Save Your Spot for World IA Day

Last month, UX Akron was honored at Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Annual Best of Tech Awards as a leading Tech Community Group / Ecosystem Amplifier.

Partnership representatives said, “We’re thrilled to recognize UX Akron as one of Greater Cleveland’s 2025 Best of Tech! You’re part of a remarkable group of 108 innovators helping shape the future of our region’s tech economy.“

Nearly 300 tech leaders from the Greater Cleveland area gathered at the Great Lakes Science Center for the ceremony.

Learn more about this year’s event, see photos and a list of all the honorees at Greater Cleveland Partnership’s website.

WOrld IA DAY in Akron is Friday March 7, 2025

Join us for WIAD25 for Friday, March 7th at the Blu-tique Hotel at 1 S. Main St. in downtown Akron, Ohio. Breakfast and lunch are included, as well as breaks and opportunities for networking with the local tech & design community.

We’re planning a full day of speakers and activities — check back here for the schedule of events. This year’s global theme is the Challenges of Change. Learn more about the global event at worliaday.org.

An accessible, covered parking deck is located next to the library at 40 S. High Street and has an access corridor along the west wall that leads directly out to Main St.

AGENDA

10:00 – 10:15 – Check in, Continental Breakfast

10:15 – 10:30 – Welcome, opening remarks

10:30 – 11:30 – UX at a Crossroads – Joshua Randall

11:30 – 12:00 – Co-Creation Workshops: What Role Do They Play in Effective Design? – Richard Douglass

12:00 – 12:15 – BREAK

12:15 – 12:45 – Protection by Design – Ben Woods

12:45 – 1:15 – AI or IA? – Marc Majers

1:15 – 1:45 – LUNCH

1:45 – 2:00 – GIVEAWAYS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

2:00 – 3:00 – Untangling Supply Chain Systems – Nick Dauchot

3:00 – 3:30 – Beyond Design: Positioning UX as a Business Solution in Times of Change – Alina Bengert-Lombardi

3:30 – 3:45 – BREAK

3:45 – 4:15 – Affecting Change in Your Organization: Five Methods I Use to Change the Minds of Business Leaders About Digital Accessibility – Stephen Morrisey

4:15 – 4:45 – The Only Constant Is Change: How to Thrive in an Ever-Evolving Product World – Kim Kastner

ABOUT THE PRESENTATIONS

Joshua Randall on “UX At A Crossroads”

User Experience stands at a crossroads: will we live up to our potential to design a better world? or will we be co-opted by “product management” or another business buzzword?

Looking backwards, this talk will show how UX has repeatedly failed to create a better world, drawing on industry data from Nielsen Norman Group, Baymard, MeasuringU, WebAIM, and others.

Looking forwards, this talk will argue that UX must resist hype, say no more often and collaborate less often (you read that right), and become a true profession — in order to be able to design a better world.

Richard Douglass on “Co-Creation Workshops: What Role Do They Play in Effective Design?”

Co-creation workshops are becoming more prevalent in the product lifecycle. Typically, they are employed early on in the discovery process. Attendees will learn more about Co-Creation workshops: what they are, who is involved, what outputs/deliverables to expect, and how they can best use them.

Ben Woods on “Protection by Design”

The world continues to change, and so do the demands of UX professionals. 20 years ago, we wanted to ‘make things easier’ for the user. Then in as a ‘product’ and ‘agile’ mindset took hold, we turned to the idea of ‘delighting the user’. Today, in the shadow of anxiety around Artificial Intelligence, abuses of personal data, and rising rivalries between corporations, criminal enterprises, and nation-states, we are called to new purpose – ‘protect the user’.

Marc Majers on “AI or IA?”

Discover how Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a big effect on information architecture (IA) by influencing how information is organized, accessed, and utilized. Learn how to use AI to improve the user experience and make content easier to find.

Nick Dauchot on “Untangling Supply Chain Systems”

Supply chains are complex systems that are constantly impacted by internal and external forces, and are, in effect, a complex information architecture beast to tame. This session will dive into the weeds about designing for supply chain, its people and metrics, with real world examples from designing for a company delivering medical around the world. Outcomes from this session will include an understanding of designing for supply chain control tower usability, lessons and risks associated with supply chain design in complex organizational structures, and the need for co-design in supply chain related projects.

Alina Bengert-Lombardi on “Beyond Design: Positioning UX as a Business Solution in Times of Change”

Change is inevitable—layoffs, mergers, and reorganizations are part of today’s business landscape. In this talk, I’ll share insights and practical guidelines on how to position UX as a business-critical function rather than a design luxury. By reframing UX in terms of business impact, you can strengthen its role during times of uncertainty and ensure it remains a key part of strategic decision-making.

Stephen Morrisey on “Affecting Change in Your Organization: Five methods I use to change the minds of business leaders About digital accessibility”

UX professionals strive to positively impact their organizations. Yet we must realize that our projects are just one of many priorities leadership must contend with. How can you best champion your cause?

Few undertakings are as difficult and frustrating as our desire to integrate accessibility into our digital products. In this talk I discuss five methods I have used to persuade organizations, along with my results and lessons learned.

Kim Kastner on “The Only Constant Is Change: How to Thrive in an Ever-Evolving Product World”

Product roles are never static. From shifting business priorities and changing stakeholder expectations to new methodologies, emerging technologies, and the unpredictability of the job market, nothing stays the same for long. This reality can feel exciting at times but overwhelming or even disheartening at others.

And change isn’t just happening in product roles—it’s happening in how we design experiences and solve problems. For designers, this means continually re-evaluating decisions, iterating on solutions, and balancing evolving user needs with shifting business priorities.

In this talk, we’ll explore how to embrace change as a competitive advantage and build the adaptability required to succeed in a product career.

Be a sponsor

World IA Day is an annual event under the World Information Architecture Association.

It’s a one-day global celebration with locations all over the world, and serves to:

• Build and connect a global community of IA advocates and practitioners
• Promote the role of IA in different fields
• Provide resources for learning and professional development
• Engage IA academics and professionals in research and development

Sponsorships are a great way to communicate your organization’s value and attract visibility to your brand, products, or services.

Interested in sponsoring WIAD 2024? Visit our Sponsors Page to explore opportunities, or use our Contact Us form to connect with UX Akron. We’re happy to reply promptly and answer any questions you might have.

BE A VOLUNTEER

Want to help out on the day of the event? Let us know you’d like to volunteer.

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Elizabeth Gould, User Experience Designer, Kent State University

What drew you to study User Experience Design?

I was drawn into UX when trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I graduated with my undergraduate degree, at Kent State University, with a BFA in Installation Sculpture. At that time, trying to survive and pay bills with an arts degree was not realistic. So, I spent some time doing odds and ends until I happened to do some digging in Kent State’s School of Information graduate degrees and saw UXD. After doing some research trying to figure out what User Experience Design was, I learned it was a good blend of Technology along with the bits of an artist’s background. 

Tell us about your experience working in the University Library at Kent State. How  does your library experience inform your UX work?

Working at University Libraries prepared me for the difficulties that come with most front-facing service jobs, along with learning how to manage back-end operations simultaneously.I feel like I have been practicing UX during my entire career at University Libraries, just not from the typical digital standpoint that most people associate UXD with.
When Patrons come to the desk, or call over the phone, they have a general idea of what they want, but sometimes have no idea how they need to access what they need. In my various roles, I have had to troubleshoot and problem-solve all these different issues. Sometimes the Patron was not at fault for being unsuccessful, it was the flow of information that was confusing. Those situations sometimes resulted in having to connect with units who oversaw those operations, figure out their point of view, tell them about the Parton experience, and figure out of path forward that worked for all parties involved. 

What’s something you wish more people understood about design in general or about your day-to-day work?

I wish people understood that it is not always about them when it comes to design. I think the heart of the problem they are trying to solve is about making something better, but there are times when it is not presented in that manner. There are so many different threads that feed a final product and for many reasons, not everyone is aware of those threads. We do not need to understand how to do someone else’s job, but we should become more aware of these threads and how a decision could influence another thread.   

What do you wish more designers understood? Or what do you think the dialog in our community of practice is missing?

In some regard, think our community is missing simplicity. UX is constantly evolving, and evolution is great. Things are constantly being re-evaluated and adjusted to keep up with the market and big enterprises, but it feels like some areas of UX are moving too fast. Is UX evolving for the sake of trying to constantly chase enterprises and stay afloat or is it evolving because there is a functional need for it to change?  The hardest thing I am trying to keep up with is the constant shifting of the names of what we call things.  It feels like every year and a half the names are being updated and now I have to play catch up with my own terminology.

What are you working on learning now, or have just heard about that fascinates you? What would like to learn next?

I am currently learning how to lead and direct as a UXD. In some ways, it is the same as a manager role, but in other ways also very different. Depending on the team, the target goal, the day even, there are so many pieces of the puzzle that I am trying to learn how to keep afloat until I need a specific piece. It is very overwhelming, but I am trying to focus on one element at a time. I am very grateful to my mentors who have coached me and were there to just let me talk through things. I would not be where I am without them.  

UX Akron is a 501(c)(3) organization that runs on the generous support of individual donors and sponsors. Your donations allow us to offer in-person events that are free and open to the public. The majority of the money we receive goes directly to these events. A portion is also used to serve day-to-day overhead and operational needs, such as monthly costs for website hosting and development, online meeting software, etc.

It’s been a rough year for tech, so the genuinely positive energy in the room was actually a little jarring at first. More than 200 tech CEOs, tech professionals, and representatives of 28 tech-centric Partner organizations, like UX Akron, mixed and mingled around cocktail tables set up with pamphlets and trinkets and business cards. Everyone seemed to fall into engaging conversations quickly, and it was great to see just how many tech-focused organizations exist in our area, approaching development from various angles.

In the keynote, the Founder of Overdrive, Steve Potash, spoke about the 30-year transition from selling volumes of digitized legal publications on collections of CD-ROMs (the tedium of digital operation in this era was summarized by Potash as “By about the 25th disc, you’d think, do I really need the whole book?”) to developing Overdrive’s beloved flagship e-reading app Libby by way of getting a law degree, following the urging of his librarian wife Loree to branch out into e-books more generally, and partnering with Cleveland Public Library to develop the first iteration of the Overdrive app with librarians for their patrons.

Then came the awards themselves, which did a fantastic job of spotlighting a variety of avenues illuminated by technology and ingenuity in the Greater Cleveland area with categories that celebrated collaboration and creative approaches, as well as taking a moment to highlight the good work of each nominee. Awards were given to the CEOs of startups and the CIOs of more established companies, to Tech Teachers, AI Innovators, and Cybersecurity superstars, and to companies and organizations driving innovation in Cleveland’s manufacturing sector.

It was encouraging to hear about all this happening in Cleveland, and not just recently or in a buzzword-laden, hype-forward way. The role of place in how we capture and understand information often gets lost online. The internet as a medium supposedly transcends geography, and therefore development has proceeded from a point of conspicuous lack of interest in how life is lived IRL. This ethos means the internet doesn’t yet handle the nuance of IRL artifacts well (concepts like timezones, dialects, differences in conceptual understanding of a topic even when content is in the “same language,” the role a local economy plays in a user’s wellbeing and even participation in the great project of the internet, weather, etc. which shape our ways of consuming and understanding information.) This event showcased how natural a sense of community can be experienced in person, it was great to meet people really DOING things right here in Northeast Ohio, shake their hand, and hear them talk about their work and genuine interests.

In UX, we used to talk about people being “unicorns” if they could design and code. At this event, they talked about “unicorns” being tech companies that reached $1B in profits. There are 6 such companies in Cleveland. “What do you call a herd of unicorns?” Greater Cleveland Partnership’s CEO Baiju Shah asked the audience. “A blessing.”

Check out more photos from the event, and see a list of winners on Greater Cleveland Partnership’s website.

Interested in hearing about events coming up in Greater Akron and around Ohio? Subscribe to our newsletter!

It’s still true: understanding your users makes you a better designer, better designers make better products, and better products result in bigger companies (among other things).

When you work with printmaking ink, or oil paint, you must learn to work with solvents. Solvents are the eraser mechanism for oil-based media, just as water is for water-based media. To control a mark, you need to be able to remove it. Creation is entwined with destruction.

I’ve been thinking about solvents and materiality in general, probably because I’ve been spending much more time glued to a screen. This is something I don’t think people working in tech really understand on a gut level: no one else has the relationship to computers that we do. Even people who are working with computers all day are not so immersed in them the way we have to be. They don’t see computers as a medium they’re working through. For most people (Yes, most. Yes, still.), a computer is more like an expensive plate their work is trapped inside, and they are a hostage negotiator.

It matters because I suspect this disconnect between designers’ assumptions and user sentiment around their relationship to computers is part of the puzzle of why many in the UX field feel (according posts I’ve come across in the last 6 months) they aren’t making a good business case for the role true user research plays in creating a better product. UX’ers believe our unique blend of research and design ultimately contributes perhaps the most value of any department in a tech company to that company, so this ought to be a pretty easy case to make. How have we lost the faith?

Let me ask a different question: when was the last time you observed someone using your product IRL?

If you are responsible for the design of a product and you’re relying exclusively on a contrived series of tasks that you dreamed up with no meaningful pushback from your team, and loaded into a website that lets you test small pieces of your designs anonymously and asynchronously to be your only window into how your product is being used, then you may well be de-risking some small element of the design of a product. And you could probably think critically about this information and spin it up into a compelling case that if you had gone with the initial, untested version, usage would have been impacted by X, and over the last quarter the combined impact from not testing would have likely resulted in a decrease of Y & Z, etc.

(Side note: If you don’t have friends in your marketing department, make some. Marketing is a very mature field and they have all sorts of battle-tested ways to justify creative decisions in a corporate space. Messaging is a collaborative process, a two-way street. When I hear people complain about the “design maturity” of a company, I can’t help but wonder how much of our message is lost on leadership due to the fact that the UX field still has some growing up to do.)

Regardless of strides towards better internal marketing of UX, however, you’re never going to have the real impact that truly good design can have by focusing your efforts on hedging your bets and checking a box. You don’t get credit for innovating if you’re not innovating. To put it bluntly: maybe we can’t make the case for real UX research because we haven’t been doing real UX research.

Your customers are not going to love a product they are actively erasing with their behavior. “Good enough” for people who live and breathe computers (you) and those who managed to find a user testing site on their own and voluntarily opt in to participation in such tests (your participants) is not going to tell you anything even remotely meaningful about what will be good enough for “most people” (your actual users). You might be shocked how many of your existing customers are “most people.” And even more shocked how many more customers you could reel in if you were actually designing a product for them.

It’s a scary time to think expansively in a field that is feeling the squeeze. But here’s a secret: it’s never going to feel safe or easy to rethink something. It will only make sense to take the risk of trying something new when you start to recognize that you can’t afford to keep doing what you’ve been doing once it’s stopped working. Don’t stare down that black hole. Instead, get curious about your customers. Like, your career depends on it curious. How are people really using what you’re making? What do they really think of it? What little hacks have they come up with, what do they complain to their colleagues about?

How can you find this information in an organization that wants you to keep your head down as close to your screen as you can physically get it? Customer service is a great place to start. Ask if you can see call logs, or summaries of meetings. Ask if anyone in the department would be willing to hop on a call with you so you can pick their brain. Build relationships with actual coworkers in this space and make these calls a regular check in.

Take a deep dive into the reviews of your product on an App Store or G2. You’ll have to sift through lots of unhelpful feedback, and correct for the unfortunate tone internet communication has coalesced into, but there are kernels of real insights sitting there like free flecks of gold in a stream.

If CS or Sales does customer visits, ask if you can join. See if you can set a time to observe actual users using your product. Prioritize this. I know it’s uncomfortable, but so is getting laid off. Find a customer company that’s geographically near your own home and see if you can’t set up a visit there. See if you can’t buy them lunch. If they’re all working in-person, they will likely be thrilled to see a visitor with donuts and gladly let you watch them work in exchange.

If you secure such a visit, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to have that aha moment, especially if you haven’t done a lot of this kind of work before. Being a physical person with strangers is more uncomfortable for some people than others. Give yourself permission to be uncomfortable, but do it anyway. This is the first of many such meetings you’ll have if you do your job right.

It helps to stop worrying about yourself and start worrying about the customer: are they comfortable? Is this how and where they usually use your product? Do they mind if you take notes? Personally, I prefer not recording video in-person. People who aren’t on Zoom all day are understandably self-conscious when a camera is pointed at them. They’re doing you a favor, do what you can to put them at ease. Think of it as an exercise in being present, and just try to take in the gestalt of the thing. Aha moments will come later, on the drive home, or in a month when you’re debating button styles. Learn to shift your focus from creating a replicable process (science) to honing your skills of observation (art).

If you really cannot find a way to scare up any actual customers, dust off that resume (thinking you’re going to be able to ride things out with a company that is completely disconnected from their customer base is a bad long-term plan). But then also consider just going to any public place (a library is a great option, but even coffee shops where people brought their own device and should therefore theoretically be comfortable with it will work) to people-watch for an hour. Set your timer, don’t let yourself off the hook early. Watch people use these things we are designing out in the wild.

The designer Naoto Fukasawa said “Design dissolves in behavior.” I came across this quote in Fabricio Teixeira’s Lessons of Design post on Medium. Destruction makes space for something new, absence draws the eye to presence.

We aren’t going to change the world if we play it safe and hide behind a screen. We can’t fix something we won’t acknowledge is broken. If we keep designing for ourselves, then businesses are right to assume we have no impact on their bottom line. Maybe for a while it got comfortable to just focus on the little details of your own tasks, on turn-around time, on everything but zooming out to consider your real impact.

Maybe it’s okay to get a little uncomfortable, and to use that discomfort to refocus on empathizing with users’ discomfort. Because, truly, did you become a designer focused on the experience of users simply to make yourself more comfortable?

Further Reading

• Hypothesis-Based Approaches by Debbie Levitt in R before D
  • On starting with a problem, not a solution.
• No, AI User Research Isn’t “Better Than Nothing,” It’s A Lot Worse by Pavel Samsonov in UX Collective
  • Why cutting corners on research is a sure path to commodification, a.k.a. devaluation, of your product.
• Designers, We Have A “Figmaism” Problem by Artiom Dashinsky in Prototypr
  • Tools are great! But we need to be talking about and prioritizing strategy, leadership, making connections, and advocacy.

UX Akron is looking for more thought leaders to guest author blog posts. Interested in sharing your perspective? Reach out!

Allison Nowak, Instructional Designer at OUCCAS (Ohio’s University Consortium for Child and Adult Services)

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?

I just moved to the greater Akron area.

Outside of work I sew, listen to multiple podcasts, hike, and take care of my houseplants and three cats. I’m working on training my cats to go hiking with me. 

Tell us about your path to becoming an Instructional Designer. How did you end up in this role?

It took a few other jobs and lots of research for me to discover Instructional Design. It’s not a widely known career for people working outside of Learning & Development.

But, as I researched Instructional Design and analyzed my current & potential skillset, I discovered I already had a lot of the skills needed. So, I spent four months of full-time, self-directed study to fill the gap in my knowledge and skills. I took a few classes and consumed all the books/blogs/podcasts my mind could absorb. (Shoutout to Luis Malbas & the TLDC—your content has been indispensable!)

I landed my first ID contract in that 4^th month. That job and all work since as an Instructional Designer & eLearning Developer has been so rewarding, and downright fun. I finally feel like I’m able to use my whole brain at work and be valued for it!

What’s your favorite part of your workday or week?

When my Teams is on do not disturb, or it’s after typical business hours, and I know I have 4-6 uninterrupted hours to build something beautiful that will solve a problem.

Do you use anything in your work now that you learned in school or in the past that surprises you, that you thought you’d never use “in real life”?

Growing up with parents who struggled to use computers meant I did things like handwrite a “How to Print” guide for my mother. I was maybe 11 or 12. It was a click-by-click guide with numbers, headings, and icons. I then coached her through the steps along with the guide until she was able to successfully print on her own. She kept that guide by her printer for many years. 

Understanding the barriers to a work task, coming up with a solution that will help that person successfully do that work task, and presenting said solution in a way that can be used by that person—that’s a lot of what Instructional Design is. It was natural for me to create solutions like this. It showed up in all my previous jobs—tutoring music, caring for an elderly family friend, teaching English to adults. But it wasn’t until later in life that I made the connection that it was a valuable work skill.

Also, playing with fonts in Word ’95 when I was a kid. Selecting the most ridiculous of fonts—Jokerman ITC, Goudy Stout, Curlz MT—just to see how that would change the document. Obviously, those would be terrible choices for most products today, but I still think a lot about fonts: is it readable by my users in all formats (print, digital, up close & far away); will it display in all software (PPT, Adobe Acrobat, Articulate); and does it convey the correct tone for the product?  

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be?

“Do what you love” is bad career advice. And practicality isn’t everything. You can and should find a middle ground between following your passion and pursuing a strictly-practical field. 

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!

Derek Tholt, Digital Product Manager at Huntington Bank

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?  

Professionally, I am a (brand-new) Digital Product Manager for Huntington Bank. After going to work for a small, San Francisco-based FinTech in 2021, I am back at Huntington in the digital space as of November 2023. I held various roles at Huntington from 2013 to 2021 – anything from branch banking to sales support for our large team of Mortgage Loan Officers to running a large team during an acquisition. I truly consider the last ten years of work as a paid internship having learned so much about banking, home lending, and the FinTech space.   

Outside of work, you can find me in one of three places: an airplane, a car, or the left side of my couch. I love to travel domestically and try to get on a plane every eight weeks or so to visit family and friends. I joke that I keep Frontier Airlines in business. I am also a car fanatic. I am a member of a few local car clubs one of which I have a fabulous group of friends that get together often. Each April, a national club, famously known as The Car Gays, meets at the famous Tail of the Dragon at Fontana Dam in North Carolina. We rent cabins and spend all day out on the roads and all night by the bonfire.   

At home, we have a few rules: have a healthy salad for dinner every Monday, never show up to a special event in a dirty car, always lead with kindness and an open mind, and never miss Jeopardy. I have been with my husband, Tristan, since 2007.   

Tell us about your path to become a Product Manager. How did you end up in this role?  

This new role fell into my lap after being notified of a layoff at my last gig. When I left Huntington in 2021, I went to work for Blend Labs, which provides point-of-sale lending solutions for hundreds of banks (including Huntington.) At Blend, I worked with the banks and credit unions on understanding their product roadmaps for large deployments and ongoing projects. I also managed numerous sales tools. My experience at Blend was invaluable to bring back with me to manage digital lending products at Huntington which includes mortgage, home equity, automotive, and unsecured loans.   

I am taking this new opportunity to try to poke some holes in the way the teams at Huntington do things. My manager told me to be a fly on the wall for a while and try to ask Why as much as possible. I’ hope to add a passion project to my book of work and encourage teams to use the modern tools provided to make navigating our workload easier, faster, and more transparent. Gone are the days of saving a file to your computer and attaching it to an email!   

What’s something you wish more people understood about your role or trends you’re seeing in the industry?  

Industry-wide, traditional banks are now competing with the Venmo and Chimes of the world. Large banks are often held to different regulatory standards than small, digital companies, so they need to be very deliberate in how new features are launched to customers. Think about how you do your banking today and ask yourself, “Would I consider using a bank that doesn’t have a great app, the ability to send money immediately, and provide real-time alerts for privacy and security?” Most would say no, so banks must always stay abreast of the latest digital banking trends and evaluate and prioritize ongoing enhancements. I’m excited to be a part of the life cycle of these initiatives and ultimately see them go live for customers and colleagues.   

What is something you’re most known for at work, and how do you use that as part of your professional identity?  

I have always been known for asking a ton of questions. It’s hard for me to understand my expectations if I’m not fully immersed in the product or tool I manage. I love to find a beta environment and try to break things. I also try to understand one basic concept: how are end-users consuming our product, and are we working to make it better? Once I understand this concept better, I love to be a helpful resource to anyone working alongside our team.   

If my colleagues remember one thing about me, it’s that I never claim to know everything. One of the most under-utilized phrases in life is “I don’t know” – as long as it’s followed by “but I will find out for you,” makes for the most transparent, honest, and trust-building experience one can have at work.   

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be?  

Listen to learn. Don’t listen to speak next.   

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!

Shannon Kelly is a senior UX strategist at OverDrive in Cleveland, OH.

As a user experience professional, you have many skills, methodologies, and tools at your disposal. With so many methods available, learning them all can be overwhelming (like those listed in Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions by Bella Martin and Bruce Hanington.) 

But when standing out amongst your peers in an ever-fluctuating job market, sometimes you need to know more than traditional UX methodologies to put you ahead. You may need (and have attained) extra experience or skills to differentiate yourself from competitors for specific industries or positions. Let me preface this by saying you should NOT be a jack-of-all-trades and apply for jobs with multiple roles rolled into one. Instead, gaining some basic understanding of a different skill set makes you more marketable to hiring managers because it shows you can communicate effectively and work collaboratively. 

Here are three skills recommendations I believe can make you more marketable as a UX professional: 

1. Analytics

Traditional UX methods (User interviews and usability testing) are revered as providing qualitative data findings. As a researcher, you synthesize the information from these studies and make recommendations based on results. These methods are the holy grail of discovery and the primary methods for finding the “why” behind user behaviors. Due to testing budget and time constraints, limited sample sizes may not always provide a sense of urgency among stakeholders, and as the saying goes, “There is a big difference between ‘what people do’ versus ‘what people say.’” 

Analytics data can help support (not replace) traditional research and provide (often massive amounts of) quantitative usage data. Having a skillset like Google Analytics (GA) in your toolbelt is one of the most undervalued skills a researcher can have. GA lets you quickly gather historical user behavior on a website or application and find out what areas your users are interested in, what they’re trying to do, and what areas are problematic. 

Some key areas of analytics to learn:

• Segmenting Traffic Channels and User flows
• Tracking user retention and falloff (bounce and exit rates)
• Event and conversion goal tracking

By pairing qualitative and quantitative data, you can effectively convey a greater sense of urgency to decision-makers.

2. Conversion Rate Optimization

One of the skills I’ve learned over the years that helped prime my career in UX was Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). CRO is increasing the likelihood that website or application visitors will accomplish a desired action. A conversion can be anything actionable & measurable and is tied to a business goal. Some examples of conversions include adding an item to a cart, making a purchase, or filling out a form to download a PDF. The conversion rate is calculated by taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the number of sessions. For example, if you had 25 conversions from 100 sessions, your conversion rate would be 25%, or 25 ÷ 100 x 100 = 25%.

Often, the goal isn’t just to increase conversions but to increase the rate at which people convert. If marketing sends enormous amounts of traffic to a website, but users aren’t converting, the answer isn’t more traffic. The goal is to make incremental and measurable changes that help improve how users use the site and get them toward a conversion goal. 

From personal experience, becoming a CRO specialist allowed me to learn Google Analytics, heat-mapping, and A/B testing platforms and become more familiar with digital marketing practices. It also taught me to tie design updates to quantifiable improvement metrics, sell ideas to stakeholders, and set goals for project work. When I had measurable project improvements, it helped me sell myself come annual review time and eventually changed the trajectory of my professional career in design. 

3. Previous Transferable Skills

Is there anything you did in a previous job (anything at all) that you gained experience in and qualifies you for the position you’re going for? Did you work in restaurants or another customer-facing service job? What about customer support? Perhaps you’re a graphic designer who wants a change. Maybe you’re a writer, a psych major, a former medical professional, or military personnel. Either way, whatever experience you have, some skills you attained are likely transferable to the UX field. 

For example, a former restaurant cook who decided to make a career change into development. While learning to code in school, he worked as a software consultant (or, dare I say, researcher?) and talked to restaurants to help improve their point-of-sale (POS) systems for order fulfillment. Thanks to his restaurant experience, he could communicate effectively with his restaurant employees, understood their needs and feedback, and conveyed that information to the developers to enhance the POS platform.

Especially if you’re transferring to a UX career, think about all the things at your former position(s) that you’ve learned, gained skills in, or even the processes you thought could be improved. Maybe you were a nurse and found the internal patient portals frustrating – what would you have fixed? Perhaps you traveled the world through the military and studied different cultures – sounds a little like ethnographic research. Whatever you’ve done, something can be transferable. 

It is essential to be transparent about your unique experiences and how they distinguish you from other applicants in the industry. Highlight these relevant skills in your resume, portfolio, cover letters, and interviews. Promote yourself and your expertise – it’s not just about your UX knowledge but also your ability to apply past experiences effectively.

Our guest authors are carefully selected to spotlight thought leaders in Ohio’s UX community. Interested in sharing some insights? Or would like to hear from a local UX superstar? Reach out to uxakronteam@gmail.com to pitch us post ideas and author suggestions.