardSkill#3
Rest of Your Team

73. If this sounds like you, you’re
not alone, but it’s time to
embrace change.

74. 2. T-Shape/Specialist
A specialist brings a lot of skills and
experience in one or more specialties.
Maybe they’ve done a bundle of big and
small information architectures projects.
They’ve made a point of keeping up on the
latest thinking and have perfected many
new techniques.

75. “T-shaped people have two
characteristics. The vertical stroke of
the “T” is a depth of skill. The
horizontal stroke is the disposition for
collaboration across disciplines.”
– Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

76. T
Soft Skills
HardSkills

77. TTT
AdvancedHardSkill#1
Strong Soft Skills
AdvancedHardSkill#2
AdvancedHardSkill#3

78. If you think this is you, come talk
to me, I wanna hire you!

79. 3. Generalist
A Generalist is someone with broad skills—
someone who can switch between skill sets,
as the projects demand. This person offers
value regardless of the nature of the project,
giving flexibility to the types of assignments
the team could tackle.

80. “Generalists pay off in fast moving
organizations with a high-pressure
fire hose exuding out small, targeted
projects. The fast pace and variety of
the work will energize a talented
generalist, who brings value by
connecting the disparate projects
together to create common threads
and elements.”
– Jared Spool, CEO UIE

81. TTTTTT
Really Strong Soft Skills
LimitedSkill#2
LimitedSkill#3
LimitedSkill#4
LimitedSkill#5
LimitedSkill#6
LimitedSkill#1

82. Sound a lot like you?
You’d be a great UX Consultant!

83. Ok, what else?

84. Skills

85. • User Research
• Analytics
• Information Architecture
• Content Strategy
• Interaction Design
• Visual Design
• Font-End Development
Hard Skills
– Patrick Neeman, UsabilityCounts

87. • Empathy
• Curiosity
• Systematic
• Pragmatic
• Fearless
• Self-Aware
• Articulate
• Passionate
Soft Skills
– Patrick Neeman, UsabilityCounts

90. “I would rather have a OK designer
who works well with others and can
sell his work, than a GREAT designer
who is challenging to work with and
can’t sell his design.”
– Mike Monteiro

91. Capability vs.
Chemistry

92. Capability is what
you’ve done: Your
portfolio, your
resume…your work.

93. Chemistry is how
you’ve done it: Your
process, solving
problems, what you
learned.

94. Your employer cares
more about soft skills

95. Your employer cares
more about soft skills
…So do your clients

96. So what does UX
actually mean?

97. UX is a neologism.

98. “Well, it's nothing very special. Try to
be nice to people, avoid eating fat,
read a good book every now and
then, get some walking in, and try and
live together in peace and harmony
with people of all creeds and nations.”
– Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
https://youtu.be/qBArMmngVH4

99. “UX deals with people, with real
human beings ,and we’re a messy,
contrary, often bloody-minded and
obstinate species and any process
that caters for that is also going to be
just as messy and ill-defined.”
– Robert Powell, UX Consultant

100. user
research
strategy &
mapping
information
architecture
content
strategy
interaction
design
visual
design
creative
technology
UX

102. “UI stands on the top of a huge UX
mountain. The better the UI works,
the bigger the UX beneath.”
– Erik Flowers, Principal Service Designer at Intuit

103. UX = Brand
UI = Logo

104. Let’s Recap

105. 1. No such thing as
a UX Designer

106. 2. UX is about
designing for an
experience

107. 3. Job titles are less
important than roles

108. 4. Soft skills close
more deals than
hard skills.

109. 5. UX is not UI

110. 6. The Karate Kid is
the best movie ever

111. Thanks!

112. • Mike Monteiro – http://bit.ly/1A2as9N
• Tim Brown – http://bit.ly/1S9Zms7
• Robert Powell – http://linkd.in/1dNp3Ru
• Patrick Neeman – www.usabilitycounts.com
• Jared Spool –http://bit.ly/1NUlyVT
Check these out:

113. David Thomas
Creative Director, M*P
dthomas@madpow.com
@cultivasion
/in/cultivasion