UIEtips: 5 Indispensable Skills of UX Mastery
August 3rd, 2010
A few weeks back, I watched a conversation on the Interaction Design Association’s (IxDA) discussion list that tried to assess whether one can call themselves a designer if they can’t draw. I’m not worried about what people call themselves, but the discussion about whether drawing is an essential skill captured my attention.
I find it an interesting discussion because it shows that, as a professional discipline, we’re not good at understanding what makes us good at what we do. User experience design is a learned and practiced craft—the more you learn and practice, the better you get. But exactly what is it we’re supposed to learn and practice?
In our ongoing research on what makes great teams, we’ve been meeting some seriously awesome user experience professionals. While these folks are from all over the UX spectrum, they share the common trait of being excellent at their jobs and responsible for producing great designs. They are perfect targets of our research.
In today’s UIEtips, I share five skills that were highly developed across all of these “UX masters” as we’ve come to call them. These aren’t your normal UX skills, like wireframing, prototyping, or controlled-vocabulary information architecture. You’ll want to read the article, 5 Indispensable Skills for UX Mastery, to see what these skills are and how you too can master your craft. I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that our next UIE Virtual Seminar on August 5 is Whitney Quesenbery talking about Storytelling in UX? Whether it is or isn’t, you definitely want to sign up for her seminar. She’ll rock your world with her fabulous approach that makes telling engaging, enlightening stories seem so simple, yet effective. Get the details.
Do you know folks who have mastered these skills? What are you doing to improve your own skills? We’d love to hear your stories and experiences below.
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August 4th, 2010 at 1:33 am
I have a couple of suggestions for a substitute for the term facilitating.
One is simply based on “guide.” Guiding is a good exchange for facilitating. “Sherpa” is another bit of advertising jargon for a guide using your description of a facilitator.
The second of my suggestion for a replacement for “facilitating” is, “enabling.”
Either of these would be better than the rather sterile/machine-like term facilitator/facilitating.
One term that is used here in French Canada which might translate well is “animator.”
Traditionally, the animator is non-judgemental and always a positive force in any group. Animating a group is to add energy at the proper time to ‘nudge’ the group into action and direction.
August 4th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I explored similar territory (although I netted out on a different list for my 45 minutes) in last month’s CHIFOO presentation “Skill Building for Design Innovators” You can check out the slides and the audio at http://www.portigal.com/blog/skill-building-for-design-innovators-from-chifoo/
August 4th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I read the IxDA discussion regarding being an artist/drawer as pretty elitist, and immediately thought: how about being a good “storyteller” instead of a drawer? Though I agree sketching skills are important–more like being a good Pictionary player (get the idea across fast) than accomplished artist.
I think any hiring manager would agree these are essential, and also they are the ‘soft skills’ not taught in any degree program (same could be said for most professions). I would say however that I learned the most about ‘facilitating’ in the narrow usability test sense in an undergrad psychology Counseling course (“Tell me what *you* think it means…”). If you want to teach a workshop on presentation skills, start with the example of Don Draper (Mad Men) pitching the Kodak Carousel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus). Storytelling, engaging the listener, effective use of visuals–make your coworkers cry!
August 9th, 2010 at 7:39 am
I suggest a sixth skill that is too obvious to notice but also indispensible; Interviewing. It sometimes goes with ‘facilitating’ but it’s larger than those moments. It’s finding out again and again, what the user wants, what the biz folks want, what the production crew wants and how to align these efforts in the same direction. The first effort in modern negotiation techniques (and marketing since the dawn of marketing) is find out what the customer wants.
As a designer with a 30 year career, I’m ultimatley the ambassador of all the stakeholders in a project. In my journey to UX mastery, I already know the puzzle, find out what everybody wants, and give it to them.
Too many times I’ve been hired by folks telling me how to execute what they want instead of telling me what they want.
If you tell me how to cut grass I can do that. However, if you tell me you want a beautiful landscape around your house, I can do that to.
August 9th, 2010 at 10:04 am
Fantastic article! If I think back, these skills have been present in every truly great UXer that I’ve met. Upon reading, I’d actually started thinking about how I currently am and could potentially be furthering these skills, so I put together a post discussing that and pointing at some resources: http://mashakrol.com/?p=82. Would be great to get your thoughts.
Also, as I was wondering in the aforementioned blog post: the skills were numbered in the article, but were they listed in any order of importance? I found myself thinking whether you had intentionally ordered them to indicate priority, or just to enumerate.
August 11th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
I would question whether sketching is a skill to itself or a sub-skill of storytelling. Perhaps “sketching” is too formal of a term, having an artistic connotation that can be intimidating. I see it more like taking notes (is there a good single word term for note-taking?). We write down ideas into informal notes that are documentation for ourselves and shared with colleagues to communicate the story of the experience.
August 12th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Keith, Sketching is the term of art that everyone is using these days. Often, it involves simple images with stick figures, so it quickly moves beyond an artistic activity into something practical. The reason I wouldn’t use “note taking” is that sketching is key for items, such as ideation and illustration. Note-taking implies that it’s a secondary activity, versus a centerpiece of collaboration.