“I want to create social impact through the means of UX and UI. Heavily basing my UX strategy on human centric methodologies and experiences, I create a more seamless human/ technological digital integration– getting to the root of essential human problems and providing effective solutions for them.” – Me
Fine art has always been a large part of my early development, to the point where my parents weren't really sure what else I would be good at. I was mediocre in academics, tried tennis (and was the absolute worst), wasn't meticulous enough for accounting, but I was always good at visuals. My first attempt at college was a disaster, tried to fit myself in the business school but was never quite good enough; ended up dropping out with severe depression and jumped ship hoping that art school was the next solution. Got into art school, and had to transfer after a year due to financial restraints. I guess I can say I was always "soft" with a proclivity towards dismantling my internal experiences through art.
So why does that story accumulate to me as a person and how does that translate to my UX practices?
I have to admit, those were a pretty tumultuous time. It took a lot of effort and internal development to shift my ideologies from the ego to social consciousness; a real "me vs us" situation. Honestly if you were to ask what's my super power today, that would be it– my ability to empathize and my sensitivity to recognize human problems. So when I take that superpower and apply it to the means of UX, I take my curiosity for behavioral science and activity theory and reflect it on how user's can most effectively relate to the interface. My genuine curiosity for the human psyche and how we fundamentally operate in really intricate and complex ways, really drives me to create in-depth questioning and bewilderment at what is considered "fundamental" within a person or organization. I've always like the idea of being able to "Sherlock Holmes-ing" people and having the ability to deduce a person's lifestyle based on exterior clues.
I asked a trusted friend the question of identifying my strongpoints that would translate well into the design industry. He, unbeknownst to him, provided a very meta answer that both confuses me yet still representative of what it means to work within the design industry and in collaboration with others. He brings up the need to trust, trusting in the project and designs that one puts out yet still being able to let go of your design baby once its transitioned into the next lifecycle phase: whether it's handing it off to development teams or giving the final proposal to a client whom may or may not implement it.
So I leave you with his very pithy words of wisdom: a serious of metaphors that can be recalled back to for any design strategy.
