I’ll admit, a seminar about ethics does not sound like the most obvious career development move. But I’d like to argue that, if you dig a little deeper, there’s a lot to learn about yourself, your professional life, and your everyday work in exploring ethical questions.
Here are three examples:
Communication (about hard stuff)
Being a good listener is a very valuable skill for a UX professional, and I think I honed this skill in part by spending time in seminar-style courses.
Let me explain - when you spend a week reading about IDEAS and then have to talk about it, then listen to other people’s opinions, you get better at listening. What’s more is that you get better at following other people’s arguments, and you become more tolerant, more present with other people, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them.
Making Better Decisions
The best argument I have for studying ethics, and the humanities in general, dates back to Aristotle, if not earlier. It breaks down like this: if we better understand the complexities (and beauty!) of the human experience, we can make better decisions in our everyday lives, including at work.
We will be using the Framework for Ethical Decision Making from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and we will look at a different case study each week to practice making decisions in real-world settings, with a special emphasis on design and technology problems.
Visual Thinking
I always marvel at this contradiction: despite the fact that art is almost always regarded as a not-so-practical career, UX design skills are in demand. And, jobs without “designer” in the title also often require some degree of design and visual presentation skills. Yet! I have found that the average grownup with a job (that is not design), is TERRIFIED to design or draw anything.
We will learn sketchnoting and work on storyboarding and design prompts throughout the course, which will allow you to get more comfortable with expressing your ideas visually, whether or not you call yourself a designer. (Yes, you too.)
So, learn with us this Fall.
Curious? Sign up for our Online Event Tuesday 10/23!