Tag Archives: year

Fun, UX

2019 was a great year… finally!

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UX Research and Strategy

I like to do these end-of-year retros to reflect on the things I have accomplished and my successes. Hey, we might as well pat ourselves on the back when we can, right? ha ha. What would I say is my biggest accomplishment? Probably co-founding the UX Research and Strategy group.

Co-founders of UX Research and Strategy wrapped up with first successful year with a holiday party.
Co-founders of UX Research and Strategy wrapped up with first successful year with a holiday party.

The group started in May, and has become a huge success. We first crowdsourced the topic to see if there was even a need or interest in a UX Research and Strategy Group. Boy, is there interest! Some of things UX Research and Strategy has accomplished in less than 8 months of existence:

  • 8,000 Linkedin connections
  • 300 Facebook likes
  • 300 Twitter followers
  • 270 Instagram followers
  • Monthly events with over 50 attendees at each
  • Workshops, online webinars and partnerships with other meetup groups

Needless to say I am very proud of how quickly this group has grown. I am beyond the moon excited about the events coming from this group in 2020 too.

Public Speaking

in 2019, I made it my goal, to do some public speaking engagements. Event if it was a local meetup or class, I wanted to make sure I was sharpening those public speaking skills and working on topics that I could share with the UX and technology community.

Jennifer Blatz UX Design WIAD Information Architecture Day
Not only did I organize WIAD Dallas, I also acted as the event’s emcee.

First there was WIAD (World Information Architecture) in early 2019. We had a huge crowd and I would consider this event a success. Read the story abut WIAD Dallas 2019.

Then I spoke at a few meetups along the way. Dallas is really lucky that we have a large UX community, and there are other meetup groups, like those who are interested in agile and product ownership that also have an interest in UX.

Jennifer Blatz Jen Blatz UX designer and researcher
Speaking at the local Service Design Dallas meetup, goofy face and all.

My biggest speaking engagement, and a talk I am really proud of took place at Big Design Conference. My talk, “Keeping Cognitive Biases out of Your UX Design and Research,” was a big hit. Well, at least I think so. ha ha It’s been an honor to also re-purpose that talk to a couple other local meetups and university events.

Jen Blatz on stage at Big Design talking about Cognitive Biases. UX Research UX Design
Jen Blatz on stage at Big Design talking about Cognitive Biases.

Making it through the Big Design talk, gave me the confidence to apply for a few other national conferences. I have already been accepted at the Concentric Conference in January and Connectaha and Convey UX in March 2020. Woot! Let’s keep the public speaking skills in to 2020!

All the things

Aside from the speaking at events and creating a successful meetup group, I had a happy year over all. I got converted to a full time employee and I work on some pretty cool projects. We lost our dog, Peanut in late 2018, and finally found Sadie another brother a few months later. Ricky, the new brother, has brought a lot of happiness in to our household. My health was been OK, but is looking to improve in early 2020 so that is going to be great!

What will 2020 bring?

The UX Research and Strategy group kept me very busy in 2019, and I know it will continue to do so. But I am hoping to off load some of duties so that I can concentrate more on my continued UX education and experience. I want to get familiar with Figma. Also, I want to read a few more UX books and articles that I have been putting on the back burner. I also want to learn a bit more about how to be a better leader. There’s plenty of information on that subject matter to sink my teeth in to. Let’s just hope there’s a bit more time for some of my side interests, like travel and learning in 2020. I hope you find time for things you enjoy in 2020 as well.

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.

Fun, Uncategorized, UX

Reflecting on 2107: Good, Bad and Ugly

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Jennifer Blatz UX Designer and Researcher

Seems like everyone has a “Year in Review,” or “2017 Wrap Up.” I am going to join the cliché train and talk about my trials and tribulations in 2017.

The Good

  • I still have my health. ha ha. Actually things were not that bad.
  • I have made several new friends in the new career paths and journeys I have joined.
  • I actually accomplished some of my 2017 Goals this year. Maybe not everything, but it’s a start.
  • I learned Sketch and feel pretty confident with it. But I want to practice it more and get stronger at using the program.
  • Continue to grow online presence in Twitter. Do you want to follow me too? I would be honored.
  • I did grow my UX network in Dallas. I’ve done a pretty good job, but I want to be more embedded in the UX community here.

The Bad

  • Imposter syndrome will never leave me. No matter where I work, how much I learn, how successful or accomplished I might seem to be. I always feel like I am looking over my shoulder trying to fake everyone out.
  • This could be good, but this is also bad. I started, but did not finish, “Design of Everyday Things.” So that has to be bumped to the 2018 to-do list.
  • My new job has taken up a lot of my personal time where I should be devoting that time to advancing my career and learning more about UX, Service Design and Customer Experience.

The Ugly

  • Working for a company who did not understand UX
  • Having a narcissistic boss who thought it was appropriate to try to sabotage your career rather than helping me succeed.
  • Changing 3 jobs in a year. Ouch! That can look really bad professionally, and I am stung by that potential perception. But the job changes were all for very good reasons, and I hope that things will settle down in 2018.