One of the Five Manifestos for Life from Brain Pickings, my new favorite blog of delightfully curated content
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One of the Five Manifestos for Life from Brain Pickings, my new favorite blog of delightfully curated content

Source: brainpickings.org

Looking for love: A portfolio story

I’ve been agonizing for months trying to get my portfolio together, getting little bits done here and there and always being derailed by schoolwork, The Triangle, and general overextension of myself. I thought for sure I’d get it done before Interaction11, but even skipping sleep the night before and working through most of the plane and bus rides, I just couldn’t get it to a satisfactory place. I’d hammered out the aesthetics (which I really need to transfer into a template for this blog), but the important pieces just weren’t fitting together. My central concept just felt so flat, so cookie-cutter.

As a UX designer, I am naturally prone to prioritize the needs of my users over my own; I did a lot of research and competitive analysis. I looked at company sites and other students. I looked to an IxDA list convo from a while ago for inspiration in making the portfolio itself a UX exercise (uber meta).

I think my biggest problem was being too concerned with what other people might be expecting or looking for in a portfolio. This is my portfolio. It has to reflect me and my strengths and passions, not fill in the blanks of what I think prospective employers might want to see. Sure, they’re my target audience and they have their own goals — but those vary depending on the type of company and the individual. Even though I know I want to do UX research and design work, preferably in some space that allows me to “save the world” (ex: healthcare, government, education), I feel like I don’t have a focused enough goal to target my audience well (that’s what cover letters and conversations are for).

Plus, based on the amount of IxDA/IAI/Twitter discussions and blog posts I’ve seen, no one really seems to know what a UX portfolio “should” look like anyway. I’m still certainly open to critique and commentary, but I hit a point where it just needed to be done…for now, anyway.

Meg Metz’s comments at our last UX Book Club meeting about Storytelling for User Experience really resonated with me. As a recruiter, her job is effectively to help people tell their stories to potential employers. It’s not just about fitting criteria; it’s about real compatibility.

So, this is my story. Take me as I am — I like to use words with my pictures, and I prefer not to wear shoes (according to Amy Cueva at PhillyCHI last year, this is a trait of real designers). But I do clean up well when needed.

And I love this profession more than I would have thought possible.

If you think we’re compatible, definitely get in touch. I’ll try not to ignore you like I do most people who’ve contacted me on OkCupid (sorry about that guys, I’ve been busy).

But just like OkCupid, I’m looking to stay near the city — or rather, most major cities. Philly, New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC, Seattle, etc… No offense suburbs and middle America, I’m just in love with car-free living.

I graduate in mid-June, but my timeframe is flexible. I’m really tempted to take some time off after graduation, daydreaming about doing Code for America next year, and considering working at DUCA (aka computer camp) again through July. But if the right thing comes along, I’ll make it work.

Are you the right thing?

Everyone's an Architect - Architect Magazine

via the IAI list…Interesting how “architecture” has been co-opted, and I’m a part of it.

Starting around 6th grade I wanted to grow up to be an architect. I did some freelance drafting and took a couple classes in high school, but ended up switching my focus to computing after attending the (now no longer state funded) Pa. Governor’s School for IT at Drexel. If not for HCI class there, I might have gone back to architecture.

It’s funny now having gone through the technology curriculum that I wish I’d gone to architecture or some sort of design school. As much as I’ve loved the iSchool, particularly library science, I feel like I missed out on the culture of critique and competitiveness that I’ve only started to get a taste of working @messagefirst and participating in design charrettes here at Drexel.

But I do love the path I’ve taken, and the UX/IxD/IA profession, with all of its passion, energy and identity crises. I’ve definitely used this one-liner before.

I do for large websites what architects do for buildings

— Jorge Arango

Though I’m not sure how often it helps more than confuses people. And ironically I feel like less of an architect after the past year and a half @messagefirst…or maybe less of a draftsperson? I love user research and our rapid prototyping approach, but I miss the nitty-gritty detail of wireframing that I used to do at Digitas Health on my first co-op. The tricky thing about communicating design is if you design something well, it should be relatively invisible. If you don’t call out explicitly why and how the pieces were placed in certain ways and the parameters of their operation, a lot can be lost in the implementation if someone else is doing the implementing. There’s always some degree of loss, but we have to do all we can to push for our designs to be fully realized…at least, in the billable time we have.