Last week I met with the Director of the Graduate Program in Graphic & Experience Design at N.C. State University, my alma mater.
One of the action points, coming out of the meeting, was to write & send workshop ideas that could be valuable for undergraduate and graduate students.
Today, I wrote and sent them over.
That’s today’s post.
Preparing for professional practice
The general theme of all my ideas were focused on how to best prepare to enter the workforce. It’s top of mind due to the current state of the tech/design/product/experience job market these days, but also out of empathy: it’d be rough to graduate into this market.
For those designers that have gone to school for a Bachelor’s or Master’s in Graphic/Experience Design—they have some advantages that designers coming out of tech bootcamps have, but not much.
They’re all competing against the designers that have been practicing their professional craft for years or decades longer…but may be looking for the same jobs. Especially these days.
For me, these are important pieces of preparation that I would have appreciated back in the day, but find them extra relevant now.
Professional .README doc
Value
Working with and for others is one of those fundamental aspects of the design practice—whether it be developers, stakeholders, users, etc. To communicate with their teams—as well as possible personal branding & marketing asset creation—how they work as individuals. Especially in remote environments and communicating professional boundaries (i.e. mental health, avoiding burnout, etc).
Activities
Ultimately, they'd walk away from the session(s) with their own "How I work" document. This would include:
- Communication: How I communicate, how I prefer to receive feedback — (I have a Communication Styles activity that can help this as well)
- Way of Working: e.g. I tend to work best in the mornings, and that's my focus time. Meetings are preferred in the afternoon.
- A fantastic example from RL Nabors.
What sorta designer are yah?
Value
There are extremely few BGXD programs out there, and it's unique. But there are also tons of UX BootCamps, etc. that people graduating will be applying for the same jobs. The "title" of designer is also convoluted and obscured by the many variations on the market today.
Activities
We'd scope out all the various types of designers that the classes can think on (in groups, then come together), and map them out in relation to each other. The end goal is to be able to communicate what type of Designer you want to be, to be able to hone one's search for jobs, as well as growing the professional jargon of definition.
Generative AI in the workplace
Value
This is a thing these days, and highly relevant to a lot of the work they've likely been doing (and ways they've been working). As practitioners there are real questions around value, ethics, legality, real-world impact, harm, and good that can be used in this environment.
Activities
Less clear on this, but it's more of relevance. I think something like exposing them to Sentient Design would be valuable...it would empower them to have more valuable conversations and value add to wherever they work rather than churning out AI tools/designs that aren't clear on business value or customer value.
Labor & Work Environments
Value
The modalities of work are vast from location—on-site, remote, hybrid—to locations—international, local, somewhere else state-side. With each variation there are practices, benefits, challenges, etc. Even then, there's a lot on searching for information on workplace (Glassdoor, Blind, etc) to make a decision on not just how you want to work but where and what the environment is. For example, laws like the American Disabilities Act (ADA) can't be enforced in a company smaller than 15 people—can be important.
Activities
Leave the workshop with a defined ideal working environment to refer to and help go from there, as well as resources to do research themselves.
Ongoing practice of portfolio curation
Value
A portfolio can't be a one time thing. It should be updated each quarter to be able to search for something when you need it—shit happens. Much easier to document along the way than 10 years later—learned form experience. This is would be a way to set them up for long-term view of success and reference. Similarly, there are multiple modes/levels of portfolio/pitch presentations...and these things are needed for evidence for promotions as they level-up.
Activities
Go over the three different levels of portfolios—small, medium, long—and talking about the data/value added as critical components.
Designing for impact
Value
There's quantitative and qualitative data that's generated from users, researchers, insights, etc. but how to use this data in a data-driven process can be difficult at times. We'd go through the various decision-making and product-iterating practices but dig deeper into A/B testing: when to use it? how to use it?
Activities
My idea would be to go through the process of design from this perspective, using resources coming from Erin Weigel's Design for Impact book and various resources there, like her Experimental Design Toolkit.
This was the way we designed at Booking, and is much more common at larger international organizations. But! very few do it at the scale and ability that Booking has/does. There are myriads of activities I've picked up over the years to communicate and test what these are.
Designing for accessibility & inclusion
Value
Designing digital products is a wonderful opportunity to create tools that work for everyone, but is rarely done well. It's the space I've been working in.
Activities
Unsure what these would look like at the moment, but it's something important...especially if we're designing things that aren't compliant to the variety of laws globally around access requirements.
Design systems
Value
It's a more and more common practice throughout the industry to use design systems for their work...but it's also a different way of working. Would also cover the business value of design systems and why they can be valuable for companies in the long run.
Activities
As a group define what is expected in a design system, as well as the roles expected (who you'd be working with) and align it with the reality of what's out there.
Generative AI Conference for Project Management
Last week I was asked about possibly presenting at an AI Conference on All Hallow’s Eve. Part of that was also pitching potential topics I have been thinking on these days.
So, as a bonus, here are those possible topics:
- Sentient Design: how do we need to rethink the project management lifecycle—and the things we're building—from the perspective of AI-mediated experiences? The driving source of this question relates to my current work and from Big Medium—a digital design agency—who've named & been exploring the topic for a while now.
- Orchestration & Automation: this is specifically more focused in creating your “tech stack” where processes are built in and the AI's are plugged in automatically. There are more and more tools out there, and these tools can speak to another and do things when defined. How does this work in a project & product management life-cycle?
- Disability & Accessibility: outside of the hype-cycle around generative AI, there's a plethora of opportunities for accommodating, supporting, and enabling humans who don't have access due to an equally broad range of reasons. Specifically in the "practical project management" sense, this would explore how project managers could adapt processes to be more accessible & inclusive as they get projects done.