I had the pleasure of chatting to Liz just before she took part in the UX Design Course at the UX Academy London. Since this interview, Liz has taken the next step and has decided to take the Advanced UX course, so I think it’s safe to assume the course went well! But, for now let’s rewind a few weeks and see what lead Liz to take part in the UX Design Course, what she was looking forward to learning about, and which part of UX she is the most interested in.
Q: Have you always been interested in UX?
I’d say that I’ve always been interested in the idea of user experience as I’m naturally an empathic person. I really enjoy solving problems and helping other people, this combined with being a designer means I’ve been drawn to the subject even before I knew of its industry name.
Q: What made you decide that the UX Design Course would be the next best step?
Over the past 3 months, I’d spent some time thinking about my career and what direction I would like to go. I work currently as a Digital Product Designer, this is an area I’ve worked in for the last 3 years. Prior to this I have a branding and marketing background, and I feel that in my role as a Digital Designer there are some gaps in my knowledge, purely because I have learnt everything up and until now on the job. After deciding I wanted to improve my user experience skills I researched and asked others of courses they would recommend and eventually I stumbled across UX Academy which seemed to cover the points that I was looking to improve on.
Q: Which part of the course are you most looking forward to?
Meeting other people from different backgrounds. I spent most of my time with other digital designers and developers so I’m looking forward to seeing how people from other industries interact with the concept of user experience design. And obviously I’m looking forward to learning more about user experience design!
Q: Is there a certain part of UX that you would like to eventually specialise in and why?
Not particularly, I’m a generalist and probably always will be. I’m interested in so many topics and UX is just another topic that I’d like to get a decent level of knowledge in.
Q: How have you found navigating a field that may be predominantly male?
It’s an interesting question, as my own experience has found that there are a lot of women who are interested in, studying and working in the user experience design sphere. However, I feel that a lot of women don’t get the recognition they deserve for the work that they do, that’s why I try to be as vocal as possible about my successes (and failures) to encourage other women to speak up about the industry that they work in.
Q: Can you give me an example of amazing UX design?
I actually find this difficult to answer, as I believe a lot of amazing user experience go unnoticed as when we use a product or service we expect it to work well by default – whereas it is easy for everyone to recognise a bad experience. That said I recently used the Ace & Tate website to order new glasses, not only was the process seamless, they had a wonderful feature where I could try on the glasses vertically, in 3D – https://www.aceandtate.com/gb/virtual-try-on. This is an amazing experience for e-commerce as usually, you have to make your choice based on how a model looks, not how the item may look on you.
Conclusion
For Liz, the UX Design Course was the perfect way to gain a more in-depth understanding of all things UX and to consolidate knowledge learnt from her work experience as a Digital Product Designer. I’m certainly intrigued to follow Liz’s path to the Advanced UX course, so I must make sure to check back in to see how it went!
Sign-up or find out more about the UX Design Course at the UX Academy London.