I loved Geometry in high school. It was easily my favorite mathematics course. In Geometry you would be required to provide a justification rule for each step in solving a geometric puzzle. The awesome part was solving the puzzle. The not awesome part was remembering all those justifications.
When designing a new interface with an agile team you often have to shoot down ideas quickly so that the wrong things aren't built two hours later. In order to shoot down an idea, your team mates will want to know why. Eventually they'll just learn not to ever suggest a drop-down menu as a quick fix. They might not remember that one would never have a drop down menu for an unexpected list of items, but they'll remember that you give them some demon-possessed glare every time they suggest it.
Now, in our guts we all know these rules, they become instincts. Designer survival instincts, as I like to call them. However, when working with a team, you have to instantly recall these rules. Maybe not the exact rule as you read it on use.it, but at very least the reason. And if you can't provide that reason within .75 seconds of them saying "Why?" to your "NO!", then they'll over-rule you and you've failed your users.
Just like you would fail a question in a Geometry quiz. And if you missed the first justification for a design and you have to build lots more architecture around that element, then you just might as well have failed on all accounts.
Granted, Agile is purportedly able to make many changes over time, but I have yet to see this be an actual result of this form of development. Employers tend to use it more heavily as an excuse to get half-assed things out the door in a portion of the time it would take to do things correctly.
Sadly, I don't have a solution to this problem, other than to highly recommend knowing your design rules and guidelines and be prepared to defend your decisions quickly and with justification. The good news is that eventually your team mates will begin to trust your finely tuned designer survival skills and you'll be spending less time defending your work and more time designing.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Tribulations of a design professional in the job market
The Situation
This is my second time in the job market as a designer and yet again I have come upon the sad fact that there is a gap in the career help that is offered. Some topics are not geared toward the design professional, and others are just plain-out lacking.
While it is a truth that lots of designers are wary of career services for just this reason, the fact is that if you open your mind LOTS of the advice from people CAN be applied to the design profession. Even where there doesn't seem to be any application, a creative mind like ours can find that overlap where there didn't appear to be one before.
The Dilemna
But there is one place that try as I might, I could not find a way to use the suggested method in regards to my design background --- accomplishment statements.
What are accomplisment statements?
You may know these as STAR ( Situation, Task, Action, Result) statements --- or --- CAR (perhaps this is most widely used in motor centric Detroit area - I don't know) anyways CAR (Challenge, Action, Result) statements. And the standard suggested method for them is to frame your accomplishment by stating what your particular action did for the company in quantifiable terms. Now HOW is a designer to quantify an accomplishment of a nicely designed web page, or a visually pleasing pamphlet??
My designs accomplished what ...???
I looked long and hard on the internet to see if I could find design examples of how to do this, and I talked with my career coach, and the closest that we could come up with as a result was "...satisfied design requirements". Not much of a seller that one, is it? Basically just sounds like you did what you were told. Yet how does one quantify the benefit of a usable site versus one which only served to confuse? How does one quantify highlighting the information which is needed when it is needed so the user doesn't have to hunt and peck around to find what they need to know? And if there is any quantifiable terms, say - site traffic increased 20%, sales went up 10%, users to site didn't drop off after the first frustrating page, when does this information ever filter down to the lowly designer who toiled away on it.
If you are lucky enough to be in a small company where there is not a layer of beaurocracy or administrators then perhaps you will be enlightened with this information. However, if you are in a large company, usually only the people that the administration thinks should know this, gets this information.
So what are we to do?
I tried putting stuff like "made our current site more user friendly" into my accomplishment statements, but that is hard for HR and hiring people to translate into the question "How can this candidate add value to my company?" which is basically what they are trying to find out.
Answer.....?
Well, maybe not an answer, but more of a question, or a challenge to for all us designers to ponder. Basically, I am still stumped ... but I think that in the design community perhaps we can come up with our own answer to this that can satisfy hiring professionals and our professional pride in our work.
But we are not out of the woods yet...
Once we figure out the accomplisment statement, there are still more questions a design professional in the job hunt would like to know.... say, for example: when and how to present your portfolio to the best advantage during an interview, how to highlight signature pieces, how to include pieces done for a client without releasing confidential information? If one is a contractor with the usual bumpy employment history of being your own marketer, boss, and employee - how do you show that in the best light? How to design a really snazzy resume which doesn't look awful when it is scanned into someone's system?
There are probably lots of other little bits out there that could be addressed for specifically design professionals, but that we have to figure out ourselves.
Luckily we are an inventive bunch and so far have managed to get by on our wits, which are not insignificant, and the strength of our work - also not insignificant. But it is getting harder, and harder to stand out, especially in the growing market of professionals out there all looking at the same job. How to keep our edge?
Hopefully someone will hear the call, someone will post or train or teach us on the best practices for looking for a design job.
This is my second time in the job market as a designer and yet again I have come upon the sad fact that there is a gap in the career help that is offered. Some topics are not geared toward the design professional, and others are just plain-out lacking.
While it is a truth that lots of designers are wary of career services for just this reason, the fact is that if you open your mind LOTS of the advice from people CAN be applied to the design profession. Even where there doesn't seem to be any application, a creative mind like ours can find that overlap where there didn't appear to be one before.
The Dilemna
But there is one place that try as I might, I could not find a way to use the suggested method in regards to my design background --- accomplishment statements.
What are accomplisment statements?
You may know these as STAR ( Situation, Task, Action, Result) statements --- or --- CAR (perhaps this is most widely used in motor centric Detroit area - I don't know) anyways CAR (Challenge, Action, Result) statements. And the standard suggested method for them is to frame your accomplishment by stating what your particular action did for the company in quantifiable terms. Now HOW is a designer to quantify an accomplishment of a nicely designed web page, or a visually pleasing pamphlet??
My designs accomplished what ...???
I looked long and hard on the internet to see if I could find design examples of how to do this, and I talked with my career coach, and the closest that we could come up with as a result was "...satisfied design requirements". Not much of a seller that one, is it? Basically just sounds like you did what you were told. Yet how does one quantify the benefit of a usable site versus one which only served to confuse? How does one quantify highlighting the information which is needed when it is needed so the user doesn't have to hunt and peck around to find what they need to know? And if there is any quantifiable terms, say - site traffic increased 20%, sales went up 10%, users to site didn't drop off after the first frustrating page, when does this information ever filter down to the lowly designer who toiled away on it.
If you are lucky enough to be in a small company where there is not a layer of beaurocracy or administrators then perhaps you will be enlightened with this information. However, if you are in a large company, usually only the people that the administration thinks should know this, gets this information.
So what are we to do?
I tried putting stuff like "made our current site more user friendly" into my accomplishment statements, but that is hard for HR and hiring people to translate into the question "How can this candidate add value to my company?" which is basically what they are trying to find out.
Answer.....?
Well, maybe not an answer, but more of a question, or a challenge to for all us designers to ponder. Basically, I am still stumped ... but I think that in the design community perhaps we can come up with our own answer to this that can satisfy hiring professionals and our professional pride in our work.
But we are not out of the woods yet...
Once we figure out the accomplisment statement, there are still more questions a design professional in the job hunt would like to know.... say, for example: when and how to present your portfolio to the best advantage during an interview, how to highlight signature pieces, how to include pieces done for a client without releasing confidential information? If one is a contractor with the usual bumpy employment history of being your own marketer, boss, and employee - how do you show that in the best light? How to design a really snazzy resume which doesn't look awful when it is scanned into someone's system?
There are probably lots of other little bits out there that could be addressed for specifically design professionals, but that we have to figure out ourselves.
Luckily we are an inventive bunch and so far have managed to get by on our wits, which are not insignificant, and the strength of our work - also not insignificant. But it is getting harder, and harder to stand out, especially in the growing market of professionals out there all looking at the same job. How to keep our edge?
Hopefully someone will hear the call, someone will post or train or teach us on the best practices for looking for a design job.
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