Tag Archives: 2016

2016: Year in review

Jennifer Blatz UX Design 2016 year in review

Seems like everyone has a year in review. What celebrities died this year? What were the biggest news stories? What can we expect in 2017? Well I am not going to recap all the biggest news for 2016. Instead, I would like to reflect on the crazy year it has been for me and to see if I actually accomplished ANY of my goals. ha ha.

To start with, I took a look at my mid year post “Mid Year: Revisiting My Personal Goals” to see how my goal accomplishment were stacking up there. Well, as you can see from the article, I missed few and hit a few. That’s ok, because my career to a huge shift in the middle of the year that caused me to quickly start a new job and move across the country.

Accomplished
  • Re-learned Axure. I did, but I have not practiced it as much as I should have so I probably forgot a lot of the actions.
  • Continue writing blog posts. I wanted to hit 30 blog posts this year. I am pretty sure I did that. I want to continue this practice in the new year.
  • Join a side project. I helped out with Wingspanarts. As of today, the site has not launched their redesign. But I hope they will find a great developer and do so early in the new year.

So those were my major accomplishments. My list was much shorter than I hoped. But I am OK with that. Like I said, I had some major career shifts this year and I needed to focus on sharpening new skills needed for the job. My plan is to think about my new goals for the new year and write a post soon.

Until then, I hope you had a wonderful year. I hope you accomplished some goals, and don’t beat yourself up about the ones you did not knock off your list. There’s always next year to revisit those goals and to make new ones.

Like we all know in UX, it is ok to learn from your failings. Also, it’s ok to pivot in your goals when life hands you changes. Just go with the flow…in 2017.

UX deliverables and skills

Jennifer Blatz design UX and UI design clips and work samples

As part of my 2016 professional development, I’ve decided I am going to use my blog to showcase more of my UX skills. A tough decision any designer must make is to only show a select examples of my best UX work. I try to show my diversity of skills, as well as my breadth of design. So since I cannot show all of my clips in my portfolio, I am going to use my blog as my second clips stage.

Feel free to search the word “Showcase” for future examples of my UX work. But until then, examples of my work can still be viewed on my website www.jenniferblatzdesign.com.

Happy 2016 — Goal setting for the new year

2016 UX design resolutions for Jennifer Blatz

We are comfortably in the new year, 2016, and I am glad you have made the journey so far. I guess that people make goals for the new year huh? Here’s my to-do list:

Learn programs

  • Axure
  • Sketch

Improve coding skills

  • Learn javascript, at least the basics
  • Refresh my knowledge about CSS and HTML

Read books

  • “Information Architecture” aka the Polar Bear book
  • “Design of Everyday Things”
  • “Checklist Manifesto”
  • “How to Get People to do Stuff”

Keep learning

  • Start another “100 Days of Learning” journal, but expand it for the entire year
  • Review the “Learning Stuff” journal from last year

Write blog posts

  • I am shooting to post 30 blog posts in 2016

Join a side project

  • I would love to join another project. If you know of any short term projects that need a UX designer, please let me know.

Build out portfolio

  • Improve the content of my portfolio by introducing new clips
  • Present my acquired knowledge illustrating my software proficiency

Ok just 29 more blog posts for 2016. Thanks for reading.