I learned to iterate at an early age. As a kid, I would rearrange my room regularly to see how I could make better use of the space I had. I'm that guy who when he's shopping for a house, will naturally look for all the potential improvements I can do. I see the “pains” as opportunities for “gains”.
Being both artistic and scientific, I also like human behaviour and would consider myself both an analytical introvert and collaborative extrovert.
I couldn’t have designed a better job for myself than UX.
I didn’t grow up in a wealthy family. I had to work many different jobs during (and after) my school days. Outside of IT, I’ve worked in fast food, retail, media production, recruiting, manufacturing, distribution, customer service, financial services, advertising, and corporate sales.
Guess you can say I’m adaptable.
The hundreds of interviews I’ve conducted and working over 25 jobs in my career continues to help me to empathize with all people across all walks of life.
I was also a game developer. I love applying some of the gamification concepts I learned. I think it makes my designs more usable (and fun) for my favourite personas: children and grandmas.
These 2 personas are great to target when you’re trying to design more accessible applications, as you’ll be including people with low vision, low dexterity, and easily disoriented (my grandma persona) and those with learning disabilities (or someone equivalent to having a grade 6 education).
My technical background also helps me design polished micro-interactions and they easliy translate to code. Because I can speak their language, I usually get along with the developers I work with. The CMS team and developer have raved about my Figma files in how well I mathmatically layout (using auto-layout) and annotate my designs to highlight potential issues.
I’ve also been told I have a knack for explaining tech to non-tech folk.
I believe UX Designers have super powers. We can choose to make the world a better place. As the wise aunt of Spiderman says “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
At this stage in my career I’m looking for a company with values similar to mine, ie: who also “love to make things better.”