A couple of weeks ago, we ran our first ever reader survey, where we asked you to tell us who you were, how you came to work in user experience design, and what you wanted UX Mastery to become.
To entice you to respond, we pulled together what we think is a pretty spectacular prize: a one-of-a-kind collection of UX learning resources.
Well, we’ve selected our winner, and I’ll get to that in a second. Firstly I want to say this:
You’re all awesome.
We got such great feedback from hundreds of people, and Matt and I are now buzzing with excitement about the new ideas that have come out of this exercise. Thank you so much.
To be in the running for the prize, we asked participants to complete the following sentence:
If I ran UX Mastery, I would definitely …
Here are some of the responses that made the “noteworthy” list.
… write more about tips/tricks/tutorials related to UX design aimed at various levels – newbie to ‘expert’. Couple of shorter posts that summarise key concepts would also be great—most people are time-poor and being able to read something quickly and get a core concept/idea out of it will be great!
—Peggy… call myself Darth UX and lord my prototyping and research powers over the entire user-base, but first I’d need to seek out that scrappy son of mine, Like Facebooker, and get him to join me and Emperor Nielsen. Together, we would infuriate users everywhere.
—Adam Schilling… put up a totally awesome series of video tutorials covering the entire UX design process from ideas to implementation and testing, so the complete beginner (‘hey, this UX stuff seems like something I should think about’) and the complete master (‘let’s have a laugh at how these fools think you should do it’) can jump right in and get UX’ing better.
—Patrick Vale… adopt a more chicken-centred approach. Buy ten iPads, lay them on the ground, load different prototypes on each one, then scatter grain across. Count peck impressions.
—Matt Fenwick… present case-studies as a way of engaging visitors to the site and educating others working in the field. The example that I read about Sarah was excellent as an educational tool, but could also be used as a discussion topic, or a blog, so visitors can provide feedback, etc.
—Angela Forgan
However, there can only be one winner, and we’re delighted to announce that the “super-awesome-mega-UX-book-bundle-thingy” prize will go to …
(drum roll please)
Ligia-Estera Oprea, a student from Romania.
Here’s Ligia-Estera’s winning response:
… create a special corner for students—beginners—where can they ask questions, share their difficulties, but most of all they are encouraged by UX specialists. They may be in countries where UX is not very developed, known, or they wish to do some internship but the opportunities are few, so they need motivation to go on, advice for [how to] continue their development, mentorship, and tasks to do which later can be verified.
I know it may take too much time, but once or twice a month maybe is possible.
We love the ambition of this vision. While other suggestions for us to create online courses and video training were all terrific (and are ideas we’re definitely keen to explore), creating a supportive community like the one Ligia-Estera suggests that UX Mastery could become is an inspiring goal. We love that she challenged us, which is why we were happy to spend the $80 in shipping Ligia-Estera’s prize to Romania instead of conveniently choosing someone local. It’s not a goal that could be achieved overnight (building that kind of supportive environment is hard), but we intend to do our best to achieve the kind of nurturing community alluded to in her response. We’d love for you to be a part of that, too.
Here’s what Ligia-Estera has won:
- 1 UXPin web prototyping kit
- 1 UXPin mobile prototyping kit
- 1 signed copy of Mike Rohde’s just-released The Sketchnote Handbook
- 1 signed copy of Jodie Moule’s book, Killer UX Design
- 1 signed copy of Eva-Lotta Lamm’s book, Sketchnotes 2011
- …and one more item that we’re working on but haven’t quite finished but will announce in good time.
This is what she had to say when we told her she’d won:
What a wonderful surprise!
You made my day! I think I smiled and laughed loud for almost ten minutes.
I truly appreciate your choice and amazing prize. Thank you for this opportunity to communicate opinions and ideas. Also I want to express my gratitude to the authors who offered to give away a signed copy from their wonderful, useful books.
After my application for an UX internship was rejected, I bought books, looked for good arctiles to read online and even got in touch with UX specialists from abroad through email. What made me choose this field, especially when I’m studying Electrical Engineering? I realized that UX combines knowledge with hobbies and my passion for people and literature. I’m still learning and try to get involve in online projects as a volunteer in order to improve my practical UX knowledge. But I hope that is just the beginning.
Thank you again for these wonderful gifts.
Congratulations Ligia-Estera, we’re delighted that the above learning resources will be put to such good use.
A huge thank you to the three authors who kindly donated signed copies of their book for this competition—Mike Rohde, Jodie Moule and Eva-Lotta Lamm. We love their work and are very grateful for their kind donations! Be sure to grab a copy of their respective books—they are all terrific resources.
Finally, thank you so much to everyone who participated in the survey—we really appreciate it. We’re in the process of digesting the praise, constructive criticism and ideas, and we’re very excited for what the future holds.
