Today we had a really useful talk from Jason Brown, a graduate of NUA who studied UI/UX Design. He talked about a lot of different things, and it was really fun to hear about everything he has done since graduating.
Working at both The User Story and Earthware, both being based in Norwich, Jason had worked in data, UI, and Ux since his graduation. He mentioned that it was really interesting to be an internal and that we definitely should be looking into that.
Jason talked about his university work as well, where he mentioned his shift to web accessibility within his third year, expanding his knowledge on visual impaired users, who couldn’t see anything, and those who were slightly visually impaired.
“Accessibility should always be at the forefront of design, especially when it comes to the internet, and how we perceive that.”
He mentioned his involvement in Codebar, as well as different Storefront magazines, where he originally planned on doing Graphic communication before setting his heart on UX, as one of the first students on the course, eventually moving onto working for the National Grid.
The national grid transmits electricity across high voltages all across the super grid in England and Wales, pretty much anywhere in the country. There are several sprouting out of Norwich, and the company maintains and owns all of those assets. Surprisingly, they don’t actually generate electricity. This means they are a business to business company. They use a Scale Agile For Enterprise which allows for the designer to understand the customer, the designer, and the problem, as well as everyone else on their team and what they do. The actual set up of who is employed by who is complicated, however, Jason is hired by a central team to support any department in the National grid, almost like an internal agency, where he is loaned out to different departments.
This talk was really useful, as it helped me understand how a UX designer has to be able to work within different sectors.