Lessons Learned — Culminating post
The second semester of Zoom Class is about to end. In this session, I have become more proficient in using various online tools for remote learning and meeting. And feel more comfortable in remote communication. I think what I learned the most in this session is Professional Practices. Before ProPrac, I actually didn’t know anything about this class. I thought this class was just for improving our portfolio. But when I entered ProPrac, I discovered that the name “Professional Practices” echoed the content of this lesson. That is “How to be a professional designer”.
In the early days of ProPrac, we built our own OKRs. This is my first contact with OKR. Because of my confusion about OKR, I read some articles about that. So I learned that OKR is not only for the goal of this class but also for my entire career planning. Whether as a student or a future worker, OKR can help me make better plans. It’s like I am formulating many small deadlines for myself and completing them in an orderly manner. The most important thing is that OKR can better motivate me to make progress and accomplish my long-term career goal — to become a design leader!
There are a total of four OKR goals for me, they are:
1. O: Learn from challenging feedback
2. O: Share my projects in public
3. O: Grow my professional Twitter network
4. O: Mentor a designer
The first O is the one I have completed the most. I contacted 3 professional designers for a meeting. They come from Instagram, Amazon, and PayPal. They provided a lot of very useful feedback for my case study. And I discussed career planning with professional designers. In order to get more comments, to reduce the wrong things in my case study. I had a meeting with Kate and Gram. I also had meetings with other juniors who were not in this class. I got more feedback about the interface and process from here.
In the second O, I completed KR: clarify 2–3 case studies and get feedback. I asked my HR friend to provide a presentation mock-up to help me conduct a case study. We met three times. At each meeting, I will introduce 2 to 3 case studies. They gave me different feedback on the perspective of HR during the interview. At the same time, I have the opportunity to present my case study in front of others. At the same time, I publicly shared the design of the behavior change on Dribbble. I like the Dribbble platform because I think it is a good place to learn user interface design. I think that Dribbble and Medium will help me expand my design vision and knowledge.
I didn’t finish much in the third and fourth O. I followed 117 designers on Twitter. I am not blindly following, but after checking the Twitter posts and personal web pages of these designers, I decide whether to follow. I like to look at the posts or replies of the designers I follow during a break. I have to admit that a lot of content is interesting and useful. I will continue to use the Twitter account and post my own posts, and attract the attention of colleagues.
I had three meetings with my mentee Xialin. In the first two meetings, we mainly discussed her previous project and whether she wanted to put it on her sophomore Instagram. At the third meeting, I joined her group project and provided feedback to her group. I also learned a lot from them when giving feedback.
In the process of carrying out all OKRs, I have gained a lot. I believe that after the end of ProPrac, I will continue to use OKR for career planning. Because I don’t just want to be a professional designer, but I can contribute to the team, provide users with more convenient designs and more meaningful products, and become a successful design leader!
