Tag Archives: 2018

Fun, UX

2018, a Year in Review

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It’s that time of year again. It’s time to reflect on the goals that I set for myself, and see where I succeeded and where I fell short. Before I begins with my retrospective, let me just toot my own horn for a second and say that I am pretty pleased with how things shook out generally this year. 2018 was for of great professional opportunity and learning for me.

I want to take a look back at the Goals I set for 2018. Sure I did not accomplish everything. But it was a busy year and I did have a few small wins.

Books

Finished two of the 3 books “Checklist Manifesto” and “Sprint.”

Blog

Wrote a good 12, long-format blog posts with valuable content. Plus, I succeeded at writing my series of “UX Tidbits” and “UX Quotes” sprinkled throughout he year.

Social Media

I wanted to increase the account numbers for the twitters that I run.

Professional Development
  • Continue to learn Sketch well enough to mock up several designs to expand portfolio and skill set. – Success!
  • Create UX assets and deliverables to sharpen my skills and enhance my portfolio. – Always a work in progress. So I am going to claim semi-success for this one!
  • Wrap up the “UX Process” project I have been working on. – Failure. But gives me something to work on in 2019.
UX Community Involvement and Leadership
  • Launched the, much-anticipated IXDA chapter in Dallas. As a leader of the group, I’ve helped plan events, bring in great speakers and even moderated a large panel on diversity.
  • Acted as Social Media Chair for WIAD 2018. I guess I did a pretty good job at helping the event that I was recruited to organize the 2019 WIAD Dallas leg on the international event. Stay tuned for a write up about how WIAD goes in February 2019.
  • Spoke about UX Design Laws and Principles at North Dallas Product Owners Meetup.
  • Guest speaker for two sessions for the professional development course “Agile for Patriots.”
  • Worked for 2 charitable hackathons, doing research and design. I participated in BigGive Dallas and Dallas Give Camp. Both events were exhausting, yet fun and personally rewarding.
Personal development
  • Have better work/life balance. – This one is a huge SUCCESS with the job change that happened in April. Much happier in my new work place.
  • 2017 was not a great year for travel for me. This is especially true for international travel.  – Sadly I must say 2018 was the same. Not a lot of opportunity for travel. Being a contractor is touch. But 2019 is a new year so fingers crossed!
  • Read more outside of UX. – I did read a couple of business and professional development books in 2018, so I can declare this a success.

Again, 2018 was a good year for me. I am thankful for my better job, good health, wonderful professional opportunities and great friendships I have made and maintained in 2018. What does a person like me do next? Start to think about goals and opportunities for 2019. Stay tuned.

Education, Fun, Uncategorized, UX

2018 New Year’s Goals

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Jen Blatz UX designer 2018 goals

First thing I did to think about 2018, is to review the goals I set for myself in 2017. Man, I did knock a few of those off of the list, but I was not nearly as successful as I should have been.

Here are my lame excuses for not accomplishing last year’s goals:

  • I changed jobs 3 times in one year. I had a huge learning curve to  every new job, and I am still trying to understand the new industries I was working in.
  • I was a bit stressed having landed in positions that were empty promises and not career-growth opportunities. Thus, the change in positions so many times.
  • With all of the new jobs, I was devoting any extra free time I had to getting up to speed, and not focusing on networking or getting involved in the local UX community.

OK, OK enough with the pity party. Now let’s focus on what I really want to accomplish in 2018.

Read
  • “Design of Everyday Things” (started in 2017, need to finish)
  • “Checklist Manifesto” (charted for 2017, pushing to this year)
  • “Sprint”
Write blog posts
  • In 2017, I was shooting to post 25 original blog posts.
  • I want to shoot for 12, long-format blog posts with valuable content.
  • Plus I would like to continue my series of “UX Tidbits” and “UX Quotes” sprinkled throughout he year. I enjoy researching, gathering and creating these fun short snippets of info. I will shoot for 18 “UX Tidbits in 2018
Social Media

I have felt so lucky to have the followers on twitter that I have accumulated this far. I would like to continue to grow my Twitter following.

Networking
  • Continue to participate in local Meetups to expand my network and to get to know others in the UX community and other related fields.
  • Have the opportunity to participate in one panel at a Meetup, meeting or class as a person who has some sort of UX knowledge to bring to the table.
  • Give a presentation to one Meetup group. Group and topic to be determined.
  • Attend Creative Mornings events to meet more designers and artists in the local community.
Professional Development
  • Continue to learn Sketch well enough to mock up several designs to expand portfolio and skill set.
  • Understand the industry I work for, cloud computing, better.
  • Learn about managing teams. It might be something I am interested in, so I would like to learn more.
  • Create UX assets and deliverables to sharpen my skills and enhance my portfolio.
  • Wrap up the “UX Process” project I have been working on at work and develop a strong case study on the process of creating it. Continue to visit the project through the year to see how it is going and iterate as needed.
  • Determine what topic I need to know more about when it comes to UX. Perhaps Customer Experience or Service Design? See how these tracks can be explored further in my current work space.
  • Revisit these goals in the mid year to not only track my progress, but to add to it. I feel like I need more concrete goals than just listed here. Stronger possibilities tbd.
Personal development
  • Have better work/life balance. Right now I am spending any extra time I have in the evenings working on “Cloud Computing” or “Leading the UX Team” related tasks and not having any rest or personal development time.
  • 2017 was not a great year for travel for me. This is especially true for international travel. I would like to explore the world a bit more, even if it is in my home state.
  • Read more outside of UX. I would like to learn more about another discipline. Be that fine art, history or social sciences. I would like to increase my knowledge about a field that could be complementary to UX, but is not strictly UX.