Breadcrumbs
It was in Dec 7th 2012. I got an email from a tech company in Seattle informing me that I got my first job as a UX Designer in bule world. Yaay! I was so thrilled. But then my next reaction was having butterflies in my stomach. “Nanti kalau ga perform gimana?” “Gw designnya masih pake corel draw nih” “Gw ga jago photoshop nih” “Nanti kalau ga dapet visa kerja gmn?” “Inggris gw jelek nih” dan imposter syndrom thought lainnya.
Then what was my first respond? I went to Amazon and ordered these 2 books!
Keduanya lumayan mahal buat kantong gw saat itu. Tp gw pikir “Ah nanti gw bayar sama gaji dollar pertama gw” #cina Dan sejak itu gw lmyan sering baca buku buat compensate my lack of visual design intuition.
In that first job, suatu waktu, product directornya keep having a go on me. Lumayan stress- bayangin kalau bos kita keep having a go on you. But I remember di satu waktu I introduced this concept of “breadcrumbs” ke doi untuk salah satu project redesign kita. And somehow I got his trust after that. He stopped having a go on me. I know that the concept of breadcrumb is an old concept now, but at that time, Steve Krug just popularised it (the era before Medium exists!). Steve Krug did save me
So what’s the point of this article? Cuman satu: I think we designers or researchers need to read books religiously!
As a UX designer, researcher, writer, and engineer: we are a crafter, a builder. Ga ada cara lain buat kembangin craftsmanship kita tanpa kombinasi: belajar/baca, apply di kerjaan/case study, dan refleksi. Those design events and workshops wouldn’t help you that much. Karena biasanya lebih banyak smoke and mirror-nya.
Book is a good space for reflection juga karena there is no distraction there. Only plain paper and boring text. It will help us to focus and train our limited attention span (yang makin dirusak sama bombardir insta stories and twitter feed). It will train our reflective thinking because we need to talk to ourselves, make a meaning of the boring text we read. So I hope that we can start a reading culture in our design community. Siapa tau kalian juga nemuin momen2 seperti ketika Steve Kreug saved my life.
Cheers;
Yoel
(Waktu nulis coretan ini lagi baca “The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership”)
