Teaching design thinking and UX 101 to MotherCoders
No one asks “why?” more than a four-year-old. In this design thinking workshop, I taught how to use this skill in your design practice.
No one asks "why?" more than a four-year-old. I’ve used this as a set-up to one of my favorite design thinking exercises: The 5 Whys. I share this exercise as part of the UX 101 workshop I have been providing for Tech Moms and previously, MotherCoders, both nonprofit organization that helps people transition into technology careers and find more successful employment.
This exercise is exactly what is sounds like: You ask "why?" five times in a row to really understand the heart of a problem. This is hard to do because we tend to want to start diving into "how" and "what" questions. Sticking to the "why" questions keeps you actively listening and planted firmly in the area known as the problem space, instead of jumping to "solutioning" with only a partial understanding.
As part of the workshop, I also like to present both objective and subjective parts of the UX profession. I give a brief overview of the history of the field and its academic lineage, explaining how it builds on parts of other domains like human-computer interaction, computer science, cognitive science, design, and psychology. I then share the Laws of UX website, which not only has a beautiful design but well-explained information about UX. I ask each person to skim through them, pick one that stands out, and find a real-world example of the law in action, either being used well or being broken. This helps students both understand UX frameworks but also shows how much, just as humans and users of digital products, they know about good UX without realizing it.
UXPA Panel on Mentorship
I shared the two top reasons I think everyone should participate in mentorship programs in this UXPA panel.
I was invited to share shared my thoughts about mentorship in this UXPA panel after completing a couple rounds of formal mentoring through their program (highly recommend!).
My two suggestions for someone wondering if mentorship would be valuable for them (shared at 22:17):
Mentorship can be used to help you learn how to use mentorship. If you don’t know how set career goals or can’t articulate where you want to be next year or 5 years from now in your career, a mentor can help get you in a position to have more focused goals for more focused future mentorship. You don’t know what you don’t know, and mentorship helps expose that more than anything else if you’ll let yourself be honest in the mentoring relationship.
Having an intentional career is a luxury and a privilege that few have. I consider mentorship an important way of showing respect to the privilege of having career options and good career options. We hear a lot about having a work ethic, but I also believe it is important to have an ethical approach to work wherein you honor your opportunities to build a sustainable career that many around the world would never be able to dream of having.