You, as a product. How good is your UX?
We can call it personal branding if it helps put the question into a more common perspective. Do you conduct regular user research? How do you fare in terms of providing context? Are you human-centred?
Putting the “You” in UX
The title might seem like I’m pushing a capitalist agenda or promoting my next branding workshop. Both are non-existent, so you are safe, really.
The following sound bites are merely part of an upended play on how we usually perceive UX.
You can totally mix & match to tailor these to your own situation and customise your conclusions. I wholeheartedly subscribe to the fact that my takes are not sacred, and I want you to borrow what works for you and discard what doesn’t.
At the end of the day, all roads (ought to) lead to generating insights about users’ behaviour, motivation, needs and experiences. Once you have the data you need, you can start tailoring the product on offer: you.
User Research
The golden principles of UX demand that we start here, so we shall.
I believe different methods apply to different scenarios, so I’ll break them down by what seems reasonable (to me) as a starting point.
Face-to-face:
For once, I am not talking about doing your homework on personas — simply because I don’t think the glove fits the case here.
In one-to-one interactions, this would backfire miserably. No one wants to be seen as “one of the many”. No wonder that according to CNBC’s report, Etsy’s personalised gift sales increased by 156% in 2020.
We love being unique, so by no means should you generalise the person in front of you. If anything, weave their name frequently into the conversation to earn some brownie points and goodwill.
➊ Talking about face-to-face conversations, why not think about your work meetings and networking events as focus groups discussing the same topic?
You may be able to get some handy insights about others’ perceptions and opinions, which can be a treasure trove of feedback for theme-specific research (i.e. whatever your get-together was about in the first place).
…or just a way of simply gaining a better understanding of your peers.
➋ Even in everyday conversations, you can refine your listening and (casual) interviewing skills. After all, the stakes are lower here, so you can get your experimenter hat on.
With practice, you will be able to get to the key implications more efficiently and without sounding like R2-D2. As a bonus, you will become better at creating a relaxing environment for an open conversation.
My point? Invest in those day-to-day soft skills and reap the benefits.
Targeting companies:
➊ Do you know what’s great for figuring out the competition? The cue is in the word. Competitive benchmarking! Look at business as well as individual case studies and general insights.
This will help identify what you are up against, where you may be falling short and what you can do better than others.
As a bare minimum, you will have gathered intel on common problems and solutions, thereby increasing your odds of keeping up with the (ever-changing) times and applicable mindsets.
Question common knowledge and best practices if you think you have a good reason for doing so. Remember, most “gems of wisdom” that are wildly outdated now were once carved into stone. Whatever we’re doing now will be improved and adjusted with time, too.
➋ A/B testing comes into play when you are trying to gauge what does and doesn’t work during your job search.
Do recruiters prefer your CV or portfolio in one way or another? What would you do differently in your next interview based on the feedback you’ve gathered from the previous one(s)? The list goes on.
➌ Alternatively, you could consider this your usability testing. What were the pain points and challenges (that you presented) during the process?
Try to look at every step from an objective lens, so you can suss out what may have gone wrong (or better). As for whatever aspects you did ace, just keep them in your repertoire and ensure they make a regular appearance.
➍ If we move away from the whole interview scene, let’s think about field studies. This could mean testing the company’s product(s), either online or if possible, in person. Can you walk into a shop to check it out or look at a trial?
Businesses will always want to gauge what you know about their latest invention or general line-up. All the merrier if you can say you got up close and personal with it.
Branding:
➊ Personas work in this example, simply because the world wide web is kind of… worldwide, so you need to have a basic idea of which segment you are trying to engage with.
You can probably keep this lightweight, for the most part, assuming you are not aiming to grab the whole internet’s attention. (You may need to go viral for that.)
Tailor your presentation and wording to your target demographic, e.g. perhaps don’t use text speak when trying to come across as a high-brow professional. #Follow
➋ I will pop A/B testing under this section, too, but for a whole other perspective.
Being able to keep track of your metrics and key data (on say, blog posts or social media channels) is one of the biggest advantages online. Once you pinpoint your best performing content, you effectively know what “sells.”
Alternatively, you can just keep testing different angles and iterating on previous output until you find what works for you and your audience best.
➌ With the facts in hand, you could even do some card-sorting to identify clear patterns and areas that emerge from your findings. Solo or otherwise, this can be a useful task for organising your thoughts and discoveries.
Content Writing & Product Marketing: What’s your context?
You definitely have a story to tell and share. Everyone does.
But how you choose to convey and present that is another matter. There are two types of writing that come to mind here.
Content Writing: The articles I’m writing here? All content writing. You can consider it a freebie you provide to the outside world, so they get the gist of who you are.
I know we hate to consider doing things for mere exposure, but perhaps lodging your name into an audience’s mind is not such a bad trade-off? Just a thought.
Other ventures that can fall into this category would be social media (which personally I’ve been neglecting big time, whoops).
All those Twitter threads and free e-books? Yep, you’ve guessed it.
They all fall under the ‘content’ umbrella, as they aim to deliver genuinely useful information, whilst offering a sneak peek into the creator’s personality. (And also, to grow their email list. Newsletters can be powerful.)
Product Marketing: This is where you write about your features behind a paywall. (This sounded less awkward in my head, but anyhow, here we are, friends! Just roll with it.)
This is the content that is designed for sale.
I suppose your CV (in any shape or form) falls into this category as a quick pitch. It’s effectively just a long-winded product ad on Amazon, highlighting all the bells and whistles.
I would also add your portfolio under this category, as it is still you selling and showcasing your skillset in essence, rather than focusing on providing value to a larger audience in most cases.
Obviously, using your work as a guideline to help others is another angle that can push it into content writing territory.
You could choose to write up blog posts on specific parts of a case study or what generalised takeaways you encountered that could be applied to others.
Get creative and capitalise on your work.
Are you human-centred?
Hear me out. We live and breathe tech, so it’s easy to forget our shared humanity and degrade the person on the other end of the screen into a bot of some sort.
People also tend to walk a fine line between designing for humans and technology. When you tailor your words to suit SEO, who are you really considering?
The algorithm or the mortals feeding it the data? (In theory both, but I’ll wager you unconsciously favour one over the other, nonetheless.)
This might be a slightly far-fetched example, but hopefully, you get my point. Being human-centred requires rewiring our brain to some extent.
Becoming more empathetic and mindful doesn’t happen overnight, but you can gradually nudge yourself in that direction.
How approachable are you?
…or accessible, even. Does your audience know where to reach you? Is your tone of speech generally open and friendly?
With the internet connecting users from across the world, reaching out to others is simple and very much doable. Still, a little bit anxiety-inducing, as well.
Bridge that gap, and remove friction by lifting others up rather than bringing them down.
Put another way, engage and be pleasant where possible. Otherwise, aim to leave constructive feedback if you are going to nit-pick at something.
Do you follow (societal design) patterns?
Everything in life is designed to some degree. Mental models drive and surround pretty much our every interaction.
This breeds familiarity, meaning users know (more or less) what to expect from you, and how they are supposed to act in response.
Take communities, for example.
Society dictates we must present ourselves as reasonably balanced beings with picture-perfect responses to the meanest of comments, at all times.
If you go feral, chances are the internet will remember. Follow the design pattern of pretending to be courteous even if you want to bite.
Observe & Adjust
I could probably take and run with a few more UX concepts to weave into an everyday narrative, but I’d rather stop here and hand that optional assignment to you instead.
If you keep your eyes open and aim to notice the casual research opportunities around you, I bet you will find some decent resources to help refine your skillset and adjust your own approaches.
You might even find it fun — I know I do.
Thanks for reading! ❤️
If you liked this post, follow me on Medium for more!
Further Reading:
- Interviewing: more than a user research method by Arturo Ríos
- When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods by Christian Rohrer
References & Credits:
- Dawson, C. (2002). Practical research methods: A user-friendly guide to mastering research. How to books.
- Shoppers seek out personalized, thoughtful holiday gifts to feel connected during pandemic by Melissa Repko
- The Sweet Sound of Your Prospect’s Name by Selling Power
- Images by Storyset on Freepik
