Robert Hoekman Jr is the author of Experience Required: How to Become a UX Leader Regardless of Your Role (New Riders), and several other renowned books on user experience. He has worked with Akamai, Intuit, Adobe, MySpace, Dodge, Craftsman, American Heart Association, Seth Godin, WordPress.com, and many others, and has spoken at industry events worldwide. To inquire about consulting opportunities with Robert, contact Tangible UX.
Every job comes with its own set of “things I wish I’d known before I started working here.” What kinds of questions can you ask during an interview to spot red flags before the company stabs the whole flagpole into your sacred UX heart? For this piece, veteran UX leader and author Robert Hoekman Jr looks back on 20 years in the profession to craft a counter-punch: a set of “things we should ask every company before going to work for them.”
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Leadership is not a dirty word. It’s not about ditching collaboration. It’s not about commandeering the room and shelling out mandates. Leadership is a natural, normal human craving. For a group to succeed — for design to succeed — someone has to establish a vision, a goal, a destination, and help the team get there — inspire the team to get there. In this article, Robert Hoekman Jr will look at how to run a kickoff and how to get yourself into a positive position in which you can steer the ship, rather than crash it into the dock.
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There is no such thing as a project that goes off well without some level of planning. You’re just not the one doing it. You can keep complaining, or you can change it. You’re a designer, which means you’re capable of imagining a better version of the world than the one you’re living in. And yet there you are, stuck at the back. In this article, Robert Hoekman Jr. will share some of the reasons it happens. And how to stop being an afterthought.
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No matter your status or situation, whether director or loner, you are in a position to lead, to raise the bar in a place where it consistently sits lower than you think it should. As an in-house UX professional, Robert Hoekman Jr has formed and run UX teams for multiple companies. As a consultant, he has worked with dozens of clients on hundreds of projects. In this article, he will share what he learned about how to get what you want. Most of these things can be applied whether you’re inside of a company or consulting for one, whether you’re a fledgling designer or a veteran leader.
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Following is a list of 13 beliefs on the value of user experience strategy, design, and designers, one for every year that Robert has been in the web industry at the time he wrote it in 2012.
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If you’re reading this, odds are that you’re a Jane. You are a tech-savvy, confident user who jams those buttons down like there’s no tomorrow, fearlessly marching your way through whatever task stands in your way.
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In this article, Robert explains why it’s not about deliverables but instead about results. Understanding why this works the way it does depends on understanding the real role of the designer and the deliverables they create.
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