School is back in session for students across the area. September is also the perfect time for professionals to learn something new. When I worked at IBM, every employee in my group was required to achieve 40 hours of professional development as a way to stay up-to-date with an ever changing industry. This practice of continuous learning has stuck with me over my decade plus tech career. In my career I’ve moved from UI testing to UX design to consulting and teaching due to an appetite to keep learning and try new things. Right now I am studying data visualization and design for cybersecurity, which is complex, interesting, and timely.
Some questions that often come up for me when I work with new teams include, How do you maintain quality in design solutions? How do you promote building in time for research and design in a fast paced environment? How do you grow the relationship between UX, Product Management, and Engineering? How do you embed inclusive and ethical design practice into product development?
There are no easy answers to these questions. Perhaps the answers lie in being open to continuing to grow, ask questions, and taking action to improve one day at a time.
I shared some resources below that I have enjoyed about UX strategy, inclusive design, ethical design, and more.
Happy learning!
Shanae
- 97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know
Book: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/97-things-every/9781492085164/
- Be sure to check out my chapter on creating a design portfolio to get results!
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/97-ux-things/id1571512643
- Here’s my episode on creating design portfolios: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/create-a-design-portfolio-that-gets-results-feat/id1571512643?i=1000550439084
From the editor, Dan Berlin: “Tap into the wisdom of experts to learn what every UX practitioner needs to know. With 97 short and extremely useful articles, you’ll discover new approaches to old problems, pick up road-tested best practices, and hone your skills through sound advice.
Working in UX involves much more than just creating user interfaces. UX teams struggle with understanding what’s important, which practices they should know deeply, and what approaches aren’t helpful at all. With these 97 concise articles, editor Dan Berlin presents a wealth of advice and knowledge from experts who have practiced UX throughout their careers.”
- Ethical Design Repository
Learn about UX research, ethical design, and inclusive design practices
- Ethical Design Repository – https://www.ethicaldesignresources.com/
- Search for “Shanae” and “Nerdy Diva” to see my contributions to the list
- Inclusive Tech Glossary
- In 2020, I led a workshop on Designing Anti-Racism at UXPA International which led to the creation of the UXPA Respectful Technical Glossary.
- In 2022, I decided it was time to update this glossary and design a landing page and open source glossary on GitHub.
- This updated glossary was named the Inclusive Tech Glossary (ITG).
- The ITG shares information about equitable alternative language that can be used instead of harmful language often found in tech.
- Collaborators:
- Nerdy Diva summer interns Anaya Walker, Shawn Taylor, and Shancia Morgan collaborated on the design and development of Inclusive Tech Glossary (ITG).
- Matt Wynne of Cucumber BDD for coding and Sharee Silerio, Tech Writer for UX writing.
- Check out the work in progress in Figma and on Github!
