In late October, Kevin Wong gave a great talk at University of Washington’s Information School about his experience as a UX professional.  Kevin is a user researcher (and designer) at Artefact, a design company that I’ve been watching for about a year or so. He received his BS in Informatics from the iSchool in 2007 and has worked at Artefact since graduating. The purpose of the talk was to give iSchool students some context about what it means to work in the UX field.

Following the talk, Kevin graciously agreed to meet with me for an informational interview. I learned a lot, and it was fun getting to know him better. [Via Twitter, I learned about a fun roller skating fundraiser he helped organize with Philanthro Seattle. Four friends and I went (and had a blast), and while I ran into him there, I didn’t get a chance to really catch up with him until our informational interview.]

What follows are some rough notes from our conversation.

I asked Kevin what makes a good user researcher and designer. His answer:

Curiosity:  You need to learn and master the limits and boundaries of a field so that you can break the rules when you want to. Part of curiosity is realizing your own interests. That requires an understanding of yourself and your interests whether they be domains or problem areas. When you can identify these, you may find having a greater degree of curiosity.  Curiosity will propel you to learn more and more about the various subject matters you’re interested in, and overtime, you can develop yourself into an expert. 

Compassion and empathy: Among other things, this allows you to prioritize how an experience should be because you’re putting yourself in the users’ shoes.

Point of View:  As a designer, you need to have opinions and an orientation to how you approach design.  [This, reminded me of trend analyst and author, Sharon Ann Lee’s must-watch talk, DYO Success. In it she discusses articulating your “poetic vision“ which seems related to Kevin’s discussion of ‘point of view.’]

Making: It’s important to evolve an idea by making — manifesting it, testing it, and iterating on it. The idea of ‘mastery’ makes most sense in the context of making. Curiosity will drive a lot of knowledge and wisdom, but the application of that knowledge into a product or experience is an art, or craft. Making helps take you to that level of mastery.

Executing: Ideas are always coming and going; it’s how well you implement them that matters. I told Kevin that a recent quote from Josh Lam speaks to this point nicely:

Google was late to search. Facebook was late to social networking. Apple was late to the MP3 player. Late is nothing. Just do it better.

At this point in the conversation, I asked him whether he thought optimism was important to have as a designer. For me, being an optimist seems linked to what makes it possible to come up with ideas. In other words, optimism allows you to think things are possible. HOwever, I wasn’t sure if this characteristic could be generalized to other designers more broadly.  Kevin brought up the point that it’s also key for designers to be critical and be able to discern what makes a good idea. Imagination is the word we settled on.

Our conversation then shifted to Artefact; it’s culture and design philosophy.  He related three core organizing principles that are based on Dan Pink’s work:

1. Mastery: Develop your craft.  Quality is paramount and trumps budget, even while budget is, of course, very important. (Reminds me of Saul Bass!)
2. Autonomy:  Creative people thrive off of autonomy.
3. Purpose: Find your calling, your passion.

After doing a little more research, it appears that Artefact, with the thought leadership of August de los Reyes, is expanding how it thinks about these principles:

We aim to articulate a vision of design through the lens of Enlightenment thinking: design based on critical thinking, public debate, and a kind of pioneering spirit for the universal benefit of the human race; design as a pursuit of autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and of significance, relevance, and meaning.

Kevin also introduced me to the idea of a “T” employee that Ideo (I believe) first articulated. The horizontal part of the T represents breadth in experience, while the vertical portion represents depth.  I joked with Kevin that one of my favorite Twitter bios says, “I specialize in being a generalist.”  I love knowing a lot about a lot. What I need is a chance to go deeper and develop my craft.

Finally, a fun fact I learned about Kevin is that he has a whiteboard in his living room which he uses to sketch and think through ideas. For those curious, Kevin relayed that Home Depot has a damaged section where you can buy whiteboards on the cheap.  They also will give you two cuts for free. I’m contemplating how I might be able to arrange my own living room to pull this off. [Update: Kevin writes in via email saying, “I actually just discovered Chalk Ink which I think is even better!”]

From the various informational interviews I’ve done with user researchers and designers, I’m seeing some themes in what people deem important: curiosity, empathy, and making ideas actionable. More to come!