Random UX

31 Aug 2009

It was September. The highway stretched westward to the horizon on a long upward grade. I drove over a rise into a wall of white: Snowfall so heavy that it erased the landscape. In the failing light, the rearview mirror reflected a ribbon of road parting freshly mown fields of green and gold, strewn with gargantuan rolls of hay. Ahead, the sudden summer snow storm and my destination: Banff. Three harrowing hours later, through one foot of snow, ice and fierce winds that nearly blew my car into a mountain lake, I arrived. It was my first trip to Banff and my first time at Canux. It was worth the journey. I’m an independent user experience practitioner who is very active in my community. I’ve made Canux my destination three times in a row, through good years and the turbulence of the 2008 global economic meltdown. I spend a great deal of my time mentoring and guiding junior UXers and peers, and helping them solve tough problems. I spend even more time creating opportunities for diverse UX practitioners to meet, interact and learn from each other to build a real, sustainable UX community that reaches beyond boundaries. As an independent UXer, Canux is the most useful, enjoyable and best investment I’ve made in my career. Each time, I have left Banff with new, practical skills, new perspectives, new energy and been newly inspired to create great experiences that make people’s lives better. I share that knowledge with my community and those I mentor. Senior UX practitioners like me rarely have good opportunities for professional development and mentorship. Over the last couple of years, I’ve travelled around the world to find those opportunities. A friend observed that I’ve attended more events than anyone he knows and asked how he could get as much professional development. I told him he would have to quit his job and pay for it out of his own pocket, as I have. It’s an expensive investment that doesn’t always pay off. Canux is one of the few events that is useful and meaningful to senior practitioners. Unparalleled access to thought leaders with perspective, insight and mastery that I haven’t yet attained are among reasons why Canux is a must-attend event. It’s a rare respite from daily demands to interact with a diverse group of fellow UXers. The Canux 2009 theme — doing more with less — resonates in the most challenging economic environment I’ve faced in my career as an independent UX practitioner. It is essential for me to gain new skills that put the doing-more-with-less ethos into tangible practice. I just concluded a project with a mid-sized corporation. The client wanted a fully developed product on half the necessary budget in a third of the time required. It didn’t help that no invoice was paid on time. Although we had great successes, the project was cancelled because of a client-side issue. Clients want more than ever. Their budgets are smaller. We’re pressed to show a return faster than ever. My first trek to Banff for Canux and the client story encapsulate what I face daily: Great hope and optimism at the outset; sudden changes in conditions and plans; embracing unexpected challenges; balancing unknown risks; evaluating and adjusting strategies; and celebrating and learning from successes and failures along the way. The journey is the experience. It is that experience which compels me to return to Canux every year. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Cheng)

It was September.

The highway stretched westward to the horizon on a long upward grade. I drove over a rise into a wall of white: Snowfall so heavy that it erased the landscape. In the failing light, the rearview mirror reflected a ribbon of road parting freshly mown fields of green and gold, strewn with gargantuan rolls of hay. Ahead, the sudden summer snow storm and my destination: Banff.

Three harrowing hours later, through one foot of snow, ice and fierce winds that nearly blew my car into a mountain lake, I arrived. It was my first trip to Banff and my first time at Canux. It was worth the journey.

I’m an independent user experience practitioner who is very active in my community. I’ve made Canux my destination three times in a row, through good years and the turbulence of the 2008 global economic meltdown.

I spend a great deal of my time mentoring and guiding junior UXers and peers, and helping them solve tough problems. I spend even more time creating opportunities for diverse UX practitioners to meet, interact and learn from each other to build a real, sustainable UX community that reaches beyond boundaries.

As an independent UXer, Canux is the most useful, enjoyable and best investment I’ve made in my career. Each time, I have left Banff with new, practical skills, new perspectives, new energy and been newly inspired to create great experiences that make people’s lives better. I share that knowledge with my community and those I mentor.

Senior UX practitioners like me rarely have good opportunities for professional development and mentorship. Over the last couple of years, I’ve travelled around the world to find those opportunities. A friend observed that I’ve attended more events than anyone he knows and asked how he could get as much professional development. I told him he would have to quit his job and pay for it out of his own pocket, as I have. It’s an expensive investment that doesn’t always pay off.

Canux is one of the few events that is useful and meaningful to senior practitioners. Unparalleled access to thought leaders with perspective, insight and mastery that I haven’t yet attained are among reasons why Canux is a must-attend event. It’s a rare respite from daily demands to interact with a diverse group of fellow UXers.

The Canux 2009 theme — doing more with less — resonates in the most challenging economic environment I’ve faced in my career as an independent UX practitioner. It is essential for me to gain new skills that put the doing-more-with-less ethos into tangible practice.

I just concluded a project with a mid-sized corporation. The client wanted a fully developed product on half the necessary budget in a third of the time required. It didn’t help that no invoice was paid on time. Although we had great successes, the project was cancelled because of a client-side issue.

Clients want more than ever. Their budgets are smaller. We’re pressed to show a return faster than ever.

My first trek to Banff for Canux and the client story encapsulate what I face daily: Great hope and optimism at the outset; sudden changes in conditions and plans; embracing unexpected challenges; balancing unknown risks; evaluating and adjusting strategies; and celebrating and learning from successes and failures along the way.

The journey is the experience. It is that experience which compels me to return to Canux every year.

(Photo courtesy of Kevin Cheng)