Developer Community And (interview-with-carolyn-chandler-general)

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

[Music] Hi it's Mike with UGtastic again. I'm sitting down with Carolyn Chandler and we're at the WebVisions 2013 conference in the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, Illinois. Carolyn has written a couple books, or she's working on her second book, on UX design for beginners. And thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with me, Carolyn. Can you tell me a little bit about your book and the topics you're speaking on here today at the conference and how you got involved with WebVisions. Sure, yeah. Well I've been teaching beginners, mostly continuing education, user experience design through a few different schools. At first I did that at DePaul University and then since then, the Starter League. Right. And ADMCI. And over the course of doing that, I really started to find the lessons that were resonating with people and the kinds of activities that were making things click for them. You know, those "aha" kind of moments. So you were able to work with quite a few people who were very much at the entry level of technology. Yeah, I think a mix of some people were coming from design but hadn't really understood the user experience design side of it, how to make user insights a big part of their design process. Others might be coming from the development background and wanted to understand how to make sure what they were creating was user-friendly and would be delightful and engaging. So it's a pretty big blend of people coming from different places, I think, overall. But there was a lot of consistency in the kinds of activities that really helped them understand the key concepts. And kind of what got you involved in teaching?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

It's something that a lot of tech people, we focus on our specific skill, but going back out and teaching that, what attracted you to that? Well, I think it started with me being a manager in my own team. So I had a chance to build out the user experience design group at different places where I had worked, most recently Manifest Digital. And in the course of doing that, you're mentoring the people in your group that you're bringing in. They might be coming in from different skill sets, and you want to kind of round it out. And you also have to educate a lot of people in your organization about what UX is, why it's important. So I was creating a lot of those kinds of materials anyway for our sales and marketing side and also for our own teams. And so it became kind of this natural progression of we should use this to create resource, start teaching others how to do this, because we're very passionate about making design thinking a part of business strategy and just overall problem solving in organizations. I think that user experience field, you have a really rich set of people who think visually, can tackle problems and can facilitate other people and explain those things really well. And so those are the skills that we're trying to teach. And I think it was when I noticed that there was a gap between people coming in from a four-year university on applying to the UX. And applying some of the things they had, so we really focused on application. That's what I wanted to get you, was the starter league has a very fast-track, focused model, whereas university tends to be a little bit more breathing room in what the topics cover. You have to study English and some other topic, and whatever your focus of study is. So you have to share your bandwidth between multiple topics, whereas starter league and similar... But very focused on a single track. Has that been something, having taught at the university level versus working with students who are on a fast track, has that been something that's been a challenge or interesting? It is. I mean, it's good in one way, that if there's something very specific you want to learn, you have their 10-week courses for a lot of them. You have a more condensed time frame where you can focus on just that. And then usually there are other classes in both organizations where I teach. There are other classes you can continue to take if you want to get the more full picture of things. But you don't have to if you feel like this is really the gap that you need to address. That said, 10 weeks is a pretty short period of time. So in the class, the UX design class I teach, we try to give you a foundation through the major design process and get you some experience working or interacting with others, like the development class, to give you a feeling of you're not just in this silo. So there's some of the benefits there. But definitely it is a condensed kind of time frame and one 10-week course isn't going to necessarily be the thing that lets you take a whole new role on it. But I think it gives you the context and the confidence to start moving in the direction you want to. Is that something that maybe, where if you're a back-end developer and you just need to get some exposure, is it certainly something you might want to look at for learning more about different topics?

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Is it like, come in, do this hard and fast? Or is it more of a test, learn this topic over 10 weeks? Or is that something that you have to really dedicate 10 weeks?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Well, there's a couple of things that Starter Leagues do. They also have Starter School, which is more of a nine-month, if you want to achieve everything and you want something that brings that to you in a managed curriculum. So for the people who do want that kind of experience, there's an option there that is a little bit more in-depth. For something like the development classes, those are more in-depth. And then there's the development classes. Those are even more immersive, even for regular Starter League classes. You need to be part-time, really, to do the development classes. So it's a full-on commitment to take those classes. It isn't just like, "Well, I'm going to go in the afternoon and I'm going to spend an hour or two studying this. " The UX Design class there is three hours in the night. So there are a lot of people who are doing it on top of their... Oh, okay. So you can work a job and go to start. Yeah, for something like HTML, CSS, and UX Design. Can you tell me a little bit about, or tell the audience a little bit about, what you're talking about here today at WebVision?

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Sure.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

My topic is deep impact versus Armageddon. So at the classes where I teach, we do encourage users, or users, I mean our students who are our users, to come up with their own design ideas and then flush those out. And I just found that there were a lot of similarities in the kinds of problems people wanted to solve. There were a lot of people who were trying to create community. And I just found that there were a lot of similarities in the kinds of problems people wanted to solve. There were a lot of people who were trying to create community. applications and things like that. Because they were thinking about their pain. They were thinking about their pain. Yeah, exactly. It's part of it. Or just, yeah, what they think a lot of people have to deal with. And it just made me think, you know, it's kind of like Hollywood where these movies come out that are the same plot and what makes it different. You know, you have the same plot with Deep Impact and Armageddon. I don't know if you've seen those. I've seen one of them. I'm not going to say which one.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Okay.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Oh, come on. I've seen them both a little too much now. But it was a really, I went through minute by minute basically and looked at them against a scale. Kind of an experience scale. And it was really interesting to see the difference. A lot of people hate Michael Bay.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Oh, really?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

But I have more respect for Michael Bay after doing this. So anyway, I'm talking about that. So you're looking at it strictly from a technical perspective, yeah. From an experience. Because movies are. Yeah, no, it's, yeah, I mean, it's for a specific audience that's not necessarily looking to change their world in their way of thinking. Right, right. It's the McCheeseburger. Yeah, right. So the, I don't know. Anyway, that was, it was basically kind of an entry into design principles, which is one of the things that I teach also. And so I think it was a cool metaphor for that. And we'll be talking about that. It's also, I'll probably share an activity that we're working on for the new book, Adventures in Experience Design, in order to kind of illustrate that. Because I think a lot of teams don't incorporate things like design principles because they're not sure how to work with their teams to create them. And they're more effective when you can do that. So it's kind of a good challenge to try to do that with your teams. And this might be just kind of a way to help people ramp up to that a little bit. One of the things you said about the trying to solve a problem for a lot of people. I just this morning, I read a piece by Seth Godin, where he talked about the, have you seen the video?

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Why? What does the fox say?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

No, I haven't. You have to watch it. And I'll link to it. But the, in the video, it's one of those videos that just. Hit every meme, viral video button. And it just went nuts. It went all over the web. Even if you don't go look for it, eventually you'll see it. And he talks about how audiences or developers and product designers shouldn't try to hit those buttons intentionally. Whether you're going to hit them or you're not. Just try to serve an audience, focus on that audience, and just try to deliver quality to them. If you go viral, then great.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Right.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Yeah, I think it's always something, this is your proven formula for going viral. Well, you don't, people trying to do that all the time, and you don't always know what's going to happen. There are definitely some things that might get you there. Or proven, I know that I'm going to make the next street commuting app. And it's like, oh, there's already Google Maps. Just let it go.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Well, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. It was great talking to you. Thanks. In a beginner's community, how are you reaching out to help teach some of the communities? Is there anything you're working on?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Like, RailsBridge has the workshops.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Is there anything that Starter League is working on for doing a similar kind of self-teaching?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Starter League is really more focused on the classes, although they do focus on hackathons, too, which really brings a lot of beginners together. But the book I'm working on now, Adventures in Experience Design, because it's so activity-focused, there are also a lot of activities that are good for groups. And our hope is, my co-author is Anna Vansley. She comes from a toy and games background, so she brings some of that game, you know, activity out. Yeah, sorry, I misunderstood with the Starter League.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

So it's something that, like, a group can do?

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Yeah, absolutely. So Adventures in Experience Design is written to be very... modular in a way. Ideally, you do go through it in a flow, but there's maybe a page that describes something, and then an activity sheet for you to try individually. And then we'll have these games where you can get together with a few people and try that game together, and that illustrates a certain concept of design. So is it something like a group can get together and say, okay, over six months, we're going to go through the book and work through...

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Okay.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

... get together. We haven't tested this part out yet for how long. People might do it. We're testing out the activities and games, but I could see, like, if you have a book club, usually, maybe you get together once a week...

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Great.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

... and do a section together. It's kind of like the artist's way. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. I'm not familiar with that. It was something influential where, in my life, I think, early, years ago, but people would get together. It's a book that was meant to get you thinking more creatively. And you'd read a chapter and then come together with people and work on these activities. Oh, okay.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Okay.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Okay, so that's what it's modeled after, but for UX design. Somewhat. Yeah, but for UX design, so that you can read something and then do some group activities together and really learn things like how constraints can make you actually think more creatively sometimes.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Right.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Just like Twitter and the 140-character element.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Exactly. Yeah.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

It makes you be concise. Uh-huh.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Yeah.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Or haikus.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Yeah.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

You know, so we use that example in there, too. So, yeah, I would really love for the book... I mean, it's meant to be a playful introduction, and I would love for people to play with it, including user feedback. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Get people together, you know, have the materials and things like that. So, I think this would be really fun ways for groups to learn together.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

Great.

Carolyn Chandler developer community and conference conversations

Well, thanks again for taking the time to stand with me.

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic

I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye.

Developer Community And Conference Conversations: Mike Hall Interviews Carolyn Chandler | WebVisions 2013

Mike Hall

Carolyn Chandler

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