My Personal PivotFrom Dev to UX
Brian Durkin
Who am I
Brian DurkinUX Designer
…and im a Dad
@uxbd #pivot
I am a #UX designer. All views are NOT my own, I regurgitate thoughts and ideas from history and the collective subconscious. My art is mine.
Why Am I Doing This?
Let’s get to know each other.
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Agenda
• The Past• The Pivot• The Present• The Future• Q&A
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GETTING PERSONAL
PAST
Where I came from
• Went to Art School to be a famous artist
• I studied Video Instillation Art
Gary Hill, Crux
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Where I came from
• Taught myself HTML and built my first website in 1997
• Got a job working as tech support in 98 while taking Web Design classes.
• They hired me as a web designer.
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Where I came from
My code ended up
looking more like this
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Where I came from
I was turned from artist/designer into computer science engineer.
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Where I came from
I came to a few realizations
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Where I came from
My Realizations
Code = Paint
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Where I came from
Physical != Digital
But
Feelings happen in both spaces
My Realizations
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Where I came from
My Realizations
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Art Design
Where I came from
My Realizations
My biggest realization
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THE PIVOTWhy & How I made the change
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Why I chose to change
Job titles I have had from 1997 - 2010:
• Web Designer (Photoshop)
• Web Designer/Developer (… plus HTML/CSS)
• Live Server Developer (… plus Object Oriented DB & JS )
• Webmaster (…plus PHP/MySQL/SQL & Visio)
• Information Systems Specialist II
• PHP Developer
• Sr. Front-End Web Developer (JSP/JHTML/etc…)
• Sr. Client Side Developer (JSP/ASP/PHP/etc…)
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Why I chose to change
I learned most of these jobs had one thing in common:
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Why I chose to change
I was a web monkey.
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Why I chose to change
I wanted to stop being the web monkey and start making the design decisions.
the only way to do great work is to love what you do.... Don't settle
― Jobs“
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How did I do it?
I went to events to learn about interactions and the “WHY?”
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How did I do it?
I did research online
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How did I do it?
I read books…
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THE PRESENT…sort of the present, 2010 to now
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What am I doing Now?
I design
to
a user’s experience
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What am I doing Now?
Good design solves problems.
I make sure I am always solving a problem at all times.
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What am I doing Now?
User Goals are just as important as Business Goals and Vice Versa. Figure out both users goals and business goals and to do this you need to have EMPATHY for both.
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What am I doing Now?
People who say “Content is King” or “Content First” are wrong (Easy Cowboy)
Content + Context + Goals
=
Something of Value
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What am I doing Now?
I base everything on Empathy.
In order for me to do that, I need to be a champion for
user-centered design
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What am I doing Now?
All Design is a Hypothesis.
Think > Make > Check
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THE FUTUREWhat’s Next?
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