We get a lot of credit for the quality of our design and development work. And we should. It’s pretty great. You know it comes from love. What you may not know is that we don’t just love our work, we love the people we design and develop for—those mystic end-users you read about in Smashing Magazine.

When I started at PRPL in 2012, I wanted to cram user love, empathy, and passion for interaction design and information architecture into every project we touch. Pretty immediately, some of my coworkers started to barge in on my pocket room mind-vomit sessions and gape at the collages: post-its, paper clippings, and whiteboard sketches. “Have you figured out who killed JFK yet,” they would ask.

ux, user personas, user experience

As PRPL grew, they’d come up to me by the coffee machine (because we don’t have a water cooler). Interns, creatives, engineers, marketers, and producers in equal shares would declare, “So, that UX stuff is cool. I’d maybe like to get into that someday, or at least learn more about it. Could you teach me sometime?”

Over lunch? No.

UX is a frame of mind for many, but for me, it’s a process. It’s intense. It’s a lot more than mindfully wireframing from the user’s perspective. It’s planning. It’s a series of deliverables. It’s extensive research, analysis, discovery, synthesis, debating, diagramming, and documentation. Followed by more documentation. It takes weeks to do it, let alone explain it. But I thought about it. More people began asking, so I started dreaming up a curriculum.

I narrowed it down to six 90-minute classes, outlined a lesson plan, and officially announced “UX School: Behind the Post-Its” at Town Hall.

(Full disclosure: I’m not completely selfless. Our PRPL.learn program, which pays $50 for each “Knowledge Share” after hours, didn’t hurt.)

School’s in Session

Then, the craziest thing happened—24 people showed up that first Thursday. That’s like half the company. There weren’t enough chairs. I felt like a little kid at her first dance recital where the house is packed. (Don’t get me wrong, the class quickly found its way down to a core 8-10 pupils. People have lives.) I was just enthralled to see tangible evidence that so many diverse experts-in-their-field value UX more than even I’d realized.

“It made me realize how much intricate research goes behind UX. I had no idea there was so much thought behind it. Putting yourself into the perspective of the user—it’s fun! And it definitely adds a different point of view when you’re designing.”Frank “Mudshock” Rodriguez, Creative

I put students through the gamut. First, everyone paired off and picked from three “realistic” and very different project “proposals.” Each week, they endured 20 minutes of overly-excited speed-talking about the deliverables for that lesson, concepts, tips, and examples, followed by work. The class was designed as a cumulative workshop; by the end of it, they’d have completed each UX/IA deliverable—the whole freaking planning process. People learn by doing, so the class emphasized execution, discussion, and peer review.

ux, user experience, information architecture, digital agency

What did we cover? My curriculum / lesson plans can be downloaded in PDF form here. (Did I mention I used to be a teacher?)

Graduation

We laughed. We cried. We learned. (We didn’t really cry.) We discussed hypothetical scenarios, outlandish use cases, the “true” role of a “UX Architect,” cat training tips, and made fun of each other’s personas. They asked “why?” a lot, which is the point.

The breakdown of attending disciplines was impressive:

29% Marketers
21% Creatives
21% Engineers
14% Producers
7% Business Devs
7% Strategists

The most dedicated attendees received diplomas for enduring all six weeks. I would now trust any of them to take over my job if I were hit by a bus tomorrow. They’ve sworn their undying love for users everywhere. They’re now bringing user love into their own disciplines. I get kind of giddy thinking about it.

“UX school was super helpful for me. It’s one thing to read about theory, but actually having to plan out projects step by step and defend them was a much more realistic challenge. After class was over, I felt comfortable jumping into an information architecture project at PRPL, because I had a much better understanding of the process and the deliverables.”Alex King, Marketing

It’s amazing to know so many of my co-workers appreciate the work that goes into a profession that’s about understanding people, their context, and what they’re trying to accomplish. Empathy is not always easy, but it is essential to develop authentic solutions that help users accomplish their goals. We aren’t just a series of departments battling for our separate disciplines. We make an incredible effort to understand each other’s unique processes and perspectives. That’s what makes our work great.

Postmortem on UX School: Behind the Post-Its

Spotlight: Alex King