[IxDA Discuss] Disillusioned Junior Designers

[Oleh Kovalchuke]

Successful interaction designers are organization hubs, they *have* to
interact with variety of people across organization. Therefore an important
and unavoidable part of interaction design is politics. I don't think
political skills are taught in design schools. To make matters worse, not
every personality type is adept in social interactions.

"First Break All the Rules" (good book) describes environment in well-run
companies. It touches on, but doesn't cover in detail internal politics,
especially those in not-so-well run companies, where managers do not read
insightful managerial books.

-------------------------------

Let's see... Useful personality traits for interaction designers: analysis,
creativity, social skills (communication, assertiveness, amiability) +
technical knowledge. Taken singly these personal traits can be found
relatively easy. All together, in one body - not very common combination.
Moreover this is the same combination often found among entrepreneurs - a
drain on the pool of employable designers.

-- 
Oleh Kovalchuke
Interaction Design is Design of Time
http://www.tangospring.com/IxDtopicWhatIsInteractionDesign.htm




On 8/25/06, Josh Seiden <joshseiden at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
> Jon,
>
> This is a great post (despite the fact that it's based
> on frustration). Thank you for sharing it with the
> group.
>
> My first thought on reading this was, "send her my
> way!" Seriously, the problem here cuts both ways.
> Interaction designers have trouble finding each other,
> whether they are looking for work or looking to hire.
> In my role as a hiring manager, I can't tell you how
> many resumes I see from Art Directors, Creative
> Directors, HTML Gurus, CSS Mavens, Javascript Lords,
> Flash Goddesses, etc. (No offense! I love you all.
> Really. I just wish I saw more resumes from people
> that demonstrated an understanding of IxD.)
>
> I do believe that one of the goals of IxDA is to
> change this situation--by building ways for those of
> us in the community can find one another, and by
> evangelizing to those outside of the community.
>
> Regarding your student, I encourage her to find (or
> form) a nearby IxDA F2F. She'll find other like-minded
> souls, and perhaps make connections that will lead
> directly to another job. (Which it's clear to me that
> she needs--immediately.)
>
> Regarding educators... I hope that our schools are
> teaching both technical and career skills. I have no
> idea what your curriculum looks like, so I'll just
> share with you some thoughts about the career issues I
> see as important for designers.
>
> First, I think we all need to be able to discern good
> job environments from bad ones. This is difficult to
> do without experience and without a model of what
> makes a good work environment.
>
> For my money, there are two books on the subject that
> should be required reading: "Peopleware" (Demarco and
> Lister) and "First Break All the Rules" (Buckingham
> and Coffman.) Although both are ostensibly aimed at
> managers, both do an excellent job of describing the
> differences between good and bad workplaces. They have
> helped me create a model of what I'm looking for in
> the workplace and of the type of workplaces I seek to
> create.
>
> For example, "First Break..." offers a list of
> questions that predict great working environments.
> They include:
>
> 1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
> 2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do
> my work right?
> 3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do
> best every day?
> 4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition
> or praise for doing good work.
> 5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to
> care about me as a person?
> 6. Is there someone at work who encourages my
> development?
>
> (There are 6 more---buy the book!)
>
> Second, I think it's VERY important for young
> designers to avoid the evangelism business if they
> can. It's hard enough to learn one's craft in a good
> context. Having to be an evangelist implies that one
> is not working in a the right context. (This is not to
> say that we shouldn't be good evangelists, just that
> we shouldn't expect that to be a healthy part of an
> entry-level role.) When I see young designers working
> in a vacuum--that is, when they have to be their own
> support system--I always want to encourage them to
> move on.
>
> JS
>
> --- "Jon Kolko [SCAD]" <jkolko at scad.edu> wrote:
>
> > I want to share with the list an email I just
> > received from one of my
> > students.
> ...
>
> > I'm curious how other educators handle this.
> ...
>
> > I'm also interested to find out how the rest of this
> > list feels ...
>
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