Week 2 and 3 AC - It's not You, it's Me.

Hello again folks!

If you read Week 1 AC post (quick reminder AC means "after course" and not after Christ), you know I spent the last two weeks polishing my website and sending applications to companies looking for UX Designers.

My portfolio is short. I am going to complete my second work example this week to show the steps involved in my portfolio website redesign: www.simonw3.com. Meanwhile feel free to visit I have added some video work I did in the past, some cool stuff there :)
This was a great chance to refresh my front-end skills. I built the website from scratch using HTML, CSS, jQuery, Bootstrap.

So what about the job search ?
Well, I sent 5 applications these couple of weeks.
I find it hard to encounter offers for "junior ux designers" and not all of them are interesting.
I know this is going to be hard and it is easy to get demotivated but I want to share something with you guys that makes me laugh a bit.
The most common answer I got from these 5 applications, exactly 3 times was: "it is not your ability, it is our requirements".
I appreciate the fact that the hiring manager took the time to answer and that his message, although refusing my application, still tried to motivate me to keep looking and don't give up!

But... am I the only one thinking that this is very similar to a relationship breakup: "it's not you it's me?" Food for thoughts :)

At the moment, i'm building a profile in a website for freelancers called People Per Hour.
My CareerFoundry mentor told me this could be a good way to gain more experience as this website works like a market and allows you to bid for jobs.
I am going to give it a go and see if I can get a few more projects in my portfolio. Maybe with more work examples on it I will be able to land an interview soon!

At the same time, Careerfoundry's Career Achievement team is giving me a hand with valuable feedback on my résumé, networking plan and up-skill plan.

Every two weeks I can get in touch with them to ask for advice and show them what I have been doing to try and land a job.

And that's it for now folks! I'm going to keep hustling and look for that dream job.
See you next week!
Cheers!

Week 1 AC - Job Hunting Begins

Hello folks!

Before we start and I tell you about how my job hunting preparation and start went last week let me just clarify the name of the post. I have decided to call this week: week 1 AC.
AC stands for After Course and not after Christ.
And I am going to talk about the first week after the course so week 1. Hope this makes sense.

Wait for it... wait for it.... there it is!

Always good to reach this point. It is only a piece of paper and this alone will not help me land a meaningful job however it does make feel I have accomplished something.

So last week it was all about creating a job application package.

Below we will cover the following topics:

- Mission Statement

-Elevator Pitch

-Cover Letter

-Résumé

A mission statement is basically what you want to accomplish now that you have acquire a new skill, ready to change careers. Where do you want to work, how, in what field? To what end.

I really recommend this link on self analysis if you want to dig in on the mission statement topic.

Next, the elevator pitch. Well the elevator pitch is basically your story. Imagine you meet someone influential. Someone who can help with your career or land a new job and you have 30 seconds to tell him your story. You want to start with what you have done in the past, what you can do now and what you can bring from your past that will add value to what you want to do now. A bit confusing? 

Well it is not easy to sum-up yourself in first place and therefore even harder in 30 seconds. 

Read more about elevator pitch on this great article.

Obviously, it is now time for the résumé and the cover letter. 

Here is a link for my junior ux designer resume. There are several templates out there that you can use. I tried to keep it short but could not fit it all in less than a page. The important part is that it kind of blends with the design of your portfolio. Don't forget that the résumé is worth nothing if you don't provide a portfolio that supports it.

I am not providing a link to my cover letter because the cover letter is something you should adapt to every job offer. You can always check this amazing link about how to write a cover letter.

Right! So now I have to start thinking where I want to work. It is tedious task to be honest with you. 

I don't enjoy "selling myself" but no one is going to find me if I stay hidden in my room.

Before I start applying to companies I am going to add examples in my Portfolio.

The UX process case I have about Taskly is great. It shows I understand the process and the basic skills to start a career. However, I believe just one example is not enough.

The next step is: I am going to take the design thinking approach used in Taskly and use it to redesign my personal website.

Come back next week to see how this went! :)

Cheers!

Week 24 - Alive and Rockin'

Hello dear reader!

I am sure you wondered (or probably not) what happened in the last 5 weeks as you noticed I haven't been blogging.
A lot happened in the last month and I kinda had other priorities.

But here i am again hopefully with great stories for all of you interested in UX.
The course? DONE. Yes. my portfolio is online, my resumé is done, i am building a cover letter, elevator pitch, online marketing strategy and all these amazing things that will allow me to get that job and start doing amazing things.

So let's take a step back, what happened meanwhile?

I'll start with the most important change. I have a new mentor. My previous one moved to Australia which made it very hard to keep having ongoing feedback due to the different timezones.
My new mentor is Wojciech Hupert, you can see his portfolio here: https://www.behance.net/WojciechHupertDesign

Wojciech gave me a new boost! He really motivated me again and gave me another perspective on the course and its content. Always very supportive Wojciech took the time to review previous submissions and gave me ideas on how to improve them.

If you remember, in the last post I had created a Style guide for Taskly.
This was the last step before starting refining Taskly Design.
Something that has been evolving over the time - Design is a living thing. It really is.

Before all the refinements and the creation of the portfolio, (you can find a link in the end), the 8th module of the course was all about AB Testing.
AB testing is a very important process so we can validate hypothesis and get rid of some of our biases.

The process is very simple, let's say you believe a particular tweak in the design of whatever you are working on can improve user conversion. Well you take two designs, the one you already have, called the control and you create the variation design. Then you create an online AB Test sessions where you ask fictitious or real users if you have the chance to actually chose which design the prefer or simply to perform a task within these two solutions.
After that you will have enough data to validate or not your initial hypothesis.
In my case, I thought that having copy int he sign up page explaining that the sign up process would only take one step would actually improve conversion rate. And I was right!

Taskly AB Test session.

Another important notion was the AARRRR or Startup Metrics for Pirates.

AARRR stands for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue.

This si really important if you want to understand how to make the most of your business and maximise revenue.

After this module, the creation of the Portfolio started. And this is where I started understanding what I had accomplished over the last 7 months. It allowed me to take a step back and thing about the whole process again. From the first submission to the last I know had to tell a story and present everything into an interview ready portfolio.

And so I did: Check my UX Portfolio.

And that is it folks! well not really... the hard work starts now. Why would a company hire me ? Ok, I learned a couple of things, I have a good UX case but is it enough ? No.

I am currently working in my online marketing strategy. How am I going to put myself out there and convince people I deserve a place in the UX world ?

For the next couple of weeks I will be working on the following things:

• Improve my front-end dev skills (www.simonw3.com) - useful as a ux designer to have those!
• Make sure my social media pages (twitter, linkedin) are coherent.
• Create a resumé.
• Create a mission statement.
• Create an elevator pitch.
• Create a cover letter.
• Be active on social media sharing articles of interest.
• And of course... keep blogging!

So come back next week and it was nice to see you again!!

Cheers.

Week 19 - Catching-up

Hello again!

I had 17 views on my last post, maybe 12 as the 5 were probably mine :) Nevertheless the highest view number since the beginning! I'll call it a small victory :)

I had to to re-submit the style tile form last week. I am sure you noticed, if you have an eye for detail, that it was a bit sloppy. Here is the final version:

This is much better indeed, if you cannot remember the last one, check Week 18.

As you noticed I am finally starting Taskly's actual Design. To be honest with you I kinda suck at it!

What I mean is I am not the artistic kind of guy. It's hard for me to find some harmony and make the better use of color palettes and kinda make it look like a whole, or in other words, create a brand for Taskly. But you know what? That is fine. 

At the end of the day it is not entirely my job as a future UX Designer. 

Hopefully the separation between UX and UI will be more and more obvious and I won't have to worry too much with the aesthetics.

Still, I do have to be able to make the best possible presentations so I can communicate my ideas in a clear visual way. 

Last week I started the Taskly UI Kit. I am using Sketch and Photoshop. Well, using and learning at the same time. I do have some photoshop knowledge from the visual effects days but I haven't used it for a while now.

I have submitted 3 versions of the UI Kit so far and they have all been rejected by my mentor. 

His feedback has been good and useful and a few minutes ago, before I started writing this post I have submitted the 4th draft.

So this is how it looks at the moment. The first drafts were too close from the wireframes. The whole point is here is to create kind of a brand identity. What do you guys think ? Some feedback here would be great :)

This is where I stand at the moment, I have completed 72% of the course and still have 43 days to finish it! I m very confident I will finish on time but for now I really need to start improving my design skills. I am going to keep practicing sketch and photoshop and look for inspiration. 

And now, little gift for my readers: recently I have installed the Muzli by invision addon for chrome. It puts a lot of design related websites available for you when you open a new tab. It is really cool if you look for inspiration on a daily basis. Check it out!

I'll see you guys next week! 

Week 18 - Nailing it in Lisbon

Howdy from Lisbon!

Probably the warmest place in Europe at the moment. It is 24 degrees and tomorrow will probably be the first beach day! :)

Ok but enough of that... I have been in Lisbon for 1 week now and it is great.
Last week was one of my most productive weeks probably since starting the course. Productivity not only limited to the amount of tasks I have been submitting but also with the life happening around it.

My structure is very simple:

between 9 and 11 hit the gym.
after that, a shower and lunch.
20 minutes of road and I am at my co-working place - cowork lisboa.
Check it out it's great! Really... I am surround by creative people in a very relaxed atmosphere. Ideas and motivation has been flowing!
Between 18 and 20 I leave and head home for a quick meal.

Now the fun starts, well the other fun... the course is not boring that is not what I am saying.
But Lisbon is full of things happening and I grew up here so there is always someone to meet and something to do!

So coursewise... Design. Yes, I am starting to thing about the actual design for Taskly.

In module 7, the first task was selecting a color palette. Below you can see my choice, or you can check the full color palette task here.

The second task was to chose a font. I wanted to use Proxima Nova. Really cool font and widely used at the moment. Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for it so I decided to go with PT Sans. Well it's not the best out there but it is a Sans Serif font and that is what I need to give Taskly a modern and professional look. You can see the full task here.

The third task accomplished last week... yes the third, I can't remember last time I managed to complete three tasks in a single week, was about creating a Style Tile. Slightly different than a moodboard, the Style Tile exemplifies with some real examples what Taskly will look like.

There we go! That was a busy week :)

I am still a little behind on the course but I am catching up really quick. It is incredible how our surroundings really affects our mood! 

Thanks for popping by and see you next week!

Cheers :)

Week 17 - Road Trip

Hey there!

It was Thursday the 23rd February around 11h30. Two long days of packing, throwing things away to clear the flat, were done!

I sat in my car. 3000 km were waiting for me. I was in Gütersloh, Germany and the next stop was Paris.

In Paris I met Guilherme. An old pal from high school. With him, Léhon was waiting for me.
We had a nice chat, some food and quite a few drinks. I have to say I was very well received, well fed and now a bit tipsy. Not bad for someone who had just driven 6 hours.

Guilherme Chillin'

Léhon

Friday morning. 10 am I hit the road again. Next stop: Montpellier. 7 hours away from Paris. A bit of a detour if you are trying to get to Lisbon. However it is Romain's birthday on Saturday. Romain is a french friend I met in Barcelona 3 years ago and we haven't seen each other since then. This is the perfect occasion to meet him.

Romain on the right

Beautiful Montpellier

2 Days passed I was on the road again. It was Sunday morning, it was sunny and I had now decided to drive to Zaragoza in Spain where I was going to stay for one night.

Zaragoza Streets

I didn't have much time to visit Zaragoza. I arrived around 7 pm and I was really tired from two days of partying in Montpellier and 7+ hours driving to arrive here. I had a quick meal and called it a night. Tomorrow the drive was going to be the longest one. I was going to drive to Lisbon from Zaragoza... roughly 9 hours!

It is now 8 pm. I am Lisbon! 4 days, 3000 km later I am finally home. What do I need after all this ?

Bife da Vazia - Portvgália.

Yep that was my treat for this insane trip. Between us.... I did not see a single S.M.A.R.T in the motorway since I left Germany. Yes, it was not made for that. But it did make it. And here am I now.

Today, 1 day after my arrival in Lisbon I am at Co-work Lisboa. A Co-working space in the heart of Lisbon. I am going to continue and complete my course here during the next couple of months.

The next task is called Illustrator VS Photoshop and the aim is to get acquainted with both those softwares.

See you next week!

Week 16 - Umzug, Zurich, WIAD

Hallo!

Umzug: Moving out in German.
The house is now almost empty. I can't believe the amount of STUFF that I have collected in the last couple of years. Between, selling, throwing away and packing, the STUFF is now reduced to a minimum. A minimum is really what I can fit in my Smart ForTwo anyway. The road trip to Lisbon is getting closer and closer.
Here is my current itinerary: Paris, Montpellier, Bilbao, Lisbon.

These are all great things for the future but what about last week ?

Well, last week was the World Information Architecture Day or WIAD 2017 event.
I have been in touch with Amy Espinosa, the Global Executive Producer of the event and I could help translating the video to different languages.
Check out the WIAD2017 video with Richard Saul Wurman:

The WIAD event is a global event happening in 65 locations around the globe on the 18th of February. I decided to attend in Zurich.

It was my first time in Switzerland so I planned my trip around the event so I could visit the city before and after! It is a lovely city, a little bit expensive but still definitely worth it!

I had the chance to visit the Restaurant Les Halles which I really recommend. The Cabaret Voltaire, where the Dada movement was born. For a beer in a trendy relaxed bar I recommend El Lokal. 

My Airbnb host took me to this bar and it was great. 

The decoration is eye catching, the staff  is friendly and the food also looked great!

The WIAD event was good. Everything went as planned. I helped a bit with coffee breaks and setting up the lunch tables and in exchange I could attend the celebration for free. Some talks were interesting, others not that much, but overall really nice experience. I managed to network a little bit and got some valuable information that might become useful once the course is over. 

Right! What about the course? This blog is supposed to be about the course but not much happening lately. 

With all this moving out thing I am not really focused. I am planning to really concentrate on it again once in Portugal beginning of next week!

So I am leaving Germany on the 23rd. The next time I will be writing, I will be in Portugal!

See you then! Take care :)

Week 15 - Wireframe Presentation

Hello there,

How are you been doing lately?

The flat looks empty already. Most of things were sold through ebay and I actually don't miss them.
I am still not sure about the trip to Protugal. Not sure if I am going by car or by plane. I drive a smart, the trip will be hard. Oh, you don't remember? Maybe you missed the last post. I quit my job last week and focusing on the course 100%. Well... I hope.
Anyway still not sure exactly how to transition back to Portugal... drive for 23 hours, 2400 km or just take the plane. Having a car in Lisbon is really useful.... I'll still think about this one.

Meanwhile... Wireframes. Yes, Wireframe module completed! Well, submitted but not approved yet.
I think it shows the flows really well and "look" nice.
Yes, the looks is not really matters in UX but here we are talking about a possible wireframe presentation to a client.

Below is the first page of the wireframe presentation.
You can see the full presentation on my Behance page.

Wireframe Presentation

And that is if for today guys.

I am now learning about the Lean UX approach in module 6. Come back next for some feedback about that!

Take care!

Week 14 - It's not only about UX anymore.

I left my job.

Last Thursday, January 26th, after several weeks of weighing the possible outcomes of doing so or not doing so, excel sheets with expenses to figure our how long my savings would last, thinking about how my new day routine would be, thinking where I would go, if anywhere.... and guess what?
I couldn't really be sure of anything.

The only thing I was sure was that I did not want my current job. I have been feeling that my job is meaningless for a while and since starting the UX course it has become even more a problem.
I am literally just working for money. I am not learning anything new, I am not challenged and I do not connect with the people around me. I do what I have to do, to get the paycheck at the end of the month. That is it.

I am fortunate to have a place to go where I don't have to pay rent for a while.
At least until I finish the course and see what my options are. So I will be back to Lisbon in Portugal where I grew up, share a flat with a friend who is renting a room at my family's old house and, complete my course full-time.
I am going to rent a little desk at "Cowork Lisboa", a great co-working place in the heart of Lisbon where I will be surrounded by creative people and have a good working atmosphere around me.
(I have tried to work from home before and it was a nightmare. I would literally stay in my pajamas the whole day and never really focus on anything :))

Working full-time on the course will not only allow me to do it better but also to complete it quicker.
It is a gamble. I have no idea how long it will take me to get a job and there is a chance I will have to come back to Germany, unemployed.

I have to take the risk. It's all or nothing.
I feel great and can now focus on good things and channel all my energy into one direction: UX.

The next couple of weeks will all be around planning my trip to Lisbon from Germany.
 Move out of my current place, get rid of stuff, stuff and more stuff,

Course wise I am still on module 5. Pretty much at the end I have been receiving feedback from my mentor and it looks like I am going on the right direction.
A couple of things to tweak but it looks very promising.
I will be posting the final results of the module on a separate post in the next couple of days :)

Keep in touch!

Simon

Week 13 - Paper Prototypes VS Interactive Prototypes

Hello World!

The course goes on and I have just passed the 50% mental barrier!
I am on track and it is looking rather good :D

Last week I started doing some usability tests. It is kinda hard to find potential users to test the app so I had to "use the resources" available.
I chose 3 people that are close to me here in Germany:

Lorenza, a Coworker.
André, a Portuguese Friend
Alina, André's Wife and Friend:

The tests went pretty well and got really valuable feedback.

Taskly Paper Prototypes

André Testing Taskly

Online it was easier to find some volunteers. CareerFoudnry has a big online community in Slack and most people are happy to help. So after some online testing, I managed to "polish" the interactive wireframes for iPhone and have a temporary final version. Temporary because it still waiting for approval from my Mentor.

That's it for this week, hope you tried out the interactive wireframes and as always please if you have time, send me some feedback!

See you next week :)

Week 12 - More Prototyping

Hey there!

If you are following from last week you will guess that I am still in the Prototyping phase.
I have been using UXPin for two weeks and kinda feel I am getting a grip at it.
This week I am transferring my "UXpin" design to Invision. The aim is to try as many different solutions as possible. Also Invision is used more often for high end prototypes... apparently.

At the moment, I have made interactions for iPhone, iPad and Website.
You can add a task, delete a task, and go back to the dashboard where you can repeat the process.

Give it a go and let me know what you think!


Last week was also an important week in what networking is concerned. It is important to have a course certificate and it is important to know how to work but in my opinion nothing beats your connections. I have been in touch with the WIAD (World Information Architecture Day) event organisers. My aim was to volunteer in one of the events happening in Europe so I could attend the conference not paying any fee.
I got an answer to my email - success! I will be helping the organisation with some translations and decided to attend the event in Zurich. The Germany event has been cancelled unfortunately.

I will talk about this event happening in February 18 in a future post!

That is it for this week I do hope you enjoyed my prototypes and see you next week!

Cheers :)

Week 11 - NYE and Prototyping

Happy new year!

Yes it is 2017. Years just keep on adding and if you still think 1990 was ten years ago then you probably are from my generation :) Weird feeling huh ?

My NYE was great! I went to Brussels (it is a short 4 hour train ride from my little town in Germany) and visited family members I hadn't seen for a while !

I can't really post pictures from the trip here as I don't to embarrass myself but this one of the Christmas market seems appropriate!

Really cool Christmas market in Brussels. Quick fact: it is now called "Winter pleasure" or in french "Plaisirs d'hiver". They don't call it "Christmas market" anymore because of the big Muslim community that lives in Belgium that does not celebrate Christmas. (A local told me this story hope it is true).

Plaisirs d'Hiver - Brussels

But last week wasn't only about NYE.
I also started creating prototypes for my UX Design Course.

I am an absolute beginner in all of this and it has been an interesting experience getting to know the software and creating UI for the first time. I am currently using UXPin but also bought licenses for Sketch and Invision.
Low Fidelity and High Fidelity prototypes are one of the most important aspects of UX. This is where you need to put your efforts to convince stakeholders that your ideas will work!

The task below is the second one of this module and it is an iPhone 6 UI for Taskly.
Remember Taskly? Yes the task management App.
You can view the prototype and actually interact with it following this UX Pin Project link.

The possible interactions are:
"Click on the hamburger menu"
"Swipe left"
"Add a task"
"Mark task as complete".

Have fun and please feel free to send me some feedback!
See you next week :)