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Updates

Teaching/UX crossovers

This week I applied for a UX role. While putting my application together I tried to link my transferable skills from my previous career as a teacher with the role of a UX designer.

In my application I discussed how teachers must be user-centred. They need to find out where each pupil is currently at and where they are coming from in order to create a meaningful learning journey for them. A step further is to find out what excites this group of students and develop lessons that are engaging and encourage a desire to learn more. Accessibility is a key area for teachers to consider when planning. For example pupils with dyslexia, EAL or a low reading age would need some adaptations or additional strategies in place to enable them to access the content of a lesson.

Continue reading “Teaching/UX crossovers”
Categories
Updates

The Last Few Months…

So at the end of November last year I asked a UX designer on twitter:

“What is the best way to career change into UX from a non-related career?”

Her answer was as follows:

  1. Get Educated
  2. Get Experience
  3. Get a Community
Continue reading “The Last Few Months…”
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Starting out

Courses and Learning New Things!

In my journey to find out more about different areas of the tech world I completed a number of easy access online courses.

I began at FutureLearn which has a great number of short, online courses on a huge range of topics. I have currently completed:

Introduction to Cyber Security – The Open University

Digital Skills: Digital Marketing – Accenture

Digital Skills: User Experience – Accenture

Each of the courses was a great introduction to the area but the User Experience course piqued my interest the most so I looked around for other introductory courses.

Through an online search, I came across Career Foundry and completed their seven day short course. This left me wanting to know more but not yet ready to take the step to pay a lot of money for a longer, more intense course. Coursera was also mentioned to me as a good starting place. After having a look, I signed up for another free course; Introduction to User Experience Design by Georgia Tech. This course focused around a four step design process (requirements gathering, designing alternatives, prototyping and evaluation) along with some related techniques. This was a much deeper look at the design process and, although it used a lot of new terminology, was accessible enough for someone with no experience in the area to understand. It also provided lots of links to additional reading around the different parts of the course.

I am now hoping to start the Treehouse Techdegree program on UX design, starting with the free trial to see how I get on!