Nielsen Norman UX Conference and Certification
In December of 2018…
I added “user experience researcher” on my LinkedIn introduction. I did this because I realized that I can now identify myself as a UX researcher since I learned all the usability testing methods, and have practiced many of them in real life for the design researches. The result of putting those three words in my resume was amazing. I was suddenly receiving hundreds of love calls from HR departments in the design and tech industries. I even talked to the recruiters from 3M and US Bank. Whoa, big companies really ARE looking for UX researchers.
So I decided to learn more about UX research in the industry. Since I’ve stayed in the academic institution bubble for a long time, and only had short (3months) internships few years back, I didn’t know anything about being a UX designer/researcher in the industry. What were the tasks and what were the technical and organizational challenges do UX designers/researchers face when working in a team? To get answers, I decided to go to Nielsen Norman UX conference and take seminars.
Conference took place at Omni Hotel Los Angeles, Feb 23 - Mar 2, 2019
The NN/g is created by Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman, the two giants in the usability research area. I’ve read their books and used their reports in University courses.
The NN/g UX conference takes place all over the world, and they provide hundreds of seminars, each 6-7 hours long. In the seminars, the participants receive training in UX research methods, learn about the roles as members of a UX team (e.g., the coder, the graphic designer, the researcher etc), and understand the UX designer’s challenges in different organizational settings. At the end of each day, the NN/g provides exams on the given seminar, and if you pass 5 exams, you receive a UX researcher certification, and if you pass 15 exams, you receive a UX master certification. (for more information about the training and certification, check out https://www.nngroup.com/ )
Among the different seminars, I took five that matched my interest:
Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs
The Human Mind and Usability
The One-Person UX Team Tool Box
Wireframing and Prototyping
UX Basic Training
On the fourth day of the conference, I also met Jakob Nielsen!
“It’s an honor to meet you Jakob”
“Thank you! It’s an honor to meet you too” he said.
The seminars were great: very informative and applicable. Although I already knew and used 70% of the methods that they taught during the seminar, I was glad that I met other UX researchers from the industry - who are actually doing all this stuff for living. I met marketing personnels, engineers or coders, graphic designers and UI designers, and even business owners. We all became part of a team, and talked about different customers and users, and how to create different UX design and research designs for them.
At the the end of the day, I passed all the exams and achieved UX researcher certificate!
