The Matrix Syndrome. Reflections On How We Learn UX Design Or Anything Else.
And a few ideas on how to make the outcomes less frustrating.
Maybe it’s not “Metropolis”, “The Wizard of OZ” or “Blade Runner” but I think we can agree that “The Matrix” is a classic already. When I watched it for the first time, it made an impact. A specific sequence that pops into my mind more often than others, is the one barely depicted in the image at the top. Neo (the main character) must learn all kinds of martial arts to fight the Agents, who work for the machines and keep the computer simulation known as the Matrix running. Neo is lying in a reclinable seat of the Nebuchadnezzar; he got connected to a training program and that happened by sticking some sort of weird needle into his brain. Meanwhile, Tank monitors his vitals and continues to load programs, one after the other. Some hours later he opens his eyes wide. The first thing he says, with a sort of unquestionable confidence, is: “I know kung fu”. This phrase will later become an unavoidable line that in pop culture can only refer to “The Matrix”.
I know Kung Fu — The Bootcamp
From that moment on, us, spectators, would become amazed by the idea that in the future we would be able to load knowledge into our brains. How awesome would that be? Acquiring knowledge quickly, easily, effortlessly.
I know Kung Fu — His words reflect a strong self-belief. There’s no trace of doubt. Maybe that same belief is one we brought with us to the present on this YouTube-MasterClass, Live-Recorded-Webinar, Insta-TicTok, Quick Course era that we are living in today.
But wait. What does all of this have to do with Design, and with Bootcamps more specifically?
Well. The “I know kung fu” phrase just became a usual approach to studying design and so many other things these days. I dare say that I repeatedly see students that arrive to classes with this same expectation. “Feed me design”, “Feed me UX”, “Give me that knowledge that I can quickly and easily turn into a better salary”. Whether it is people that get in contact with UX Design for the first time or Graphic and Product Designers that are now willing to make a shift towards UX Design, the pattern seems to repeat itself.
Sometimes it takes the shape of: I can watch 736 Insta-LinkedIn sliders and stories and, after binge-consuming some of those, I will be ready to tackle my first interview and job. Please bear with me. I’m not saying that everybody is as simplistic; it’s a sort of characterization, just as a movie character would be. I guess you can still see some parallelism with what we see in the real world.
In appearance, we sell some variants of these ideas to ourselves, and we consume them in the shape of Bootcamps:
I can spend around 30 to 60 hours studying, load my brain with knowledge via Youtube, online courses or short in person trainings, and then say “I know _____”, in this case, “I know UX Design”. I would then be ready to go out into the world feeling totally convinced that I know everything there is to know on the topic. In my mind there would seem to be no need to deepen my knowledge on anything else. I will be now in full control of the technique. My words would reflect a strong self-belief. No trace of doubt. And I can even reinforce it and make it more real by attaching a training certificate for each of those programs on LinkedIn. Isn’t that awesome?
And the moment we buy it, that is what I call “The Matrix Syndrome”.
And this is also the moment where we stop differentiating ourselves from those, now millions, that are taking the same path and repeating once and again the portfolio and case study model and structure applied to infinity without questioning it.
A machine
Morpheus gets to the space where Tank is, puts a hand on his shoulder, looks at Neo; Tank looks back at Morpheus.
Tank: Ten hours straight, he’s a machine.
Isn’t this what we are doing? I can not tell you how many aspiring designers, junior designers, or in the different end of the spectrum; architects, graphic designers, psychologists, tech writers, and web designers, who are wanting to reconvert themselves into practitioners of a discipline that is in high demand, open their conversation with: “I have taken this many trainings”, the enumeration begins and then they follow with:
- Which one am I missing?
- What should I do next?
- What else should I study?
- Where do I draw the line?
- How much more should I keep going?
There’s tons of different ones.
But you might want to check on some aspects before engaging on them.
Pretty much like Neo, we might be going through those programs, several hours straight, like a machine. The promise of a better future fuels us since that’s the idea that we bought into.
The time to digest all of this new content is little. The exercises proposed most times are not enough. The understanding of everything involved in what we need to deliver is usually incomplete.
The overall result still honors part of the promise that those programs make: an all-too-shallow approach to the tasks and processes that will serve as a starting point to continue to practice, study, evolve, and constantly improve.
Please notice that I´m not being a critic of any specific training or even the bootcamp model itself. I am simply saying that it is not enough. It is a starting point and there needs to be something else in the middle. Something between the moment of acquiring these tools or knowledge and the moment of putting them in practice in the real world. Something like the sparring place, which is hardly ever a position in X or Y company.
I can be equally critical of those trainings that I’ve taught. What ends up happening is not that they’re bad; it’s that they lack the length, the depth, the hours of flight, the consequence of the multiple iterations, the muscle, and the technique. They lack consistently received, first-hand, complete, articulate feedback on the work that is handed off.
I’m not the first one addressing the problem. Here are some other perspectives that you might want to check.
Show me! — The Mentor
Neo opens his eyes. Looks straight at Morpheus.
Neo: I know kung fu.
Morpheus: Show me!
So what is happening here? While trying to scan your memory of this scene, did you remember that short command?
Show me!
Think about it. There’s a hint of distrust. Is it that Morpheus knew better? Is he simply challenging Neo? That self-confidence that Neo feels is questioned. He’ll need to go past his own beliefs and show Morpheus how good he is at those newly acquired skills. Will he make it? How demanding will Morpheus be? Doesn’t this resonate with what happens to us once we finish our training as UX Designers? When are we challenged? Who challenges us? Who will we measure ourselves against? Will our mates, hiring managers, or managers be too demanding? Are we supposed to complete our training within or outside the company or organization we work for?
Understand?
Morpheus seems to know better. Well, indeed, he does know better at this point in the story. Once again, with Tank’s help, Morpheus takes Neo to a sparring program that has the same rules as the matrix.
Morpheus: What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system; some of them can be bent, others can be broken.
Morpheus: Understand?
Morpheus: How did I beat you?
Neo: You’re too fast.
So, have we prepared our students to understand this? Have we invited them to bend or break design rules while in a safe environment? Or did we set them up with the cookie-cutter version? And once they tried to bend those, did we continue to train them so they could think on their next challenges? How many times did we do that? Did we provide them with the space to practice for enough time? Did we set wide environments at the beginning and increased the constraints as they made progress? How did we train them to give and receive constructive criticism? Did we train them to face failure, see beyond the frustration, and try again? 10 to 16 weeks seems too little time to get all of this working at the same time they acquire the knowledge, doesn’t it?
Again
Morpheus: Again!
Morpheus: What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this.
Morpheus: Don’t think you are. Know you are.
Morpheus: Come on! Stop trying to hit me and hit me.
Neo: I know what you’re trying to do.
Morpheus: I’m trying to free your mind Neo, but I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.
All of this happens in a safe space: the sparring. How much of that safe space do we provide our students? For how long? Maybe that’s also one of the reasons ADPList has nailed it in finding an answer to a real problem. The need for support, the need for training, the need for conversation, the need for a sparring space, the need for validation, and so many others. That one-to-one practice resembles the dynamics between Neo and Morpheus. Does that work? I believe it does. Does that scale? It does, and day after day there are more mentors and mentees signing up for this and other platforms. Is it enough? That seems to be another story. So what happens once we become versed in that thing we’re training at? Well, it is time to put all of that training to the test. We are preparing ourselves for our first job where we can dazzle this new team that we now expect to soon belong to, our manager-to-be, and the rest of the stakeholders with all of our newly acquired knowledge. With a bit of luck, after a few interviews and in some cases a test, we will be getting ready to arrive at the office or wait for the mail carrier to knock at our door and deliver all the shiny perks that usually come with these jobs. That fancy backpack, a beautifully packed, ready-to-be-unboxed MacBook; maybe a water bottle or a T-Shirt, and a notebook. Oh!, and some stickers too. We’re craving the moment when we compose the picture that we will, later on, share over LinkedIn or our social media of choice. We’re ready! But not really.
Jump.
Morpheus: Tank, load the jump program.
Morpheus: You have to let it all go Neo. Fear, doubt and disbelief. Free your mind.
Once in the jump program, Morpheus jumps from a skyscraper and gracefully lands on the next one, just flying over the abyss. That’s the moment we were waiting for. Landing that job looks like a dream come true. Like flying over the abyss, easily, effortlessly. Some of our mates might even think about you as Mouse will about Neo. But Tank knows the numbers as well as he knows the program.
Mouse: What if he makes it?
Tank: No one’s ever made the first jump.
Neo looks down, sees the height at which he is, gets prepared, and takes his jump. He then falls flat to the earth.
We also need to jump. We need to do it once, twice, or many times. And we might fall flat on our faces at the beginning.
Mouse: What does that mean?
Switch: It doesn’t mean anything.
Cypher: Everybody falls the first time.
And that’s our truth, too. Why? Because we need to go through the final round of our training. The part where we learn how to tell our story, where we learn how to differentiate ourselves from the mass, the moment where we craft our cases in ways that tell why it was good to have us onboard and how we managed to go through a process that we didn’t scrap out of yet another Behance profile and tweaked it to make it past the initial filter. One where we have the answers to the questions we are asked.
But then, how do we make it to that level of training? How do we make it to the green belt in Karate? The one that tells ourselves and the world that we’re ready to grow; that we’ve been strengthening and refining our skills. That one that implies we’re now practicing at home, is an indicator of discipline.
Well, the ways around this might be multiple. Here are some thoughts:
- Take homework from mentors and review progress together. Gather feedback, reflect, and iterate.
- Team up with other students and embark on new projects that will help you continue your training. Take them seriously. Commit to them. Evaluate and refine your process and identify what tools and techniques apply to finding the solution for the problem at hand. Remember, a process is generally not a checklist; you’ll need to choose which tools in your toolbox to use each time.
- Join at least one community. IxDA is generally a great starting point and there are many others. Find people that are on a similar path to yours. Learn from those that are just a step ahead. Rehearse how you introduce yourself, the ideas you bring with you, and your interests, and start building your network of colleagues.
- If there’s a practice club, join it. One thing doesn’t go against the other. Communities grow your network and expand your view of the practice. Clubs or communities of practice often give you a safe space where you can try things together with others, the sparring that I mentioned above. An example of this could be the Club CAAOS (Club de Aprendizaje Abierto, Orgánico y Social) that Maximo Gomez is running mostly on Discord.
And whatever option you choose to follow:
- Be curious. Ask as many questions as you want.
- Read. Go to the sources. There’s tons of information out there to start/continue learning from.
- Listen to one or two podcasts of your preference and, as you enjoy the listening, reflect on the shape in which the content is shared.
More tips below
The rest of The Matrix story, you already know it. Yes, Neo turns himself into The One.
It’s your turn now.
Choose the red pill.
