Blog Post — Storytelling

Posting something a bit different today! This is a snapshot of part 1 of 4 for an application I did for a UX research intern position at @Shopify.

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It was optional to create an online store website using their company’s free trial platform and I decided to have some fun with it. I really invested my time in curating as much “real” content into my online store website and decided to tell a story from my childhood growing up.

This was a fun little side project that I really wanted to put as much effort as I could towards. While crafting it, I definitely felt a lot of visual design tendencies come out when it came to choosing the right typography from size of heading to font weights and even a little marketing design influence in finding the perfect visuals from motion GIFs to relevant references to enhance the readers experience.

I think the main thing I took out of this experience was really how conflicted I felt throughout the process at times of being under a fixed time constraint while really wanting to stand out. Of course I primarily focused on researching the company and mission, from reading about other UX researcher experiences on Medium to even reaching out to a couple researchers at the Shopify as well.

But even after all of the gathered research and structure, I still felt the importance to want to put the effort into visual presentation and communication of my results. Digging deeper into creating wire frame and mock ups for another aspect of the application, and spending hours on end perfecting the website store design and experience. I was really happy with my final submission but felt like I faced an even deeper conflict with whether or not I wanted to let go of design and just focus on research!

What I came to realize after this particular application experience and actually a lot of other job interview processes I've gone through is how important it is to really ask yourself what you want. And this is not an easy question at all. Especially being in the new grad phase of my career, it’s difficult to really understand what you want having not experienced a lot.

You can be persuaded into going with your first offer, choosing a position that financially benefits well, going where your inspirations are, choosing based on location, passion about the work or genuinely align with a particular company mission. It’s rare that a position will check off every single check box, (though it’s not impossible!) and so it’s important to learn how to prioritize the checkboxes that mean the most to you and go for the opportunity that fits most of your personal checkboxes.

There might be some roadblocks of influence along the way, from choosing something based on what your parents want you to do, relying too much on the opinions of others, company timing constraints and sponsorship costs. Ultimately, the only person that will know the right answer is you.

Even if the answer isn’t crystal clear, it’s really important to begin somewhere and realize your decision isn’t the end all be all.

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I ended up making it to the final interview round of the UX research position but at the same time I ended up interviewing for an additional design opportunity for another company.

It was an incredible opportunity interviewing for both companies. After a lot of additional chats, self reflection and debate on going the research or design route, the design opportunity was offered to me and I've recently accepted it! I’ve decided to pursue more product design work within this position in addition to asking for more opportunities to conduct research in order to find my happy balance.

I’m super excited to begin my new career journey in the next few weeks and will be back with updates sometime soon.