Posts Tagged ‘UX’

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting an art gallery here in New York City. The artist’s exhibit was a group of beautifully done photographs that he took of wild life on a remote island. They were extraordinary, breathtaking even. But they were also VERY expensive.

The photographs ranged from $6,000 – $75,000 or more. The price blew me away! $6,000 for a picture?? So, my friend and I proceeded to question the gallery worker as to how the artist sets his prices. The worker, an extremely well informed young lady, explained to us the process that the artist goes through to make the prints. It is painstakingly hard, and takes a great amount of effort, time and cost. After the explanation, the prices that were set seemed very fair and made a ton of sense. That’s the sign of someone who is really good at what they do after all – making your output look effortless even though it is of high quality. That is how I look at myself as a User Experience Designer.

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Ever since having the opportunity to work with a startup back in the early fall, I’ve jumped on any chance I’ve had to do so again. I loved the atmosphere and the people, but most of all I loved the freedom with which to try and adapt the User Experience practices that I’ve been learning for so long.

Many of the people in my field migrate towards full-time work with established companies, because they desire the security that that type of work brings them. That is all well and good until the complaints about not being respected and not having the opportunity to be innovative and to learn begin. Very slowly, but surely, a change is beginning in the user experience world, and it is one that you as an entrepreneur or small business owner should not only be aware of, but should take advantage of.

User experience professionals are starting to talk about the joys of working with smaller companies and startups… and a very, very early migration has started towards that direction.

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This week’s post is inspired by  New York Tech Meetup. For those of you that are NYC based, I’m sure you know about and/or attended the event. For those of you who are not here in NYC, NYTM is basically one of the biggest, most well known tech/startup events in the area.

Demoing to the New York community is a must for just about any startup in the area. It’s sort of like an initiation into the “you are almost close to making it” world here in NYC. Therefore, the demo, to me, seems like a huge effort to prepare for… and most if not all presenters do prepare a great deal.

• What then makes a successful demo?
• Who usually gets the most buzz, questions and positive feedback from their presentations?

It’s the presenters that think about what the audience wants to hear, NOT what they, as the presenter, want to say. This is where demoing at the NYTM, and anywhere to be honest, becomes a task in User Experience Design.

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In writing for NYEWeek, I always try to think of topics that will relate to the Entrepreneurial mind. The post I write today may or may not do so, but my hope is that it will invoke some ideas that will change your thinking about how you approach your customer. As I’ve mentioned in several previous posts on my blog I’m surrounded by counselors and therapists of all kinds. In talking with these folks, I can’t help but see the similarities that keep coming up between our two professions, those of Therapy and UX Design.

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In thinking about what types of questions I get the most as a User Experience consultant, I came up with one question that is not always asked directly, but that is implied in almost every introductory meeting I have. That question is “Should I hire a UX Designer?”

If the answer to that question is yes, then the next question is usually “When in the process should I hire this skill set?” Let’s look at each question in more detail.

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