Notes

Rapid7

What are they? A high tech security company

Headquarters – Boston

Belfast office

The Belfast headquarters is an innovation hub – named one of the leading places to work at.

Set up in 2014 with 1 employee, now they have over 300 employees.

The teams building owns all of the company flagship products.

They have an awesome reception, makers space and library, main café and a gaming space.

Placement program

  • Interns become valuable members of the team from day 1.
  • About 80% of the interns receive employment offers to return to work with them after graduation.
  • Around 150 interns have come through the process since it started in 2014.
  • Some of the initial interns are now Lead Engineers.

Jordan – previous intern

  • Started 7 years ago.
  • 9 Interns entered the office with a full time staff.
  • In the chaos he learned and became able to apply knowledge from university into his designs.
  • Has travelled all over – from being sent to courses, company kick off in Belfast or Boston.

Questions:

  1. What was your training before you went into Rapid7 Jordan? I’m just wondering if there’s a preference to what type of education background you’re coming from.   –  He went to Jordanstown not knowing real word experience. EAGERNESS is what they are looking for, don’t worry about feeling that you are not really. Prove that you are ready and willing to learn.
  2. Internships make a huge difference in building up your skill.
  3. Experience will not be a factor – they know we have just started to learn.
  4. There is room for transitioning between roles; even between different UX roles.

Opportunities available for me –> UX design & engineering and product management  5 going to UX design and 1 to product management

What to expect as an intern

  • Opportunity to work on real production code from the very start.
  • Formal training program to help you settle.
  • Learn lots of new technology.
  • Be treated as a regular team member.
  • Be assigned a mentor – guidance and assistance. Helps you learn at a pace that suits you best within the company.
  • We will give you an experience as valuable as possible, setting you up for a successful final year.
  • Offer to return as a graduate if you have been successful.

What do they expect from me?

  • Good attitude and aptitude.
  • Passion for learning technology.
  • Experience is not necessary they will provide us with the tools to learn and be successful.

Erin – previous intern (engineering)

  • She did not have the instill training interns get now.
  • Joined in 2016.
  • Only girl in the team – never felt like it though.
  • She was able to write code from the ground up and architecture information, take part in meetings.
  • Studied in Queens.
  • Questions were always welcomed.
  • Types of technologies she is using now – pretty much everything was new to her. Java, and really any new product or software that is relevant – you are constantly learning. Its a great way to mature in your career also.

Advice:

  1. Ask questions.
  2. Learn through your mentors.

Benefits

  • Attractive salary about £20000.
  • 24 days annual leave and bank/public holidays.
  • Private health, life and travel insurance.
  • Company pension plan with generous (7%) employer contribution.
  • Company shares plan at 15% discount.
  • Employee assistance program – mental health support.
  • When in the office, snacks and refreshments available.
  • Pool table, table tennis and board games available.
  • Regular office gatherings with breakfast, lunch or dinner provided. Monthly they do Belfast time hall to hear what everyone is working on and welcome new hires.
  • They have a speak easy pub in the office.

Next steps

  1. Apply!!!!!! closing date 29 October.
  2. Candidates will be contacted to schedule their own 15 minute pre screen interview with one of our engineering managers – COME PREPARED – big about CV, yourself, company and interest surrounding industry.
  3. If successful, you will be contracted regarding a technical interview. 90 mins – Check spam folder pls  These will happen in November. Puzzle you must solve with the team to see how you would work together.
  4. All interviews will take place via Zoom.
  5. the talent acquisition team will be in touch with applications outcomes and offers.

They have a take home challenge – get a design problem and solve it with wireframes and prototypes then get 15mins in the interview to explain it.

TIPS for the design challenge

  • Be prepared.
  • Do research, explore their products.
  • Avoid a vanilla CV.
  • What will make you stand out (in a good way).
  • Take your time with the design challenge. Don’t just show a polished design, show your thought process.

Final reflections

  • They will look to see when you join them what roles makes the most sense to your skills and designers and natural abilities – They will ensure you are doing the role that is best suited for you. Transition is an option.
  • Big JAVA house. C++ and Python.
  • For UX development they use HTML, SASS, react, vanilla ds.
  • UX design – figma, miro.
  • They are not super strict when it comes to time. As the norm expectation work from 10 – 4 or 9 -5. Really whatever works best, just use some sense and work in a productive way and in a time that works with your team.
  • Still working from home but they don’t know what will be happening next year.
  • Design challenges – hard design challenge of scale.

Rapid7 placement talk

Speaker: Mike

Date: 28/10/21

Who is Rapid7?

  • Service protection/security company.
  • Protection.
  • Prevention.
  • Security.
  • We are the force behind the people who protect you everyday – securing your connection online, making sure your connection, passwords and data is secure. They build this software.
  • We protect the tools that protect society: Cloud security, threat protection (Use AI to anticipate threats), Security automated, vulnerability management, application security, Incident detection and support —> could consider this a novel cause.
  • We are powering the cyber protectors.

Why does UX matter in Cyber security?

  • We are designing the critical experience for our users. It must be powerful, reliable and extensive. But they are nothing if they are not usable – they must be user friendly.

3000 staff across the UK, Japan, US, Amsterdam, etc.

Design system:

  1. Discovery:   Brief –> 5 whys (Is it inline with user wishes, is it technically feasible, do we have the people to do it?) –> Heuristic review –> feasibility review (talk to some engineers, product managers before suggesting it) –> Competitor review (Help or support pages are great to show how they explain their process) –>  Tooling (What tools will I use to achieve this? It’s about choosing the right tool to create prototypes easily to then present it to the team – what is the tool quit of my team?) –> User research (what are your users really saying? User centered) –> Analytics () –> Market landscape
  2. Design: Insights –> Design principles –> Design system integrations –> Brand experience –> Artefacts –> Exploration  –> Progress review –> Prototyping
  3. Build: Learn at least the basics of HTML and CSS and Java so you can have an educated talk with the developers.
  4. Test: Prototype –> Peer test –> User test –> Device test (Put your designs in as many devices as possible as they will look different depending on their settings) –> Quality assurance (Don’t mark your own homework – you are not impartial) –> Accessibility test (Make sure whatever you create is accessible) –> Performance test –> Benchmarking (against other experiences – eg how many clicks does it take? How quickly can a user get through it?) –> Done criteria (Are you ticking off the criteria boxes? Can we automate this? Is it successful? … Ask for the definition of what being ‘done’ will be for this project)

They work in an agile way (2 week cycle for UX design).

At the end of the design system something gets pushed live.

What they are looking for:

  • Think in a problem solving way.
  • Accessible designing.
  • Being a great UX practitioner also means being a great storyteller – Tell them a good story of how you reached your design.

Design in an art. UX is a science

  • UX process can be learned.
  • Design is products solving, creating something that is aesthetic and usable.
  • Learn by doing it, living it and practicing it. Get your hands dirty. Learn through doing.
  • Understanding the why and testing ideas.

What to say in interview:

  • Want to work for this company as I believe the work they do is a novel cause that protects those that protect us.
  • Talk about design systems – how UX and UI should be implemented across.
  • Waterfall vs Agile design system – Agile is better but research it and make a blog post.
  • Be ready to tell the story of your work.
  • Be ready to tell your story.
  • Help design the critical experience and empower the protectors.
  • They like slack as a social platform.

Application process dates and info

  • How long until we hear back: Couple of weeks – November 8th.
  • They review websites as soon as you submit it #screed.
  • Remote and onsite work.
  • It will be a 10 month long placement.

At the careers fair event I had a few 1 to 1s with some of the members of the Rapid7 team – what I was able to learn is that they are a great company, that would offer any placement student a nurturing place to learn and grow.

Here are the notes I took:

Global payments

Deadline: 05/11/21

Apply on Workday with CV and portfolio

Interview process:

  1. Interview (30-40 mins)
  2. Second stage interview (present short design challenge)
  • Stephen Picton – director of communications – him and Jordan will be reviewing application
  • UX is the heart of the development process in Global Payments.

Intro to Global payments integrated

  • Focus on integrated payment solutions
  • Sites across the world
  • Allows users to manage account, invoices, credit card, etc…
  • 24,000+ employees
  • Dominic was a placement student last year
  • Belfast and Foyle sites accounts for 80% of the revenue for the company

Intro to technical communications

  • UX:  UX design system –> Ux practices and processes –> Customer feedback –> Accessibility
  • Tech Docs: API documentation (A way of interacting with the software) –> Compliance documentation (Finance, security and compliance) –> Practices and processes –> Style guide

Merges to create —> UX WRITTING

  • Hardware interface
  • Software interface
  • User guides
  • Help center

Accessibility is a huge thing for Global Payments especially since in the states by law the UI must be accessible. 

Intro to Genius

Team goal

  • Promote Ux
  • Conduct research
  • Collaborate across disciplines
  • Deliver design decisions
  • Create solutions
  • Seek feedback and validate design

Strategy

  • Lean product strategy
  • Agile product development

What to expect

  • You will be part of the team

Gemma’s placement experience

  • Built out interface devices
  • Prototyping used tool called protopie
  • Communicating with others, at home and overseas
  • Journey maps
  • empathy maps
  • Creating device illustrations
  • How you can apply
  • Hypothesis mapping
  • The mad hackathon (Allows employes to present ideas they think global payments should develop)
  • Start date: July 2022 for 12 months
  • Working hours: 37.5 hours per week Mon -Fri 9:00 – 5:30

Key skills they want

  • design for accessibility
  • UX writing
  • Illustrative skills
  • Design thinking – they are not that worried about the portfolio
  • Brush up on understanding of UX process for interviews. How to put yourself in the mind of the user
  • Design UX and UI for design thing with one of their screens and show them?
  • Empathy maps

The HTMLs and the CSSs

Building a website with Webflow

By now I have completed the following areas of my design process:

  • Research
  • Discovery
  • Planning (sketches)
  • Content audit
  • Mock-ups

Now I have to focus on building a good and responsive website using Webflow.

Responsive Web design

This ensures your website will work in every device.

Book: Ethan Marcotte – Responsive web design.

Every website is made using HTML using an Editor like brackets or atom. When writing HTML it should all be in lowercase. HTML just basically wraps up your content in tabs to tell your browser how to display the information. There is always an opening and a closing tag.

Example <title> My website </title>

The only things that are seen in a website are the things within a body tag <body>

What to include under <head>

  • page title
  • CSS links
  • Other abstract things

What to include under <body>

  • Headings
  • Paragraphs
  • other things you can view

Having a good heading is vey important and useful as they help you structure your content and give the website a nice flow. Users skim the websites by headings so guide them to what you want the to see.

HTML links are very important <a href=” URL here  ” >This is a link</a>

HTML images    <img src= “name of image”   alt=””   This is a screen reader that will read the content for hearing impaired people.

HTML buttons: by only using HTML it would look very ugly but once you add CSS and add the proper code it will look more aesthetically pleasing.

Always add comments to your code to help other designers and coders. Be a team player.

Images are pulled into the website whereas links take you to a different place.

Link targets: this decides if once you click the link if you are taken to a new browser window or if the link opens in the current window being used. use target=’_blank’   to open in a different window.

Naming conventions; HTML spaces are bad. Do not use spaces for page names; its ok to do so for titles though.

Image format

Do not use a JPG file for your logo as if they are meant to have a clear background they will replace it for a white background. Use a PNG for images that need a transparent background.  PNGs keep the image quality better than JPG – these are all pixel based so once screeched they will lose their quality. SVG images however are vector based so they will not loose quality

Image dimensions: Consider image sizing very carefully as a very large image can make the website heavy and slow. Be considerate. If you need to resize an image, do so in Photoshop – it will make your life easier. They should not be over 600MG.

Always provide a text alternative to your images – Think accessibility.

Never style your content with HTML, always use CSS for this. HTML does not have the terminology to make the kind of design decisions CSS makes. For the HTML and CSS files to ‘talk’ to one another you must link them; that is why the CSS file is normally called “stylesheet” for easy access and linking.

CSS allows you to set up multiple properties within an element. It also allows you to select the sizes of your headings. Units of measurements used are PX (pixel), EM (this tells the text to scale and in what ratio to do so) This makes things easier to manage.  The EM tells the text to be that much bigger than the base size which will be shown in PX.

When writing your font family, make it so it applies to all your text at once so if you ever need to change it later on it will be easier.

In CSS   a {   means links.

Sectioning elements. These are defined in HTML (<nav>   <section>   <body>   <article>   <aside>) Aside is a sidebar. These are the primary links. When using the <nav> tag never use the actual word in the label as it will show up as “navigation navigation”.

The <main> element is were the content goes.

CSS Box model: this applies things like padding, boxes, boarders and margin. Padding is an essential element and if not well defined it will add padding to all the elements of the website. If you want to change it you would then have to specify with ‘top’ or ‘bottom’. Border, these can be added to a section. Margins are defined in the same way as padding. Margins are transparent and are not included in the click are of an element; paddings behave in the opposite manner. Explicit dimensions must be given at times to avoid an element taking up all the available space.

CSS selectors allow you to define an aspect of the content while keeping the rest normal. One does this by using class selectors. Using class styles allows you to  create different styles and apply it to many different sections.

Summary/Reflection

A nice and simple HTML file is invaluable as it will not break. As a designer the temptation to be super visual can be overpowering; a solution for this is CSS. When saving the files for the website it must always be well organized.

Making my website

I decided to use Webflow instead of coding it myself due to time constraints so I also kept notes of links so I would be able to organize my site correctly.

I had tried to make a mock-up of my website in Figma but truthfully I was inpatient and instead jumped right into Webflow – looking back I regret this as I would have been able to avoid some silly design decisions and saved myself time and effort if I had put in the work and made the mockups.

I realized early on that Webflow was a lot easier than having to do it yourself. It look a bit of learning and for that Webflow University and some YouTube videos were a great help in informing my process and teaching me how to more efficiently use the software.

During my 1st year I had purchased my domain name; this is something I am very glad I did as it fit in so much better into my CV than some random Webflow URL – it did however take me a very long time to figure out how to connect my website to my URL; cue in customer support for Webflow and Ionos (my domain provider).

I kept the home page simple and clean. I was however struggling with the layout options and alignments. It took a lot of tweaking but eventually I got it there. I made the navigation bar sticky as I thought it would make it easier to navigate the page. I also decided to add a ‘Hire me’ button to the menu bar that when clicked opens up my CV – I figured this would make me stand out?

I also added the illustration of myself as part of my introduction section of my home page as I thought it would bring across my playful and artistic personality as well as showcasing my skills.

I am having trouble fixing the blending of the button outline and the footer background colour. I do think that while the footer works it might be too simple and not informative enough.

I quickly realized that trial and error was my friend here as that is when I learnt the most.

I think it is really down to refining my ideas at this point and continuing to process.

Synergy

Synergy UX Internship

Session: Group session 1 – 1:30 pm

Speaker: Eimear Corrigan

Topic: Eimear will recount her experience as a UX intern. Eimear is now working full time as a UX developer.

  • She was able to be a UX designer and developer – a hybrid role.
  • In 2019 she stayed part time with synergy learning – something they do if they see your potential within the company. They were very flexible
  • In final year they were flexible and gave her time off so she could focus on her studies
  • There was a lot of progressing and opportunity within the company.

It is a very fast paced environment.

They are experts in creating learning with impact. They create engaging, intuitive and accessible learning platforms that deliver meaningful, measurable results.

What they do

  • learning management platform
  • Bespoke development
  • UX design – understanding users, their needs and creating a result that will be useful and meaningful to them

Applying for the role

  1. Prepare your knowledge in your area
  2. Be ready to talk about you. Sell your self
  3. Learn a bit about SASS, Mustache templates with PHP
  4. have an interesting and personal cover letter in your application – have interesting answers to questions: these things will give you a better chance
  5. research our company. Understand what we do.
  6. Show that you are keen to learn and develop – they will want to help you with that

Apply online

1st interview

  • Technical section – could be a technical scenario or general questions
  • Typical interview questions
  • Knowledge of company values
  • Prepare questions to ask – show interest

Beginning the role of an intern:

  • assigned a buddy – continuous learning, mentoring to enhance you skills and help with your learning
  • get used to the systems they use: Atlassian, Slack, Asana, Moodle. Learn their platform: totara.academy

Day to day as UX developer:

  • team meetings
  • daily stand up – quick catch up of projects (around9;30)
  • Git – learn this and SAS and JavaScript
  • Client communications
  • Support

Perks

  • perkbox (get this after being there 6months)

Current opportunities:

  • Intern UX developer
  • Intern QA Analyst
  • Intern Support

Where will I work? Remote/flexible

There is potential for a future career with Synergy Learning

You will be provided by the hardware and software needed to do your work.

Synergy is looking for…

Personal, engaging, tailored for the role and application. Show you have researched the company, that you know the role and that you are interested in it. Show A LOT of interest into the company . Look up their website and blog.

They do a lot of projects for charity – maybe include the fact that you like this?

They might ask you which ones of their values you can relate to most – Eimer said passionate and

Who to contact:

  • Mandy for anything to do with the company    –  Can get a 1:1 with her to ask more about the application process.
  • Dylan for how its like working while studying

How to submit your portfolio when applying:

  • web portfolio would be preferred – add as a link. If its not online yet try Google drive

Local and Global internship & placement hacks

Speaker: Patrick McGranaghan

Company: Liberty

  • Ask about the specific roles that are available, show queen interest.
  • Dress to impress on the 1:1 booking.
  • LinkedIn profile must be completed —- employers search this.
  • Be honest with recruiters, they can tell if you are lying.
  • Give module names and marks.

Local and Global internship & placement hacks

check out the EDGE Award for extra curricular activities eg Cultural Awareness

Industrial work placement:

  • This should be relevant to your degree. The university will now have new levels of flexibility. you will be awarded a Diploma in Professional Practice (DPP) at graduation.
  • These help you explore potential career paths, gain invaluable work experience to boost your CV, develop vital transferable skills, build industry networks and get a taste for the real world of work.

Internships are also a great option.

Placement options

These are the levels of flexibility offered by the university to ensure we gain the best experience for achieving the Diploma in Professional Practice.

  1. Professional Work Placement: 12 month placement (25 weeks) or an enhanced flexibility for full-time and part-time work/combination of shorter placements.
  2. Civic and economic.

When and how to apply?

Sooner rather than later. Have your CV and application into the employers sooner rather than later. Doing this will also take the pressure off you.

UUConnects can help with getting an Ulster mentor – worldwidehttps://www.ulster.ac.uk/alumniandsupporters/volunteer/mentoring

Ways to find placement

  • Handshake offers live vacancies.
  • The Employability & Careers Department.
  •  Go Global Go.
  • Global Expression of Interest.
  • Placement Queries can be sent to Placements@ulster.ac.uk.

Try to arrange a follow up with any employers after the 1:1 if possible if they are willing of course! It will leave a very good impression.

What makes a good cover letter?

I found this article on the Interaction design foundation that was very helpful when researching what would work best for making a good impression for future employers. Click here to read the article.

What are UX Cover Letters?

UX cover letters are short letters or emails that designers send with their portfolios and resumes to apply for jobs. These are personalized to introduce yourself and briefly explain why you are a good fit for the business. The cover letter will give the employer the first impression of you as a designer and whether or not you would be a good fit.

“A great, relevant cover letter can make me think twice even about weak candidates—think what it can do for strong ones.”

– Joel Califa, Senior Product Designer at GitHub

A Cover letter is a way to introduce yourself and support your portfolio and CV. A cover letter is a vital when having initial contact with any recruiter. It must pack maximum persuasion into the least space and in the right words to make the best first impression. As recruiters consider applicants for UX roles, they evaluate what they declare and how. In one page, you should convince a recruiter why you’re the best fit for:

1. The UX role offered.

2. Their organization overall.

When you bring your passion and dedication to life on your cover letter, you’ll help a recruiter envision how you might be the best candidate for that role and their team and working culture. Your UX portfolio and resume should reinforce that impression. While your portfolio will carry the most weight as recruiters consider your application, your cover letter is how you get them interested enough to do so.

How to Write a UX Cover Letter

Email generally suits most situations. However, judge how formal your approach should be when you research the organization, you should:

1- Personalize your letter.

It is always a good idea to personalize the cover letter and address it to the recruiter so when the time comes to applying to roles I could even call the company and ask who would be interviewing me so I can address it to them.

Don’t begin with “Dear Sir/Madam”. This sounds lifeless and gives the impression you’re applying to a generic recruiter in a scattershot approach. To prove a dedicated effort to reach that recruiter, find and use the name of the contact (typically in HR). Decide whether to use a title-and-surname approach (safer) or a first-name approach to access them in a friendly, professional way.

Match your tone of voice with the company’s personality. If your recruiter is trendy and bubbly, reflect that nature in your email. If it’s a more traditional organization, a formal writing style is better.

2- Keep it short and sweet.

Use one page. Recruiters are usually time-starved individuals who won’t handle lengthy letters. This puts pressure on you to fine-tune a concise message in which you show extensive knowledge about the company and role.

3- Show why you’re a good fit by explaining:

Why you want to work for their organization. Say what they have that attracts you: e.g., their values, teamwork style.

Why you want that UX role. Ensure you show you’d love it as a valuable next step in your career, rather than somewhere to escape to because you dislike your current situation.

How they will benefit from hiring you. You should declare your strengths and interests by showing how these can add value to a team. Flip your words around to hear how you sound from their side. Try to portray a proactive problem-solver who wants to grow with team-mates.

4- Read and re-read the job posting carefully.

Provide the materials they request. To filter out inattentive applicants, many recruiters include a question or prompt to mention a word/phrase.

5- Proofread, re-read and read it aloud.

One tiny typographical error will almost certainly ruin your application. So, use your spellchecking and grammar-checking software, re-read your letter and read it aloud until you’re sure about it.

Remember, your cover letter is critical to what happens next with your application. You have only moments to represent yourself to the recruiter through it—every word must count.

I really like how simple and clean this cover letter looks. It is easy to read and view.

 

This one I like but the content looks a bit too heavy.

While this one is nice I worry about adding a picture of myself. It feels a bit unprofessional.

Creative entrepreneurship

As a designer I must work on my communication skills.

I should aim:

  • To be introduced to professional practices within the creative industry, career options and skills to improve employability.
  • To demonstrate a clear understanding of idea generation and research tools for digital product design.
  • To demonstrate skills in written and verbal communication within a professional context.
  • Working on paper and supporting research and independent study. Reflecting and evaluating your work in a professional context.

I will need to

  • Develop professional practices skills and employability.
  • Make a good CV, cover letter.
  • Learn how to give a pitch and confidently present ideas.
  • Create products that will solve problems.
  • Record my idea generation process and the research that leads me to my final design outcomes.
  • Produce work and research and take on feedback within the allowed time.
  • Aim for personal development and career development.
Feedback should be ongoing and it will come in 2 different forms:
  • Formative feedback: this is the kind of feedback that helps the work progress and its development.
  • Summative feedback: this is the feedback one receives after the work has been handed in.
Idea: It might be beneficial to leave my work in the studio; like a printout and ask for feedback, it will be a great help as showing my work will get me better feedback and therefore better results.

Preparing for Placement

  • Always ask, mentors that simply refuse to help are useless to me as a young designer as they don’t help me increase and hone my skills. Do no waste your time, it is not worth it.
  • It is ideal to recognize a bad situation when you are in one, if your studio environment is not helping you grow, then you should leave it. You are not only there to work but most importantly also to learn and improve.
  • As part of building up yourself as a young designer attending events such as the Belfast Design Week would be greatly beneficial.
  • Be aware of the challenges of your industry and how it is continually changing. AIGA (the professional association for design) has an amazing website which would make for a great resource.
  • The UX design collective trends has a great resource – 100 lessons for 2021
  • The article ‘are you a good fit for UX?‘ talks about skills you need to succeed in the industry; this would be a great learning resource.
  • Employability; it is essential that I identify my strengths and weaknesses.
  • What kind of studio environment am I interested in. It’s up to me to find the direction I want to go in.
  • Challenge yourself, this will help you grow as a designer, learn new skills and develop my design process.
  • When creating my portfolio to show to employers a mix of physical and digital work is a MUST.
    You can get ideas down on paper faster than on screen, these sketches are essential when applying for placement.
  • Don’t let an employer pay you less because they know you are willing to do the job simply for the love of it. Get you that money sis.
  • You need to know what you are looking for before you start looking for it. Separate the jobs that are of interest to you and set aside the ones that are not of interest.

Possible job roles

  • UX designer
  • UX researcher
  • UI designer
  • UX engineer
  • Visual designer
  • Content designer
  • Front-end developer
  • Graphic Design
  • Product designer

Here is a link to a separate blog post where I carried out further research into the different career directions I can take.

Companies that have previously offered placement

  • Rapid7
  • Puppet
  • Fathom UX
  • Output Digital
  • David Henderson Design
  • White Space
  • Sugar Rush
  • Little Thunder
  • Cirdan
  • PSNI
  • Secure Broadcast
  • Core Systems
  • Global Payments
  • Qarik
  • Aurion Learning

Things I would like to have in a workplace

  • Innovation
  • Flexibility
  • Creativity
  • Growth opportunities
  • Feedback
  • Mentorship
  • Travel opportunities
  • Driven
  • Exciting
  • Learning opportunities
  • Friendly
  • High quality content created
  • Collaborative
  • Great pay
  • Focus on work/life balance
  • Learning Opportunities
  • Good fitting environment – it is important to be mindful of the environment and that you are a good fit for it.

Where does content and visual grammar come from?

This week what I need to focus on is the design of my portfolio as next week we will have a critique for our portfolio – we must have 3 pages done (especially the home page and case studies).

I need to create a high resolution mock-up; which is an image/prototype of how my website will look. It should look like the real thing whilst only being an image. I will most likely use Figma for this as it is the software I am most comfortable with.

Where does content come from?

  • Client:  A client can sometimes give the designers in any form; however, it may not always be in the right format, so it is up to us then to fix or suggest changes.
  • Self-generated: eg our portfolio. Blogs, design, branding,
  • Third party sites: eg Wikipedia,
  • User Generated content: eg YouTube, it creates the content for the user. Things that people make and then share. Social media in general. We are all basically content creator now. Instagram – we don’t realize it but within one post the amount of content offered is massive! Not only does it have the initial content but also ways to interact with it eg comment, like, tag …

Content has (or should have) a purpose

What is the acceptance criteria? Eg can people find my content or in my case can people find my portfolio in my website?

The acceptance criteria/ condition for satisfaction defines the criteria that must be met to suit the requirements of the user.

The 3 C’c: Card – conversation – confirmation.

Content curation

This is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific thing.

Doing this is a must as we are living in an era of oversaturation of content and having someone that can sort through that is vital. Think fake news and how negatively impactful they can be when they are not called out.

Good content should be appropriate, useful, user centered, clear, consistent, concise and supported.

It is important to get good sources of information to better inform your design decisions.

Here are some great sources of content

This is a great resource for good UX content. I have actually read a few of the articles and learnt some tricks from them.

I really struggled with coding last year so this is a good resource, although there is so much information out there on coding that I was not short of information – it was kind of overwhelming actually. So the way the website was layout made it easy to find content. Now that is good content curation!

The great thing about this magazine is that it is centered towards UX designers so the content there is very relevant information here for me – this could be something I could bring up in interviews.

This is a great example for self-generated content.

Apart from being extremely beautiful and effective it is incredibly engaging – something I must strive for my portfolio website to be.

Idea

This is something as a designer that I could do, send a newsletter each month, it doesn’t have to be ground breaking work, it can be useful content, an update on your work – this can help grow your audience. This would actually be a great idea for when I am doing placement?

User and job stories

User story is a way of pinning down what you need to do. It helps you identify the users needs to better design around their wants and needs.

An example of how this would work, would go as follows:

As a [person in a particular role]

I want to [perform an action or find something]

After conducting some more research on user stories and job stories I found that Sarah Winters explanation was the most helpful.

According to Winters user stories and job stories are ways of capturing what a user wants to do. They are often written on little cards and stuck up on the wall so that the whole team can understand the user’s perspective.

User stories can look at follows:

As a [person in a particular role] I want to [perform an action or find something out] So that [I can achieve my goal of…]

User stories are great if you have a number of different audiences who might all want to consume your content. But there’s an alternative to user stories that might be better if you only have one audience, and that’s job stories.

User stories are a great way of figuring out what the different user categories are. These should NOT be specific as they restrict creativity.

After some more research I found a very interesting article by Alan Klement on ‘Replacing The User Story With The Job Story’ – his idea is that we design problem in a Job, focusing on the triggering event or situation, the motivation and goal, and the intended outcome: When _____ , I want to _____ , so I can _____ .

Job stories always start with:

When [there’s a particular situation] I want to [perform an action or find something out] So I can [achieve my goal of…]

Here is an example:

How would you design a fracking website? Maybe talk to home-owners, community groups, geologist people that work in this industry. It could have a scientific area with raw data as it would interest a geologist

Job stories are all about context and causality.

Here is an example he provided on his website that really helped me understand how to best use these  design tools.

1 – User Story:

As a moderator, I want to create a new game by entering a name and an optional description, so that I can start inviting estimators.

2- Job Story:

When I’m ready to have estimators bid on my game, I want to create a game in a format estimators can understand, so that the estimators can find my game and know what they are about to bid on.

Task 01:

Create 2 user job stories

Remember it is not about the designer but about the user.

Eg When [ ] I want to [ ] So I can [ ]

Results:

As an employer I want to assess a student’s potential

As an organization I would like to easily find the contact details so I can show my interest in hiring them.

When I want to find out more about interaction design

Preparing for placement – 1

I will be honest I AM STRESSED!

So I have to find placement and so the first thing I need to do is research and brainstorm. Here are some of my initial thoughts and ideas after hearing some of the tips Kyle had for us in class.

Things I should do to improve my chances

  • Side projects – Reference the logo design you did for the ice cream shop during the summer.
  • Check out the job opportunities in Slack, Handshake, LinkedIn, etc…
  • Check out communities like UX NI, ladies that UX as these can be great learning tools.
  • increase online presence – slack, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc…
  • Apply to the study abroad opportunities.
  • Apply to all placement opportunities, what will you loose? The worst they can say is no.
  • Take up side projects related to your interests in the field of design as these make for great learning opportunities. Also consider attending fayres.
  • Bigger organizations tend to offer placement opportunities first – eg Rapid7.
  • IBM look up – they have UX jobs.
  • Specify that you are looking for a year long placement/internship in your portfolio. Narrow it down. What can I do? Can I do it? How can they contact me? As a designer the portfolio is a must, it is way more important than a CV, it acts as a meet and greet. Show what you are really good at, what IXD activities you like to do? What makes you different from other designers?, On which projects did you bring the most values? What interesting stories can you tell about the work you did? Show that you can do the hard work that comes before the pretty pictures – SHOW YOUR WORKING, think Math GCSE.
  • Case studies will get you a job.

 Interview questions

  • What do you find interesting about the industry?
  • How do you keep up with such a fast paced industry – My answer: By being a curious octopus and a forever student.
  • What tools do you use on a daily basis?
  • What is your process when creating illustrations/websites/wireframes, etc… ?

Impressing employers

  • Preparedness – it will come across poorly if you attend an interview unprepared.
  • Identify the key skills being asked for that role and try to guide your cv towards presenting you as the ideal candidate.
  • Ask about timing – how long will you have to wait until you hear back from them?