What are the most important skills you should be working on as a designer? What are the tools you should be using? (hint: it's not Photoshop or Sketch) In this talk, I cover a few things he thinks every designer—and humans in general—should be practicing so they can do their best work. From Lean UX SF Meetup, June 2014

1. Mindfulness, Soft-Skills
and Design
D. Keith Robinson
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Thursday, June 26, 2014
Lean UX SF

2. !
D. Keith Robinson
Principal Product Designer, Salesforce
@dkr / dkeithrobinson.com / dangerismyfristname.com

3. Salesforce UX

4. SOFT SKILLS.
PEOPLE SKILLS.

5. “Infinite diversity in infinite
combinations...symbolizing
the elements that create
truth and beauty.”
- Commander Spock

6. “Staying on top of the hard skills needed is a
necessity in the short term, but one of the best
ways to position yourself for success in the long
term is to focus on the soft skills needed no matter
what technology you are working with.”
- Sean Blanda
From: http://99u.com/articles/20696/you-dont-need-to-learn-to-code-other-truths-about-the-future-of-careers

7. “Sometimes the most appropriate
technological solution is a person
talking to another person.”
- Robert Hoekman Jr
The Tweet from @rhjr: https://twitter.com/rhjr/status/464129645688799233

8. “Getting the right people and the
right chemistry is more important
than getting the right idea.”
- Creativity, Inc.
From Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (co-founder of Pixar) and Amay Wallace

9. PRACTICE.
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PRACTICE.
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PRACTICE.

10. THINGS TO PRACTICE

11. BEING MINDFUL

12. What is Mindfulness?
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A mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness
on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging
and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily
sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
!
Google

13. BEING FOCUSED ON
THE PRESENT

14. Practical Tips to help you focus
on the present:
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1. Remove Distraction
2. Plan For/Against Context
Switching
3. Reserve “Slack Time”

15. Shoshin
(BEGINNER’S MIND)
More: Beginner's Mind

16. “In the beginner’s mind there are
many possibilities, in the expert’s
mind there are few.”
- Shunryu Suzuki
From: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

17. EXPERIMENTAL
ATTITUDE

18. ASKING QUESTIONS

20. “Asking questions is at the heart of
collaboration, more so than any
project management software or
process. And if you want to truly
collaborate, I’ve found you need to
allow yourself to be someone
without the answers.”
- Jason Santa Maria
From: https://the-pastry-box-project.net/jason-santa-maria/2014-march-15

21. ACTIVE LISTENING

22. BEING OK WITH NOT
KNOWING

23. “I’ll think about it and
get back to you.”

24. OFFER TO HELP

25. PRACTICE SAYING
THANK YOU

26. PAIRING & SHARING
More: On Pairing

27. THANK YOU
D. Keith Robinson / @dkr
dkeithrobinson.com / dangerismyfirstname.com
!