Pivot
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•448 views
A personal talk about how I went from a web developer to a Information Architect and User Experience Designer.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Featured
Featured (20)
Pivot
- 1. My Personal Pivot From Dev to UX Brian Durkin
- 2. Who am I Brian Durkin UX Designer …and im a Dad brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot I am a #UX designer. All views are NOT my own, I regurgitate thoughts and ideas from history and the collective subconscious. My art is mine.
- 3. Why Am I Doing This? Let’s get to know each other. brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 4. Agenda • The Past • The Pivot • The Present • The Future • Q&A brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 6. Where I came from • Went to Art School to be a famous artist • I studied Video Instillation Art Gary Hill, Crux brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 7. Where I came from • Taught myself HTML and built my first website in 1997 • Got a job working as tech support in 98 while taking Web Design classes. • They hired me as a web designer. brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 8. Where I came from brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 9. Where I came from brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 10. Where I came from My code ended up looking more like this brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 11. Where I came from I was turned from artist/designer into computer science engineer. brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 12. Where I came from I came to a few realizations brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 13. Where I came from My Realizations Code = Paint brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 14. Where I came from Physical != Digital But Feelings happen in both spaces My Realizations brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 15. Where I came from My Realizations brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot Art Design
- 16. Where I came from My Realizations My biggest realization brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 17. THE PIVOT Why & How I made the change brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 18. Why I chose to change Job titles I have had from 1997 - 2010: • Web Designer (Photoshop) • Web Designer/Developer (… plus HTML/CSS) • Live Server Developer (… plus Object Oriented DB & JS ) • Webmaster (…plus PHP/MySQL/SQL & Visio) • Information Systems Specialist II • PHP Developer • Sr. Front-End Web Developer (JSP/JHTML/etc…) • Sr. Client Side Developer (JSP/ASP/PHP/etc…) brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 19. Why I chose to change I learned most of these jobs had one thing in common: brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 20. Why I chose to change brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 21. Why I chose to change I was a web monkey. brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 22. Why I chose to change I wanted to stop being the web monkey and start making the design decisions. the only way to do great work is to love what you do.... Don't settle ― Jobs“ brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 23. How did I do it? I went to events to learn about interactions and the “WHY?” brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 24. How did I do it? I did research online brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 25. How did I do it? I read books… brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 26. What I Learned: brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 27. THE PRESENT …sort of the present, 2010 to now brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 28. What am I doing Now? I design to a user’s experience brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 29. What am I doing Now? Good design solves problems. I make sure I am always solving a problem at all times. brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 30. What am I doing Now? User Goals are just as important as Business Goals and Vice Versa. Figure out both users goals and business goals and to do this you need to have EMPATHY for both. brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 31. What am I doing Now? People who say “Content is King” or “Content First” are wrong (Easy Cowboy) Content + Context + Goals = Something of Value brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 32. What am I doing Now? I base everything on Empathy. In order for me to do that, I need to be a champion for user-centered design brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
- 33. What am I doing Now? All Design is a Hypothesis. Think > Make > Check brianjdurkin@gmail.com @uxbd #pivot
Editor's Notes
- Talk about the connection we all share as a group. So why I am here, and why do I want to share personal information to a group of strangers? I have been a local leader involved in the IXDA for a number of years now. In fact I joined back in 2008 and since then I have meet so many wonderful people and everyone has a different story. Everyone’s story is different yet there are lots of similarities that can be drawn and I’m hoping that maybe by listening to my story I can help someone realize a path or help someone along in there journey. So before we get into my story, let me get an idea of who is here. Who here is a User Experience Designer or Information Architect? Who wants to be a IA or UXer? A Visual Designer? A Dev? A Researcher? A PM/Manager/Executive? Something I didn’t mention?
- While I was studying to be an artist, the internet was changing and I was taking notice. I had a roommate who was a computer science engineer and he would show me how to code things for fun. I remember getting into VRML thinking that it was the next big thing and that I was going to be the first artist to be able to code in VRML. Can anyone tell me what VRML is…
- 97 HTML 98 graduated WTF do I do now? 98 web design class Tech Support at an ISP …I would answer irate phone calls all day long. I also really learned how the internet works too I had to ping servers, traceroute URLs, and play Age of Empires or Quake. The ISP eventually hired me to do Web Design work for them when they found out I knew how to design websites and that I was a wiz and nested tables and using 1px spacer gif images. Well, my coding skills got better because the HTML world got better especially with the introduction of CSS.
- I got really good at taking my photoshop images and cutting them up and turning them into HTML. I was able to pick up CSS and utilize it to minimize my page sizes and was really proud of what I could do. I was really proud of my nested tables AND inline styles. Then something happened.
- I got a job at a company in the early 2000’s. They would hire people like me, web designers who went to art school and they would teach them about the proprietary object oriented database language they had and I became a web developer. At the same time I learned about JavaScript …AND how to use classes and IDs properly because of it. I grew a lot in a short amount of time. Because of this database training, my next few jobs were more on the software development side. I was certified at one point in MySQL and in SQL and have designed and built entire systems.
- Eventually…
- There was one point where I said I just wanted to focus on being a front-end developer so that what I did after a while. I think this was where I hit a road block in my career and my life. My realizations started to hit me.
- One thing that I realized after years of being a developer was that, if you get good enough at it, the code turns into your paint, your paintbrush, your canvas. It is the medium your working with. It is the equivalent to my Visio now. Which also just took it and turned it into just a skill for me. When I was in art school, I went to a 3 hour drawing class every other day for 4 years. It wasn’t because I was going to become a professional pencil maker or charcoal expert. The tools I used were a way for me to express my creativity. Well, too me, I was spending too much time becoming the best, or trying to become the best, at using a pencil when what I was making wasn’t even my own. I wanted to make things and I was not making anything. I was being told to build or fix what other people had created.
- This has to do with Art. Art evokes emotion. Design solves problems. But there can be a commonality that can happen in both spaces.
- This has to do with Art. Art evokes emotion. Design solves problems. But there can be a commonality that can happen in both spaces.
- I was not happy
- Design is bigger than I thought…and I love it.
- When people ask me what is UX. I usually start with this. I design to a User’s Experience. It makes it sound a little more holistic because it is. A user’s Experience encompasses many aspects from visual design elements like font styles to the interactions to the hierarchical importance of information on the page to how it makes them feel at that moment which happens to be my favorite topic.
- Most of all… Whenever I am doing anything I ask myself why am I doing this? Who is this benefiting? Is this going to solve anything? ( Chess analogy )
- Iterations based on user feedback. That’s how you validate assumptions. If you are able to validate assumptions you are managing risk. Waterfall and having signoff on something that you have “faith” is going to work has higher risk than a project that has been iteratively validated. Something that is iteratively validated is a project you can make sure is going to be useful and solve a problem which is the whole point. The product is going to be helpful and be a product of value.