Business Card Swag
In making the career switch into the UX field, I could not pass out my old business cards. Archaeology, the field I was in previously, is definitely a conversation starter (turns out everyone wanted to be an archaeologist when they were younger), but it was not the conversation I wanted to be having. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about the field of Archaeology, prehistoric Florida, really cool dive-able shipwrecks along our coast, and even the virtues and weaknesses of Indiana Jones. But my goal right now is to jump into the south Florida tech industry, and to communicate and collaborate with people doing innovative work. I started thinking about a card that represented me well. Side note: yes the business card is still exchanged despite a number of alternatives.
I am a User Experience researcher and designer. There are some misconceptions about the role of a UX designer. Namely, that the job is (solely) to make pretty things.
To illustrate my point, I’m in an immersive 8–week long bootcamp at Ironhack right now. The Web Development class takes place concurrently. The web dev students were working on creating back-end databases for websites. Leading up to their presentations, I kept getting approached to look at their work: “you’re a designer, how do I make this look better?”
Did I school them on the role of a UX Designer? Of course not.
- I’m not an awful person.
- They’re all amazing and talented and work really hard and you should hire them.
- I do actually like making things more visually appealing.
So, I offered some aesthetic suggestions, but then tested the site functionality. I asked why they put call-to-action buttons where people couldn’t see them. I questioned whether their interface visually communicated the path they wanted their users to take. I started a conversation about the user experience, because that is what I love to do.
I had a similar back and forth when I was deciding on business cards. I am looking for a job that allows me to research human behavior and interaction. I love ideating, finding pain points, rapid prototyping, solving problems, testing for usability. I care about making things useful. I want to be covered in sticky notes and white board markers at the end of the day. Will that be demonstrated with a pretty brand, a nice logo…one that makes my initials look real fancy? No, at least not fully.
I decided to focus on two things.
- Starting a conversation.
- Thinking about the user…in this case the person who I’d be giving my business card to.
I was deliberate in how little information I was sharing. Just the essentials: my name and contact information on the front. On the back is a tool for them to remember where they met me. It calls to mind a user survey and generates user feedback. I have just started passing this card out, so I do not have a breakdown of each reaction. Full disclosure: one guy did tell me he couldn’t buy me a glass of wine because he had a wife, which was slightly awkward. It has me considering that the option comes off as more risqué than cheeky. Perhaps some further testing on a multiple choice or short answer field over the check boxes is needed.
Most importantly, it has made everyone laugh, which is a the kind of first impression I like! I would love to hear what you think in the comments!
