 Hello, this is Kim Doherty, career consultant for the San Jose State University High School. I'd like to welcome you to today's career podcast where we're going to be interviewing Chris Coughlin, whose title is Director of User Experience for Atten Design Group, and that's A-T-E-N. Chris describes herself as a UX architect devoted to balancing user needs and business goals. Just a side note here, when we talk about user experience, we usually use the shorthand of UX just because it makes it go faster. So I'm guessing that as Chris talks with us today, she's going to be using that phrase and I wanted you to be aware of what it was. So I've been fortunate to know Chris for many, many years and during that time have learned enough about the user experience discipline from her to be absolutely fascinated by it, but I'm always ready to learn lots more from Chris and one of the reasons I am is because this is a discipline that is constantly evolving and being used in different ways because the basic concept is so applicable to many, many different types of situations. So I'm happy to have Chris join us so you can also get a sense of what user experience involves and how it's used in all sorts of organizations to improve user interactions. With that, I'd like to say welcome, Chris. Thanks. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you, Chris. So I get to pummel Chris with a whole bunch of questions now. So the first one is I know the term user experience or UX means a lot of different things based on how the specific organization interprets those concepts behind user experience. So could you tell us a bit about how your group uses UX and how it is using it to help meet the strategic goals of the company? Sure, absolutely. So it might be helpful if I start a little bit with kind of the way how I see UX for the web specifically. And really I see that as hauling into two different buckets. You have people that are working for a company where they are doing all of that user experience work in-house. That means that they are doing that UX work for a given product or service that that particular company is actually producing. However, in our case, as an agency, we are producing artifacts for this user experience that go for all of our clients, all the people that we are working with. So we're thinking about UX from the perspective of our clients, which are nonprofits and higher ed institutions, not so much for us ourselves. Although we do a little bit of work for ourselves as well in the UX realm. With that in mind, we are thinking about creating UX experiences or good user experiences for websites or web applications. This means that you are thinking about a product that you have on the web and not something physical like a device that you're holding or a watch that you have on or even any kind of other wearables. We're thinking about what you would see on a screen in your browser, on a computer, on your phone, or a tablet. And when we think about that from the perspective of really balancing that those needs between those users as well as those organizations. Again, we work primarily with nonprofits and higher ed institutions. We're thinking about how that experience really meets those end users while keeping those business goals of that organization in mind. Obviously, nonprofits and higher ed institutions are very focused on impact of some kind. And so they are trying to tell their story to those users and get those users involved in their own mission as an organization. And so that experience is what does that actually look like for those different users? How can they have a conversation together on a website or in a web application when they're not even actually physically talking to each other? So Chris, would an example of that be I'm a potential student for say an MLIS program, I go to the school's website and I'm interested in what programs they offer through their MLIS degree. And what you're doing is you're the person or the user experience architect who helps structure what that interaction looks like. From my end as I'm going in as a potential student searching for information. Absolutely, you're completely correct on that. Cool, okay, and do you guys do any work for libraries in terms of higher ed? Would you be looking at academic libraries or is it pretty much the institutional sort of goals as a whole? Like University of Denver or University of Iowa? Yeah, that's a great question. So we've worked with a variety of different departments including a few libraries as well as institutions and individual schools within a university setting. So for example, we worked with the Case Western Reserve University's College of Engineering, but we've also worked with Stanford's OIA, which is the Office of International Affairs to build a product for them. Cool, okay, so I think we sort of get the concept of how UX works. Can you tell us a little bit about your specific responsibilities and maybe what a, and I know this is, you're probably laughing when you hear this, what a typical day or week or month looks like for you, because I'm guessing you actually don't have typical anything. But if you could sort of give us a sense of what your activities look like. Yeah, I think that's a really great question. And it's always funny to me to hear somebody say, what is a typical day or week or month look like for you? Because in my thinking, I always talk about it from the life cycle of a product. So starting at the very beginning of the project, I work really closely with our director of accounts who does a lot of business development work or cells, as many people call it. And we work really closely to define out what it is that we're going to be actually building. So we define a scope of work, essentially. And once we actually start an engagement with one of those clients, then it goes directly to my team, or me specifically, to do a lot of discovery work with the client. So that discovery work is really a time for us to explore all the opportunities for this given project or product that we're going to be building with this organization. So we do a lot of research through the form of surveys, interviews, workshops, discussions, etc., to really understand who this organization is, to understand who their users are, and to understand what we're trying, what kind of product we're trying to build. And Chris, when you're doing that, are you doing that on site with the client or is most of that online? Yeah, that's a great question too. Most of that up front in the very beginning is through a video call using Zoom, like we are today, and that really is there too, so that we can actually physically see each other as we're having these conversations, but we're not in the same room. Many of our clients actually are on the East Coast or West Coast, or even some in the Midwest. So it would be a lot of travel to actually go there and spend all the time with them, because this process usually takes between four and eight weeks. The discovery process or the complete project? The discovery process. Okay. Yeah, so we are trying to figure out who that organization is, who their users are, what their preferences are, and what kinds of content we need in order to tie those two together to really have that conversation. Okay, and then are you involved in creating the content? Yes, so after we do that research or that discovery work, then we move into what we call our information architecture phase, and that phase of the project is really a time for us to take all of that discovery work, all that research that we have done, and start to form a vision for what this product or what this project is going to look like. So we're really starting to create an actual structure for that website or web application. And we do that through creating a site map, which is simply a hierarchical list of all the different pages that you would see on that website or in that web application. And we do that through wireframing, which is essentially the blueprints, like if you were going to build a house, it would be the blueprints of that. So each page of the site. And we'll work directly with our designers, our visual designers, and our developers to ensure that we are creating a vision that is going to be actually usable for one, accessible as well as performant, and just works functionally. And then at what point do you start sort of having your client interact with drafts? Or how do you test out, okay, we think we've got a good draft sort of beta here of what this should look like. How do you test that? Yeah, so there are a lot of different ways that we will test that. And we call that user testing or usability testing in the user experience world. And that can vary a lot based off of what it is that we're trying to test exactly. So we might test a site map to ensure that an individual can actually drill down, especially if our site map ends up having like three or four different layers to it. We test to make sure that a user can get to that individual piece of information. For example, a lot of libraries have events. And if we want to make sure that our user can find an event for their new baby, she's looking for a story time for a one or two year old. And we want to make sure that they can find that information by drilling down into the site. So their first step might be to go to the main navigation of a website, of the library's website too, and click on events. And then they might say, okay, now I want to filter these events to a certain age group. And so we create tests to make sure that they can go, they can drill down into that information. Okay. And then do you have, when you said you create tests to do that, are you having those tests be done by your internal team, or are you actually bringing in people who might be users of that type of product and testing it with them? Yeah, as much as possible, we bring in true end users. So when we're working with a library, for example, we partner with our core project team, which comes from that organization. For example, when we were partnering with the Nashville Public Library, we did a site map test, like I just explained, with some of their end users. They found, I believe it was 10 to 15 different users, patrons that come into their library regularly. They found those 10 to 15 people and had them take this usability test using online software called Treejack, which is part of the optimal workshop suite of products. Huh. That is so cool. That just sounds like fun. And I, having done a number of websites myself, and I will say this to our listeners, not using Chris's expertise, unfortunately. It would have been much wiser had we done so. It's really interesting to realize how differently a user navigates a website than perhaps someone putting together that website would assume they would approach it. So that sounds like a really smart way to test out your assumptions. Yeah, it is. I also find it really interesting when you can see the difference between those end users and the staff at the organization. We did a card sorting exercise, and a card sorting exercise is where we hand out a bunch of different cards with terms on them and have users group them in however they feel like actually works together, categorizing them. And we did a card sorting exercise with the Richland Library out of South Carolina. We did one test with their staff members and one test with a group of customers that they have. And the results were very different. And the staff even came to us afterwards and said, I can't believe that that is how those customers would actually group these cards together. What were they thinking? That's fascinating and makes a lot of sense because as people who come out of sort of the information organization work world, we tend to look at information differently. And normal people who don't have that background would. What a cool experience to go through. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So then you're at this point in your project. What happens next? Yeah. So after we have done all that discovery work and we have created that structure, done that information architecture phase, and we've done some testing, we hand over our wireframes or our structure for our site to our visual designers on the team who add in all the aesthetics as well as really truly make it usable. So in the case where I'm like trying to figure out how to structure going back to that events example, how to structure those, they will actually use their incredible graphic design skills, which I wish I had, to show the hierarchy between different types of content. For example, the title of an event might have a heavier weight to it than a tag like the audience tag. Again, using that age group as an example. And they'll make that in a way that is really usable and scannable by the user, by that customer. And they'll also put a lot of work into those, what we call UI elements or user interface elements. And those elements could be like the form fields on a form that you were filling out or a dropdown or even check boxes versus radio buttons. So they put a lot of effort into really making sure that the product is 100% usable. And then we hand that off essentially to our developers. We really do stay like the entire project team is involved the entire project. I will say that it sounds like we're handing these off but really the questions are coming up constantly as we are going through this entire process. And in any given say month, how many clients projects are you working on? That's a really good question. So at Atten we kind of have two different sides of our company. We have a full project team which is really the process that I have been going through with you on this call so far. And we also have what we call our consulting team. And consulting team is really there to look at an existing project or product, a website, web application, and see how we can improve that. So they might be sending me a couple of tasks each week for different clients that they are working on. So I work on like usually one to three from that side. And then I'm working as well on two full projects at least at a time. Wow. Yeah. Because I'm on our leadership team, I only work on like two full projects at a time. But when my employee, my director report, she is actually working usually on three or four full projects at one time. Oh my gosh. Okay. And so when you think about all of those different things that you do, and I know that your job has sort of evolved over the years, but I'm guessing the answer to this is probably pretty similar across all of your different areas. What jobs for what you do, what skills would you say are most in demand in the kind of role that you have as a UX architect? Yeah. I definitely think the ability to do that research and really understand how to do data synthesis is huge. So being able to go out and interview somebody, being able to know how to write a survey that doesn't lead the user in a particular direction or really allows them to give their preference is key. That's really so. The ability to gather information with that sort of frame working it or biasing it in the manner that you ask for that information. Yep. Okay. And then taking that data and being able to conceptualize those ideas to the client. Wow. Okay. So remind me, and I'm asking Chris this question because she was in the same grad school program that I teach in. Chris, did you take a UX class while you were in grad school? So I did not take one that was specifically called UX or user experience. But there were two courses that I took that I think had a huge impact and do fall in to the UX realm. And the first one was a class called Content Management. And that was really a way for us to understand how to use an online content management system and how to essentially put in content into that system so that it would be displayed out on a website. And we actually had to build a website using Drupal during that course. And then the other course that I took is the Information Architecture course. And that was really, it really expanded beyond just information architecture being that structure to a lot of that user research that I was talking about earlier. Okay. So if someone wanted to look at this field, these are two areas that would be useful for them to dig into more deeply or take courses in. Yes, absolutely. Okay, very cool. So since you went through that and you graduated and you started your career, what other skills do you feel like you had to learn in order to be able to, I would say, flourish in your area? Could have grow into what it needed you to be able to do? Yeah, I think there were four big ones that come to mind. First is absolutely that interviewing skill. Okay. I really never got that in grad school. And I didn't really know how to quite approach a person in a way that was going to give me the information that I needed. I will actually say that the, what was the name of that? Course. The one where you did the reference interview? Yes, that one. As you say, it was taught by Scott Brown at WU and I can't even think of the actual name, but maybe it was just reference. And I think every school has a different name for what it is, but it's basically, we're talking about the course where you talk about how to do a good reference interview. Absolutely. That one I would say gave me the most during grad school, but then I ended up taking a workshop on interviewing through a local agency here in Denver, Colorado, where I really truly learned much more skills on that interview process and diving in a little bit deeper, trying to get those people to tell me a little bit more each time. Interesting. And I'm guessing a large part of that is attentive listening. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And just trying to like keep saying, this is what I'm hearing. Tell me more. That's such a good phrase. I have to remember that. All right. So the first one was your interviewing skill. What was the next one? The next one I would say is presenting. So we have to sell our work to our clients every time. And when we do that, we need to back that up by that research that we did. And really honestly, this just was a learned skill by having to do it over and over again. I don't really have any good tips necessarily, but absolutely practicing it over and over, trying to understand what it is you're saying, getting feedback from others is definitely helpful. Okay. The third one would be leading workshops. So this, I think, is really key in, well, at least for the company that I'm working with, because we go, a lot of times we will go on site to lead workshops or we'll do them remotely again over video chat. And being able to kind of, again, draw that information out of these people is really key for that. So understanding the whys behind everything. So when I talk about leading a card sorting workshop, it's not just about giving them the instruction, but being able to ask them these follow-up questions of why did you organize it that way? Where were you stuck? Okay. And then the fourth skill that I've had to learn from my particular position is really management skills. And that falls mostly under the fact that I am serving on our leadership team and I do lead our digital strategy team. So helping my direct report know how to do her work and being able to lead that from the perspective of leading our UX practice as well as also knowing how to best support her. That's a challenge. Someone was asking me about project management, which clearly you are involved in, but I have always found that the project management piece of it was always easier than the people management piece of it, but and to your point, you kind of learn it as you go. But if you care about the people you're managing, you sort of start learning how to do it well. So that makes complete sense to me. Okay. So next question, and this is in regards to UX, are there any changes on the horizon for the UX discipline or sort of a conceptual approach that you feel will have a strong impact on the work and or opportunities of information professionals who may be interested in this? Yes, I think the biggest one is that more and more companies are really bringing their UX work in-house. You know, not many years ago, most companies and organizations hired an agency to help with their user experience design and development. And now you're seeing more and more people really embracing that for their own teams in-house and expanding not just the web, but to other areas. You'll see that a lot in libraries as well. Many of the larger like public library systems and academic library systems have a web team. And those people will either be like full stack and when I say full stack, I mean they do user experience, they do design, they do development, they do project management, or what I'm seeing even more, those teams growing and you have those individual disciplines on different people within that team. Okay. So say for example, a really large urban library might have someone in their web team who is their UX specialist? That's correct. Interesting. Good to know because I think that's happening in a lot of areas like legal discipline, like private practice law firms are seeing that a lot of their clients are bringing their legal work in-house as well. So do you see any impact from AI on UX work? Yeah, definitely. Excuse me, AI, artificial intelligence and machine learning and that kind of thing. Yes, thank you for clarifying that too. I definitely do and that was going to be my other point was that definitely as technology is changing as more of this artificial intelligence is coming into play, we have to start thinking about like how does this experience on just like this website expand in other areas and how can we predict why users actually need even more. Because I work mostly in the nonprofit world and higher ed world, we haven't seen that grow as quickly as a company that might be focused more on like e-commerce would, but I totally see it growing even more. Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. And then before we wrap up, I'm going to hit you with the what advice would you give to students' question? So and I'm prefacing this with Chris by saying that Chris has had a very unusual career and taken her knowledge in this incredibly cool direction and used her information skills and her MLIS degree to do something that's very unusual but a very high level application of the knowledge that she graduated with and then layered on to later with additional skills. So with that sort of preface, Chris, what advice would you give to students or recent graduates from MLIS programs in terms of where they might take their careers, what they might open themselves up to in terms of opportunities? What have you found has been the most useful for you? Yeah, that's a great question. So I feel like in my own library degree, so many of the classes were very theory heavy, which was great because you really get to understand like that foundation then. But what I found most helpful was going out and getting that hands-on experience. So I ended up attending tons of workshops in my final year, especially of grad school as well as immediately after. I also attended a ton of conferences and events and meetups to really start to get to know other people that are working in the industry as well as learning additional skills. So I think if you are interested in user experience especially, then the more that you can find real times that you can actually dive into it and try it out, the better it's going to be for you. And this is advice that I give to people that are new to UX all the time. So there's tons of events all around that are happening. There's a ton of conferences. One of my favorite events that happens every year in February is the World IA Day or World Information Architecture Day. If you can be involved in one of those, I absolutely encourage you to as well as if there's any meetups that are in your area, I would absolutely encourage you to go to those, meet people, get those skill sets, have discussions and challenge everything. That's excellent advice and I have never heard anyone recommend meetups. But that's an incredibly smart way to learn from people who are doing it or who are exploring it and to build a professional network in an area where you might not already have that network because most of the people you know are in the LIS field. That's a great, great recommendation. Well, I hate to bring this to a close because I could ask Chris questions for the next two hours, but we will say thank you so, so much, Chris, for doing this with us and I hope you all have a great day. Thanks again. Talk to you again soon.