Hi, I'm Sean.
Welcome and thank you for joining me on this journey.
From enduring moments of self-doubt to rekindling my passion for Product Design after the tech recession, my path has been twisted, unconventional, yet enlightening.
It's essential for those in hiring positions to understand the resilience and adaptability that has shaped my journey in this dynamic domain.
Design Journey
Pre-UX Days
Artistic Beginnings
From an early age, I was recognized for my affinity for the arts and metaphysics grasp. My love for creating comics honed my storytelling and content design skills. My recent endeavors even made their way into MIT journals.
My interest in metaphysics since 10 years ago, especially topics like Constellations has influenced my world-view and inspired creations like a Fate-telling tool using P5.js.
See the Demo >
Consulting & Design Ventures
However, to support my family, I started in consulting at Deloitte post-college. While successful, I yearned for genuine fulfillment. This led me to delve into the world of art and design.
I left Deloitte after two years, and joined tech start-ups to serve end end-users. Deloitte sharpened my strategic thinking, while serving real end-users of various age brackets nurtured my understanding of human-centered design.
Turning Points
H5 Game Design
A particular game design project of great business success became the catalyst for my deeper dive into UX, in which my design concept helped win greater impressions
See Details >
Danone Digital Asset Project
Faced with the choice between formal education or industry experience to kick off my UX career, I chose both. My success at Danone affirmed this, and I'm now poised to further refine my skills at MIT.
See Details >
Navigating Disillusionment
Entering the UX realm at its crazy peak, I soon realized the industry's misconceptions. Imaginably, the recent tech recession bombarded this industry and disclosed who were swimming nude over there.
That said, there is positivity:
For me, I realized my passion lies more in digital than physical design, though I do both well.
I discovered the nuances between UX and product design, and confirmed my stronger interest in the latter.
I recognized the vast complexity and dynamics of UX, which is neither claimed dead by the recent media, nor carved-in-stone within classic design processes. The essence of UX design persists, though it's often misconstrued or overly simplified by many, that that many equal knowing design process to being a UX designer.
My approach to survive the competition in the field of UX, while traditional, remains potent: returning to the foundational principles of human-centered design.
I consume Nelson Norman Group podcasts and study Medium articles on UX, steering clear of being overly swayed by transient fads. Though my portfolio continues to evolve, I take pride in my growth as a UX learner and my journey towards grasping the evolving essence of UX design.
Into the future
My methods for UX & product design
Qualitative
Participatory design
1 on 1 interview
Journaling
Fly on the wall
Think out loud
Quantitative
KANO analysis
Better/Worse analysis
Keywords in Interviews
Priority matrix
DFV
Championing Design Thinking
Lay persons hardly tell the difference between various UX design topics. Neither do some designers. I updated this matrix to help me:
map out in-detail requirement of a JD;
help demonstrate my role to lay persons to UX.
Recent endeavors
Securing an offer!!!
Looking for a team valuing Human-Centered Design
Making Comics
Publishing Chapter 2 & 3 of my published comic
Gaming Research & Development
UX wall-through of Hash & Slash games and making my indie-game based on my comic!