The subject of design education, UX careers, and mentoring has been on my mind a lot lately. It wasn’t long ago that I was looking for UX job and I’ve learnt a lot in the process, not to mention the experience I’m gaining on the job right now.
In addition, there’s been a lot of conversation and interest from the UX community in this area – e.g. Jason Mesut’s rant on UX portfolios (sign-in required), Don Norman’s “Why Design Education Must Change“, Mozilla Labs’ first Design Jam event in London and my own conversations with Ian Fenn, Jeff Van Campen and Lane Halley about engaging in and improving Communities of Practice in the UX industry.
Broadly speaking, there are three main issues that practitioners and the industry is experiencing right now:
- The huge gap between research and practice
- Challenges faced by junior and non-UX practitioners seeking to gain employment in UX
- Difficulty for employers to find UX candidates who can articulate and present good design thinking
These issues are complex and extend beyond the point of this blog post, but I think that apprenticeships would be a good way to resolve some of these issues.
Why Apprenticeships – a Case for Situativity
This paper on “learning approaches for teaching interaction design” by Dr. Corina Sas does a really good job of explaining the challenges and possible improvements to IxD instruction. The four main approaches she suggests are interrelated (apprenticeship, constructivism, experiential learning, and situated learning & community of practice), but the gist of it is that IxD (and related UX disciplines) is more craft than science (though the science bit is still really important), and that what’s lacking is a systemic approach to procedural over declarative learning.
This seems to be a common observation elsewhere as well.
In the past few weeks, I’ve had the chance to experience this working alongside a more experienced IA. I was working on a product browser that would sit on the homepage on a site I was redesigning. Through our discussions, we came up with a better way of displaying the products and it was only because the senior IA had given me additional insights that helped me think more creatively about the solution.
I know it sounds really trivial as that insight could’ve come from anywhere, but I gained new IA skills by being a participant in the ”working out” of the solution together through discussion, observation, pen and paper, and our understanding of IA (see situated cognition).
Destroy Perpetuating UX Myths
In Jared Spool’s presentation on “The Dawning of the Age Of Experience“, he explains that design decisions can’t always be interrogated. He used examples of sushi chefs, midwives and chicken sexers who, through experience, just happen to “know” what they’re doing is right or wrong. As practitioners we can sometimes end up using our UX methods as a ‘design crutch’, and end up perpetuating the myth that it’s the right way to do design.
Jared’s research has shown that design decisions can come in five flavors, and that “activity-focused design” (expert reviews, heuristic analysis) and “user-focused design” (contextual research, ethnography) are only two of those. “Genius design” (like chicken sexing, midwifery) happens to be no. 3, and observes that this genius design is “a solid style that often has positive outcomes“.
He too, suggests apprenticeships as a way to get to good design.
Models of Apprenticeships
How can we get this thing moving? I think that apprenticeships (or shades of it) can come in different forms, and it’s up to the individual to seek out those opportunities and make the best of it. There are a few ways it could start or take form:
- An Apprenticeship Program where an experienced designer meets with a mentee/apprentice/protege and scopes a project in order to build an end-to-end case study of the individual’s work, which can then be communicated through a portfolio of some sort (as described to me by Lane Halley)
- A self-initiated scope of work/issue/topic by the practitioner alongside a mentor, in order to work towards some career goal (works well for mid-level practitioners who already know the basics and need to address gaps)
- An internship (though I feel internships can be abused, too) for an intense, short project (see Leisa Reichelt’s blog post)
- Internal apprenticeship programs (here’s an example)
- Working alongside senior practitioners in-house (my product browser example)
- Design Jams, but I think this will require some coordination and involvement of expert designers co-designing (rather than advising) with less-experienced designers for it to work well
As the field becomes increasingly multidisciplinary and complex, I don’t see how it works just to work alone and improve as a designer. At the same time, I don’t think we have the luxury of reinventing the wheel all the time, or perpetuating outdated methods and concepts. Maybe one way to formalize this is to improve on the mentorship programs available through the UPA, IxDA and IAI, and encourage more participation and involvment from the community. I just hope it won’t be a case for us of getting to a point and being comfortable that design should be done a ‘certain way’.
Great post, Boon. I have been seeing this need for quite some time now, long before UX was even really an industry term.
I set out to do a few things: publish great material (articles, ezines, books, lectures) that can help explain some of these concepts, work with people to build curriculum, courses, and workshops to teach these concepts, and by purely doing one to one mentoring (what you described as an Apprenticeship Program). I found the later to be the most effective means to an end thus far as I am there with the mentoree helping guide them through their work. Where as the other approaches I am more removed from those who are learning from it.
Thus far my mentoring has been more unofficial (though the IAI mentorship program) but I was shocked to hear how many individuals looking for mentors were unaware of the program and others like it. So within the next few months I will be rolling out a more official mentoring program to help spread the word. Lets hope it works.
Cheers,
– Nick
This is so true, and so well articulated.
As you say, there are existing arrangements and relationships which could perhaps be exploited. I found the London Design Jam exciting and helpful but right now I’d really like something involving more than a single day.
Thinking about this issue makes me realise I should have a word with my IAI mentor about my personal UX project. I’ll let you know how that works out!
Boon: thank you for raising this issue. The lack of training in this ‘broad’ industry is shocking. This comes up again and again in conversations, meetings and industry get togethers – Friday night at the gathering of the CS Association and the Lonodn IA and Web Standards group was no exception. This topic came up in two of the conversations I had right there. I think we have two major barriers to overcome (one less difficult to solve than the other)… 1) A well connected base of practices (IA, CS, UX, design etc etc): we’re already working between us to recognise the need to develop experetise and best practice. This needs to continue with purpose. 2) Fee levels that reflect the need to invest in the practices and not simply renumerate a practitioner’s day rate. It’s this latter issue that will be more difficult to solve while clients still believe that online / digital is a cheap alternative. Mentoring is great and CDA fully supports this concept – but there are attached costs which have to be recovered somehow. Thanks again for articulating the need so well.
Thank you so much for writing this article. It’s been an uphill battle making the transition into UX from library and information science.
An apprenticeship would be ideal for someone like myself, but it’ll be difficult, if not impossible, to convince a company or an agency to carve out a space for such an opportunity. It’s not so much that they’re not willing, but they just aren’t able to mentor a junior UXer because they’re simply too busy. I’m learning and teaching myself as best I can with the contacts I’ve made in the UX community, but I know it’s not sufficient. I hope company heads and hiring managers read this article and consider implementing something along these lines at their company or agency.
Thanks guys for your comments.
Nick – I think it’s great to have folks like you who contribute a ton to the community. We need as many strong voices as we can to voice out the problems, so that we can encourage greater participation and modeling after mentorships/apprenticeships run by experienced designers like you.
Francis – the more than a single day is definitely what provoked this post. It’s about the relationships, the shared understanding, and building a momentum that persists and grows within and beyond the community. I’ve proposed several models that already works because we all come at it in different ways. It’s like ‘hacking’ together our own apprenticeships the way we know best.
Clare – I agree that cost will always be an issue, but I think maybe we should look at the various levels of experience that designers need coaching for, and find a balance that’s a win-win for everyone. I think Leisa Reichelt may have some experience doing this. I’ve also, in the past, approached experienced practitioners for small paid projects that I can help with – those are piecemeal and more manageable.
Jacqueline – In speaking with Lane Halley, she also feels that face-to-face meeting is important, and I understand your frustration not being able to find mentors. For myself, I had to take risks like moving jobs / freelancing / asking for small projects to get the experience I needed. It’s not easy but unfortunately UX is still a patchy industry so I’ve learnt to be opportunistic. :(
I’m so glad to see this article! I’ve been teaching IA in the UCLA library school program (technically it’s the Information Studies department) for ten years now and the one thing that happens at the end of every term is that the students come to me and ask, “Now what?” They need a venue to take their new-found enthusiasm and nascent UX skills and apply them in an environment where they get guidance, exposure, and experience.
The other thing that always happens is that they bring me job descriptions that require 3-5 years’ experience and want to know how they’re going to get that experience. I always recommend an internship, but through the structured UCLA program, which doesn’t allow for the kind of abuse that worries you. I’ve had students bring me offers of internships from local interactive agencies that required them to work, unpaid, from home, cranking out wireframes on already-defined projects. My response to these is, “What’s in it for you?” The daily contact, the actual working through of the details of (for instance) resolving the fifth level of navigation on a content-rich university site, affords them the opportunity to develop the instinctual response that we more experienced practitioners take for granted.
I also encourage a culture of apprenticeship. It’s interesting how guiding an intern often strengthens our own UX abilities. After all, knowing how to teach someone something means you have to have a good handle on it yourself. And they bring more to the table than just enthusiasm; some of my best design solutions have come from working with those who are less experienced than I.
But more importantly, I try to instill in the interns that I’ve mentored over the years an appreciation for the help they’ve received, and try to impress upon them the importance of passing that assistance along, not to me, but to interns of their own. Because without a culture of mentoring, we will very quickly become irrelevant.
So if you’re reading this, and you’d like to host a UCLA masters student’s UX internship, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at lboyden (at) usc (dot) edu.
there’s an employer perspective to the topic as well: we have established an UX traineeship last year for sheer lack of junior UX designers with initial on-hands experience on the german job market. now, 12 months later, we have two home-grown specimens :-)