The UX Portfolio – What makes the client tick..

I imagine it must be hard for an experienced designer to hear from a recruiter that you need to jazz up your portfolio, when you’re the ones who’ve actually done the work! I find it a little hard to say sometimes, but it is the client that tells us what they look for, we’re the ones that have these conversations and know what the client is looking for, so do our best to offer as much guidance as we can.

I did come across an article that was a really good read for me that comes direct from a client, it gives you an insight to what clients look for in a UX portfolio when they’re interviewing. We offer advice here on how to make your portfolio appealing to clients - different clients in different verticals like different things which doesn’t exactly help you as a candidate, but hopefully this article can provide a good starting point.

http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/wow-me-with-your-ux-portfolio.html

If you feel you need some guidance on putting together an updated portfolio, we’re more than happy to help. It would be great to hear from you as a candidate and find out what you find the biggest hurdles when putting together work examples. Equally, clients that can pass on any nuggets of information that you feel could help candidates would be much appreciated.

Please feel free to discuss further with Sukhi Kang

UX Recruitment - The candidate perspective

..Do to others as you would have them do to you..

I’m pretty sure we’ve all experienced it, you get calls at the most inconvenient time. You get a barrage of emails and messages when they are just not relevant!

In this week’s discussion, I’m really keen to try and tap into the market and see how UX candidates prefer to communicate best. Working in the UX space is different to other areas, you’re not always able to drop everything to answer the phone (sometimes you are, but you just don’t want to!). You may be in workshops all morning, so the last thing you want to do on your lunch break is speak to 15 different people asking you the same question whilst you tuck into your KFC.

As a UX professional, freelance or permanent, it would be brilliant to hear from you guys and let us know what the preference is for communication. I hate being bombarded when it’s not necessary, but when my car insurance or phone contract is up for renewal I like to use the internet and use online assistance, that’s my personal preference.

What works best for you the candidate when you want to know about the market activity? And equally, what annoys you most!!

Please contact Sukhi to discuss further.

UX Open Days - a good idea to embrace?

A certain software firm we work with in France have just had the genius idea of holding a ‘Usability Week’ – a series of open days for other company staff members to pop their heads into the UX department and learn a little more about what goes on in there. Kind of like a science department open day at school, for business students to marvel at.

As well as presentations, demonstrations, talks and titbits they focused on explaining elements of user experience such as responsive design across platforms, persona development and accessibility, and why they are integral to the success of the businesses’ internal and customer-facing digital output.

I wonder if something like this should be rolled out by more firms? It seems like a great idea to raise awareness and most of all, show off how important UX is!

Have you gone down the same route in your firm? Are you planning to? Would you try to do this on lunch times or would you prefer to have walk in sessions throughout the day so employees can see your team members hard at work? Keen to hear your thoughts on this topic!

 

Please contact Sam.Emmett@ic-creative.co.uk.

Card Sorting: A Deeper Look

For those of you who have spoken with us lot at IC Creative before, you will know that I look after the Usability / UX Research side of things. It’s always interesting for me to learn more about the field and I do like to find things out as I go along.

Coming from a very unmathematical / unscientific educational upbringing, my mind does boggle sometimes at the different methods and tools you guys use to elicit statistics and other user data.

Every now and then I’ll come across a really good article which gives me a bit more of an insight into what it is the professionals do on a day to day basis. This article has recently been written by Jessica Miller, Usability Tester at WalkMe in San Francisco, who writes extensively on usability topics.  In it, she discusses the pros and cons of card sorting – the troubles she has found with it, and a useful insight into how you could overcome the complexity and conundrums which can arise from this exercise.

This may be of use to anyone like me who just likes to learn about these things, or anyone out there who comes up against the same issues with reading card sorting data which she does.

She begins: I’ve mentioned usability card sorting in the past, briefly as one of the more popular prototyping and visualising approaches for designing UX. But, I’ve never really talked that deeply about it, and given its popularity, it’s time I remedied that…. read more here!

 

To discuss this or anything UX related, please contact Sam Emmett.

 

Joining the UX movement – now is the time....

UX has gone from strength to strength;  IC Creative is definitely seeing more and more people starting to understand the significance and importance of a good UX.  It’s not always been the way, and the older heads that waved the UX flag to what seemed no avail, have seen how perceptions have changed and the importance of UX is being better received and consequently clients are reaping the rewards. I read an article that outlines why now is the time to become a UX designer, there are a lot of people who are going this way and I think it would be very useful. 

Why now is the right time to become a UX designer.

To discuss this or anything UX, please email Sukhi Kang.

The Perception of UX

Ever since the inception of IC Creative in 2008, we have shared teas and the odd cold beverage with UX managers and a number of designers who’ve told us what some people perceive UX to be, sometimes you can only take UX so far within a business as you’re fighting with powers that be to secure funding etc simply because people have completely the wrong perception.

I personally found this quite a good read, something that some of you may enjoy on your commutes to and from work. I imagine there will be some people out there who have this mindset about UX, I know how much it can get under the skin of those who are in the industry. It maybe something to keep on your desktop and pass onto those who ‘just don’t get it!!’.

 

Four myths about UX and how to bust them

To discuss this or anything UX, please email Sukhi Kang

Inside IC Creative

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has become perhaps the most important tool for companies across the globe to embed their brand image into the minds of their customers and potential customers. The breadth of SEM is almost infinite (on this planet anyway) and the rate of change in this area is staggering. Companies from start ups to international blue chips are developing new SEM strategies and often struggling with determining the best strategies to derive meaningful and measurable ROI  from their SEM activities.

That’s where IC Creative comes in. Our consultant John Baker specialises exclusively in SEM recruitment (SEM jobs, SEO jobs, PPC jobs). He delivers the most current skills to digital agencies and end clients, in the form of SEM / SEO / PPC professionals at the forefront of their profession.

John has an extensive pan-European database of contacts in the SEM community. Because he operates in this arena all day every day, John can authoritatively advice IC Creative’s clients on hiring strategy, resource requirements, etc.

Please contact IC Creative at any time to discuss the SEM market, whether you are seeking to implement or grow an SEM function, or whether you’re looking for a new career opportunity in this fast moving sector. (Contact john.baker@ic-creative.co.uk).

IC Creative to sponsor Cambridge Wireless Event

Cambridge Wireless is a leading industry forum and vibrant technology community with a specific interest in the mobile / wireless sector. One of its many Special Interest Groups (SIGs) is the User Experience SIG, which will be meeting in Cambridge on the 23rd May to discuss ‘Context Awareness as the Digital Sixth Sense: The User Experience Challenge’.

IC Creative, the UK’s leading UX recruitment company, is pleased to announce that it will sponsor this event alongside the host, Philips. Part of the remit is to sponsor the drinks reception, so we’ll be at the forefront of people’s minds (unless they have a few too many glasses, in which case we’ll be completely forgotten).

There is an "open presentation" for anyone who wants to bring along examples of great User Experience. The more the merrier, so bring along your best stuff and share it with a group of UX aficionados.

IC Creative has UX jobs throughout Europe for experienced UX professionals.