Nick Finck

Learning User Experience Design
Jan 13th, 2010

User Experience for me is purely around how humans behave, in that I think you really need to sit down and read as much as you can on how the human mind works, specifically in around cognitive science.

— Scott Barnes, How do I get started in User Experience?

Scott Barnes has an interesting post about getting started in UX entitled How do I get started in User Experience?.  He is formerly a Microsoft Rich Platform Product Manager and so the article approaches UX from the software design side of things.  Scott weighs on his experiences inside of Microsoft and the culture there.  Its an interesting read because he brakes the subject down to what he describes as the core of UX—the human.  He hits on learning and understanding cognitive science.  I don’t fully agree with his paradigm shift away from UX patterns and convincing users to change their habits, but all that said it is a good read.  I think this article is a nice companion to Starting a Career in User Experience Design
. 

Also don’t forget to check out Whitney Hess’s So you wanna be a user experience designer article/resource list and Fred Beecher’s Getting Started in User Experience Design post.