What did I learn in the last 9 years in design and research
On how to gain expertise in a new field
I am celebrating September on completion of 9 years in IT. I must say it has been a roller coaster ride for me. With this article, I recollect those memories. I believe it will help someone starting their journey in Design and Research.
It was as if yesterday I was placed in an IT company from campus. After I finished my Computer Engineering, I had a brief period to spend quality time with my family at my home. Just within a few months, I joined for training at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. And after three months of training, I was transferred to Thane in Maharashtra for my project.
My company gave an opportunity to work in the Research department, and I started my IT career as a mobile apps developer. We were developing a social collaboration platform. In a couple of months, my manager offered me work in HCI and Interaction Design research, with a condition that I need to work all round the clock. And I wholeheartedly accepted it.
Obviously, it wasn’t coming to me without an assessment. Next few months I read several research papers and found gaps in the state-of-the-art research. I started following researchers, and that’s how I could see the research they are doing in the field. I started mimicking their style. I accept that my English writing wasn’t great. It was still primitive and wasn’t research paper worthy.
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” ~ Stephen King
But, my mentor was supportive and he always showed me the right direction. I read so many books, papers, and since then I never stopped reading books. I have read more than 100 books and read 100s of research papers. I am still not expert in writing, but I have developed a keen interest in reading and critiquing the work.
“Never, never, never, never give up.” ~ Winston Churchill
When I submitted my first paper to a conference, I received very bad review comments. But, my manager suggested to take them positively and asked to improve. We kept pushing and then I started getting acceptance. We would have several revisions until it was ready for submission. Somehow reading papers and books helped using the vocabulary from the field. I also developed resilience to accept failures and bad feedback.
I also follow conferences aligned with my field of study. It helped me a lot. We were always result-oriented. We knew which are top tier conferences, and we would start planning for those very well in advance.
During this process, I realised writing is required to bring clarity of thought for yourself and for others too. And when you bring clarity in your thought, writing reflects the clarity too.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” — Henry Ford
Whenever my manager would ask if I can do X, even if I say I can do it or I can’t. I didn’t have a choice, either I had to learn it or I had to ace it. Since then I always accepted every challenge and tried to work on that. It is still helping in my work in design.
We used to set challenging goals for every year and we used to divide the goals in quarters and then months to fortnights. My mentor used to evaluate every fortnight. I didn’t like it much to be honest, but when I look back I find it was useful to track progress.
We were following agile methodology, and I didn’t know the reason why we have stand-ups and other meetings. Now, I think I didn’t have a broader view of things happening outside. Most of the teams in the IT and software Industry follows agile. Now I think we should follow our managers, and also try to hear from others where the industry is going to align ourselves well in advance.
We had targets to file patents in technology. It is a tough ask for anyone, especially for fresh graduates. But, we had a methodology and it was successful, I think. We used to collaborate on ideation, drafting, reviewing, and so on. We used to contribute to the ideas to enrich them so we would have better patent claims. I learnt patience, creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills through these patenting activities. These have been helpful for me in UX when I am solving business problems and providing solutions.
After working for several years, I decided to shift to Pune city and thought to switch to User Experience(UX). It was a natural transition for me. Earlier, I used to talk to farmers and visually impaired mobile users. Now, I talk to business owners, product owners, application users, and the IT team. Most of the activities are same in both the roles, except I don’t have to file patents and write research papers.
The skills I learnt in Research are helping me in Design. And I have been finishing my targets. Though every day is a challenge, I am well prepared for it. Design is exhaustive, but not like Research, where I was working day and night.
In my UX role, I found a UX architect as my mentor. I talk to him if I face any challenge. He has been very helpful to me, and I am thankful for that. I have worked for different teams and each project has a new challenge. But, it also gives me the opportunity to work closely with users and their business. I have made close friends at work. When you have good colleagues at work, challenges do not stop you.
I know I have missed many things in this story and there is so much to talk about. Everyone I interacted with me has helped me some way or the other and I can’t thank them more. For now, this is all I have to say.
The skills that I acquired during the initial days — reading, writing, observations, empathy, always learning, resilience, collaboration, following set processes — have stuck to me till date. Now, I try to help others from my learning, and my experience.
I hope this blog has helped you in any way. I thank you for reading! Please do share your views in comments below.
Disclaimer: The thoughts, opinions, criticism, and viewpoints expressed here are my own. They do not necessarily represent the views of my employer.
