My aspiration is to become better at UX/IxD/IA and to decide which aspect to specialise in or to remain more a 'generalist' in the UX field. I've been working over a decade in digital/new media - primarily web with small amounts of iTV, Palm and email - but most of that has been as a producer, front-end developer or a combo of the two. So now I want to try to work in as many aspects of the field as I can, both to learn and discover what suits me best. It's difficult at times, since I'm the only user experience architect at a small design agency, but I am learning a lot.
I've only been working full-time as a user experience architect for a year and a few months, though I've always been interested in the field since I first found out about it, and I did have a job that was supposed to be 50/50 UX/front-end but ended up being mostly front-end as no one else was around to code it properly, and that was always seen as more pressing. I found it really difficult to break into doing UX full-time until I did my MSc, even after I'd had a hybrid role. I'd get interviews but no offers, and the most common feedback was that they would be interested in me after I had 6 months or so more experience. This was for junior roles, so where they thought I'd get experience, I don't know. But then there's a real bias in the UK against people switching into the field from related ones, despite the fact that almost everyone who worked their way up started in something else, since there weren't that many IxD or UX or HCI degrees until recently. At a UPA career event a few years ago, I even heard one of the speakers say they were wary of switchers because they figure the reason they're switching is because they aren't good at what they were doing previously and are trying to switch to a field that's growing. Of course, then people complain that there aren't enough qualified people. -- Renée Rosen-Wakeford [email protected] Twitter: @lilitu93 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
