The first question we asked when we started designing a new type of design school program was: What kind of designer?
All designers work with the basic underlying notions of where design comes from: Every designer starts with an intent — what they want to accomplish. They create their designs to change and enhance the user’s behaviors. They create great designs when they delight the users, or they create poor designs when they frustrate those users.
Jared sat down with Mike and Jessie of Let’s Make Mistakes from Mule Radio Syndicate to discuss how to make better designers and the meaning of UX.
Culturally, the celebration of the lone genius myth prevails. The lone genius is the person who works as a single individual to achieve greatness. It sort of makes sense that traditional educational organizations often focus on individual learning—on an “I” intentionality—learning as a solo pursuit. The problem: The lone genius myth, is just that, a myth.
At the outset, a database with thousands of antiques doesn’t sound that interesting. It’s hard to imagine the design challenges that might arise. Especially when you compare a database filled with antiques to, say, Google Glass or some other Silicon Valley invention
Hiring companies tell us they want to hire designers who have worked through the entire lifecycle of a project. They want to hire folks who have experience developing, designing, building, and deploying projects.
Hiring managers have told us that to be “industry ready” UX designers must have a holistic blend of hard and soft skills. Many educators understand this and want their students to succeed beyond the classroom.
This is extreme. Of course, it’s IBM and they don’t do anything halfway. But to set up an entire design school for new hires seems extreme to us.
