Weekly Highlight
This week I got my first product design intern, Yasmin! She will shadow me for 8 weeks and help me out with my tasks.
It’s been fun to ask if she wants to do tasks which, if I were new, I would have hesitated to say “yes”. But during this week, she’s already run three moderated usability tests, facilitated a workshop, and taken over one of the tests for a pilot in Canada! It’s exciting to see her take on the challenge head-on - I’m impressed!
It’s also been fun showing her how UX is done in the real world. I can’t stress enough how different it is from what you learn in courses. It’s less about following all the steps of the UX process, and more about making good-enough decisions given the circumstances and getting buy-in from everyone else.
After one week of having an intern, I can already see the benefits for my work. Yasmin is capable of running the tests I usually do, which frees me up to think strategically about the product. Sounds like a win for everyone. I’ll be pitching to the Product Area Manager that our team should always have an intern (or junior designer) because it would bring us to our goal quicker. Let’s see how it goes.
Weekly Notes
Favorite pieces of knowledge from books, podcasts, videos, etc. that I consumed this week.
Life’s a Pitch
A bad decision on Monday makes more money than a good decision on Friday.
During a pitch, the presenter, not the presentation, is on trial. The audience wants to feel confident about the person who will execute, not the solution.
Make your audience miserable about their problem. You get remembered for curing cancer, not a headache.