Unwrapping Self-Assurance

What I'm Listening To

'Racing through my brain… '

Story From The Week

I spent the week in Denver for our year-end meetings, and I was tasked with giving a presentation alongside a few other team members. While I had the freedom to choose my topic, I was encouraged to facilitate a workshop or group discussion within my session.

Since I just finished reading Lean UX, I decided to provide a recap of the book's principles and then guide a brainstorming session for my team focusing on team organization, culture, and process.

I covered key Lean UX principles, including:

• Small, dedicated, and cross-functional teams
• Permission to fail
• Continuous discovery
• Outcome over outputs
• Externalize your work

After explaining the meaning and purpose of these principles, I transitioned into a discussion where I prompted my team with questions like, “Share an example of a successful cross-functional collaboration experience. What made it effective?” and “What is working well with our current meeting structure, and what improvements could be made to enhance efficiency and productivity?”

It was my first time presenting at our annual in-person meetings, and I felt a bit insecure afterward, dedicating the next half-hour dissecting everything in my head. Despite not deeming it a perfect or particularly insightful presentation though, I'm proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone.

Reflecting on this past year, I'd assert that I've cultivated a greater indifference to others' opinions of me. Previously, I could spend days grappling with intrusive thoughts; now, it's down to a mere 30 minutes.

I've taken significant strides to brush aside these thoughts, affirm my intrinsic worth independent of productivity, and simply move on! This newfound freedom, with more to explore, stands as the best gift I could've asked for this season.

What Did I Learn?

Every two weeks, I meet with my friend and mentor to chat about all things work and non-work related.

Last week, she shared a story about a technical issue at her job (she happens to be a software engineer as well). She casually mentioned that a map in Javascript is evidently more performant than an array when navigating through extensive and intricate datasets. Intrigued, I stopped her, asking, “Hold on, what was that about the map and the arrays?”

She went on to elaborate that maps are more efficient in searching or looking up specific data segments because they utilize keys and values. While traversing an array of objects, say in a find or filter method, you end up inspecting each object to snag the result you're after. However, when using a map, the key provides a direct route to the desired value, resulting in faster and more efficient data retrieval.

I honestly can't fathom how I've spent almost four years in this field without knowing that, but I'm grateful to be aware of it now!

What Made Me Confused...

While in Denver, I not only attended meetings with my team but also visited a clinic and surgery center with a fellow developer and an account manager to witness our products in action. Waiting in the lobby, I bombarded our account manager with basic questions like, “Which product do the providers at this clinic use?” and “Why do they need a better workflow?”

It's amusing how you can work at a place for years without truly grasping some foundational aspects of how and why users utilize your products.

I had envisioned myself asking our users the same questions, delving into what they like and dislike about certain features. However, as we entered Pod B of the clinic office, I found myself mute, just listening to our account manager engage with the providers. They listed off numerous issues we needed to address, and I just stood there, taking notes, before shuffling out after about 10 minutes.

While we excel at getting regular customer feedback, I wonder how we can incorporate more user-centered questions suggested in the design blogs I read. How do we conduct user testing and research when our users are busy saving lives? Is the feedback from our account managers all we need at this point in time?

I honestly don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out what my role is at this company concerning UX design.

An Interesting Link From The Internet

A guide to UX research.