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Perfection is overrated

For something to be considered perfect, it has to be finished first.

In my day to day work I never really “finish” any of my projects. There will always be an enhancement to be made in the next iteration, or the next phase leading to something new entirely.

What I’m trying to say is that I rarely have to opportunity to make something perfect because I never stop working on it.

Sometimes we just have to settle with doing the best we can, with the time allotted, just to be done with the work for the time being.

Whatever it is that you are working on, it’s probably in pretty good shape if you think it’s even somewhat ready for people to see. Just go ahead and put it out there, and let the feedback point you to the next step.

It doesn’t have to be perfect to be fantastic.

The power of micro-moments

Some of the most influential events of our lives happen in such a small span of time that we might not even notice it.

Someone holding the door for you, smiling when passed in a hallway at work, or a hug from a friend or family member impact how we feel.

The same interactions apply when we are rushed or angry, and speak rudely to a co-worker or server just trying to do their job. You may not realize just how much that one second of negativity affected their life.

It’s true that we cannot see what those around us are struggling with, but you also know what it is like to make it through a challenging day. A simple smile and a head nod go along way.

Taking a fraction of a moment to acknowledge and show kindness to the other humans around us will not only benefit them, but help to lift you up as well.

Day Job + Part Time Student + Full Time Dad = I’m Always Tired

Since I have been spreading my time across several projects lately, because I like to ensure that I’m always physically and mentally exhausted at all times, I want to add more to my plate.

I, like so many others, try to fit so many things into our every day routine that the days just end up blurring together. Days and weeks go by faster and faster each year and its easy to forget the small thoughts and daily experiences that add a little bit of extra joy in life.

Recently I added to my workload a new personal challenge to begin writing every day. Just something small, but while also trying to avoid my blog becoming just another diary. I wasn’t sure what would fit my vision of this challenge, but then I was inspired.

Last weekend, I began the first portion of Wood Badge training. For those of you not involved in Scouting, Wood Badge is the premier leadership training for the Boy Scouts program.

Each day, our Scout Master finished the day with a short recap of the day and a lesson that we could take away and think about.

This inspired me to want to do something similar, so I’m planning to share a lesson that I learned each day while also reenforcing a daily writing habit.

Just something quick, and hopefully thought provoking.

Starting tomorrow of course.

Why I want to be a UX Designer

So, I have made a lot of career changes throughout my professional life. One thing that has always persisted is the desire to understand how things work and how to make them better.

I was first introduced to UX design by a company that I work with as part of my current job. I sat down with their product team to talk about how to visualize some key metrics for a new web-hosted report.

Once they took my requirements and feedback, they showed me some prototypes and I started to think that I would have rather liked to be on the other side of the table actually doing that work.

Taking an idea from concept to production can be a very gratifying experience. It’s great to look back and say, “I made that!”.

Granted I’ve been playing around with front end development for awhile, but I always got stuck thinking about what to actually put on the pages that I was working on. So, I started to look more into design to fill the gap and discovered the UX community and I was hooked!

When trying to decide if I really wanted to make a career switch, there were a couple of things that helped make the decision easy.

Interaction with people

Designing a user experience requires finding out what people think about a product and how they would use it.

Getting to sit down and talk to people about their thoughts and getting feedback on your ideas is a lot of fun. You would be surprised by what you would learn from even friends and family.

Getting different perspectives, and building something they would want to engage with is amazing.

The design process

Starting out with an idea and some lose requirements, and gradually building something new is something I have always enjoyed.

It’s hard for me to pick out a particular aspect of the design process I like the most because I just really enjoy all of it.

Close ties to past experience

I’ve done some work designing processes and user interactions in past roles. Taking user feedback and improving their experience using our enterprise customer service application.

Turns out that I’m finding a lot of similarities between what I did in this role, and what you might find in a UX Designer job description.

Looking back, there were a lot of aspects of that role I enjoyed. I was moved into a management role when the company made some changes, so moved on up the latter when they needed me too, but never wanted to stop doing the work of finding opportunities to improve the experience of our customers and co-workers.

The community

Everyone I have interacted within the design community has been so welcoming to beginners.

From the staff at the school I’m attending to the local designers I meet at meetups, everyone is so passionate about what they do.

I currently work in operations and see so many people that don’t necessarily enjoy what they do, and it refreshing to see so many people that actually enjoy their work.

Now, I’m starting from scratch, and so far I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed this first stage of the learning process.