First, I discovered that I can actually study something properly. I remember my academic career as process of scrabbling through tests and exams despite having dreamed my way through classes and prep, until coming a cropper at uni. For this course I sat down and read the scheduled materials and scribbled away in the margins and attended the tutorials and got good marks on the assignments. That was very satisfying (to use a User Experience goal).
Second, I can do something about my wandering attention. I've taken to using the Pomodoro Technique, and I feel I've come a long way, even if I still have a long way to go.
Thirdly, I've developed a good way of organising my notes for something like this - I used the free mindmap option at http://www.mindmeister.com. The good news is that this is a very effective way of reviewing material which forces you to resolve all those niggling little questions (what's the difference between ubiquitous computing and wearable computing?) that you can so easily skate over when merely reading. The bad news is that I didn't take up mindmapping until the revision phase, and didn't complete this activity in time to move on to the next, which would have been to extract hand-written revision cards from the mindmaps. So, next time, mindmap as I go through materials for the first time!
So, what next? I hope to find ways of using what I've learnt about Interaction Design at work, which was supportive about the course. No luck so far, but having made this investment I also hope to find a mentor through, perhaps, the IXDA, or, more informally, through the UX book club. I'm also considering whether I can do some IxD on the side, getting involved with friends or an open source project.
I'd like to build on what I've learned. Now I've finished the course I'd like to use some of the time this releases to do some Google analytics, and also to do some Arduino hacking - very different directions, I know!
Further down the line, I'm considering taking the Open University's Design Diploma. It seems pretty practical, and I suspect that the various digital design labels (Interaction Design, User Experience and Information Architecture) are going to end up merging with an updated version of Product Design, many of whose wheels we are probably re-inventing. And, above all, I like designing things. This is probably what took me into software development, and as the process became more and more productionised, and involved less and less design, it may be what took me out of it too.
Enough reflection, now for action...
2 comments:
Congratulations on finishing the course. Now you just have to wait for the result - something that seemed to take far too long when I was waiting for mine!
I'm always wary about using third party online tools to store notes and so on in case they go under or have a catastrophic data loss. I'm thinking about hosting a wiki on my webspace, keeping it hidden from everyone, and using that to catalogue everything. That way the hosts will have a back up, I can take more backups and so on.
Thanks for mentioning the Pomodoro Technique - I'm on the lookout for a time management technique.
You should check out the IAI mentor list. It's $40 a year to join and that will give you access to the list. There's a good few experienced members of the UX Book Club London on there to choose from.
Thank you Mr Storr! Yes, I'll be well pleased when December 18th (or whenever) finally arrives and I get my result.
One thing I liked about MindMeister is the export options - apart from their own format, they do PDF, RTF, MM (MindMapper, an open source XML format) and even good ol' indented text. Copy those into my lovely free DropBox account and they're backed up onto the cloud and my hard disk. Or will be, once I've (ahem) got round to it.
Yes, might well be time to check out the IAI option. I wanted to make sure I was a credible mentee first, and I guess this is as close as I'll get!
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