The CoDE 2017 Summit in Singapore was a great success. It united UX practitioners from many parts of Southeast Asia and beyond to learn, network and be inspired. The lineup of speakers, mix of topics and wonderful LEVEL3 Singapore event space in the modern Mapletree Business City made for a perfect few days. I was fortunate to be asked to speak and be part of their industry panel discussion, it was certainly an offer I couldn’t resist.
My presentation was on the important topic of personality traits for effective UX. It aims to bring awareness around just how much of a profound impact soft skills and personality traits can have on your UX career. People often place great importance (and rightfully so) on learning processes, tools and so forth, but sometimes neglect truly optimising their soft skills.
We looked through rather obvious negative traits we’d all agree aren’t suitable for a UX practitioner, but quickly moved on to the more interesting task of identifying what’s most desirable. Having done a survey of various people from UX to recruiters and human resources to managers we went through the findings of where the various traits ranked. What was most fascinating wasn’t the top 5, they’re well documented across literature, but rather the runner ups and even the least performing ones, which I thought deserved greater recognition.
From there we looked at how life’s often a balancing act in how you approach situations; the development of personality traits throughout a UX career; and examined what traits would best serve typical situations you encounter in UX. The presentation was wrapped up considering how to have consciousness of your personality traits and how best to go about building them. I really enjoyed giving the presentation, it was a great audience.
The last session of CoDE 2017 Summit was titled “UX in an AI Future: What’s next for experience design” an industry panel discussion I luckily had a chance to be part of. Hosted by Melissa Wilfley, we tackled all sorts of interesting questions around how recent advancements and projected direction of technologies would influence UX and its relevance. What will the landscape look like 5 or 10 years out, given the rate of advancement is exponentially greater than the past? The mind ran wild and it really gave the panel a chance to stretch it’s legs and imagine an incredible future and our part in it.
I’d like to give great thanks to Kuldeep Kulshreshtha for putting on such a well orchestrated event, the great volunteers for their hard work and all the fellow speakers for sharing their vast wealth of knowledge and experience. It’s always a great time in Singapore, looking forward to the next time we meet again.
Presentation Video
Presentation Materials
Download Slide Deck (PDF 12MB): Personality Traits for Effective UX Presentation