My UX Eureka Moment
This article was first written in March 2016 and appeared on Medium.
In 2013 I found myself on a team of one. It was just my boss and myself. It was a pivotal moment for us, how to we grow the team and what should it’s focus be. I joined osmosoft in 2012 from it’s parent company, BT, bringing into the team much needed UX skills. However, like most teams, people decide to move on, however unlike most teams I found myself in January 2014 as a team of one.
It was agreed UX would be the foundation on which a new osmosoft would be built. Whilst the recruitment was underway, looking for inspiration, I read the excellent book “The User Experience Team of One” in which Leah Buley first described for me that eureka moment, the moment you get the UX calling. I could identify.
For me UX has been a lifelong love. Whilst being formally trained as a software engineer with a degree in computer science, my career has always taken me down UX roads. In a previous life I was a lead content management architect responsible for design of several enterprise multilingual CMS instances. Whilst being a technical role, it essentially boiled down to information architecture. Finding patterns and putting structure over content, often not in my native language or in words.
For me I realised my calling sitting in the offices of LBi in London in 2005. They had just embarked on a long engagement with BT, aligning their user experience people alongside myself and my colleagues. The session on user journeys was being led by their New York team from Icon Nicolson. It was an awakening. The presentation style was fresh. Concepts made sense. I had no training in this subject matter but I understood it all and loved how it was used to connect our business goals with our customers needs. I realised then this is what I already do. This is what I need to do.
I spent the next few months working closely with LBi and Icon Nicholson in London, Dublin and New York. I questioned, observed and learned as much from them about their craft and experiences.
This was my eureka moment. Whilst I could code I wanted more front end exposure. Whilst I could design and work in Photoshop I wanted more hands on with the solution. User Experience was the perfect fit.
User Experience finds you; sitting in that office in London in 2005 my world changed forever.
“What was your UX Eureka Moment?”
I’ve been working for BT 17 years, starting off answering the phones providing tech support for Ireland OnLine, moving into Labyrinth and then in Global Services to lead on CMS. It was then I realised my true calling — UX. This was my eureka moment. Thanks to colleagues and friends like Jody Collins, Daniel O’Neil, Ann McCarthy Neilsen, Robin Perry Soto , Alex Robertson and so many others around the period of the super site. It gave me my awakening :)