EP9. Defining Your Role as a UX Designer with Samuel Harper
Welcome back to the UserFlows Podcast. A show where we talk about UX Design and Careers. I’m your host Thomas Morrell and I get to interview other designers about their journey’s into the field of UX and Product Design. Today I am speaking with Sam Harper, a former filmmaker and marine biologist turned passionate user experience designer, published Medium author, and frequent contributor to the UX Collective blog. Sam is also a UX career coach with some pretty great experience.
I was first introduced to Sam through his LinkedIn live shows. I found him extremely intriguing and I love how open, honest and helpful he has been for the UX community. Especially those just getting started in the field.
You can read Sam’s articles on Medium or join his biweekly live stream calls on LinkedIn.
Books and Articles we talked about on the show
Article I couldn’t remember on the show :)
Lost your UX job during COVID? Look at the opportunities it presents
Transcript of the show:
THOMAS MORRELL 0:13 Hello everyone and welcome back to user flows. I'm your host Thomas Morrell, and this is a podcast where we talk about, talk to designers about their journeys into the field, how they got into it, and what they're doing. And so today I'm joined by Sam Harper, a former filmmaker, and marine biologist. I'm sure there's a very interesting story there and turn passionate UX designer. So Sam is a frequent contributor to UX collective blog which is a blog I read often and is also a UX career coach. And so, you can also be seen live mentoring and coaching, teaching UX on your LinkedIn live stream which is I think where I first came across you. And so, you know, welcome to the show. Really excited to have you. And if you could tell us a little bit about yourself.
SAMUEL HARPER 1:22 Yeah, thank you for having me, Thomas. So yeah, a little bit about, myself so I have been, I've been doing UX for over the past 40 years now. I did the transition from, you know, I started in film school and got into marine biology really the summary of that is, like I think like all of us in life I just had a case of I don't know what I, what I want to do with myself.
That's fair. But I had always loved it. I'd always been a big fan of the ocean I love sea creatures and I would always like to read the little kid’s books about octopuses and stuff like that. And, and then eventually I moved up to Alaska, I got a job where I moved up to Alaska to go survey bald eagles. So I was, I was doing research up there but that was around, I was around the age of 26 at that time then I kind of hit my quarter-life crisis where I was. It was just a bunch of things at once, you know, it was the cold it was the seasonal affective disorder is the fact that I had no friends up there, and, and then I'm looking, You know I looked around in this office that, you know, it was like 50 years old and smelled like mold and there's like all my coworkers are at least 10 years older than me, I'm like oh my god, is this the future that I'm setting myself. And of course, you know, that was after my bachelor's degree and you have to go get, you know, if you want to make it in that field, you got to get a master’s and Ph.D. is huge pan yes, and.
And at first, I was very gung ho for grad school, and then the longer I'd been out of my Bachelor's program more I realized that's not what I wanted to do so then at that point I kind of stepped back and I said okay I'm not really sure what I want to do with my life, but I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, like, give myself permission to, I guess, fail so to speak. So I just moved back in with my parents got a job driving a school bus for about a year and a half and then just kind of explored my passions and, you know what I was, what, and said like, to hell with the social stigma that you have to be out of your house, you know, parents house at 21, whatever it's just like it's your life, you figure it out on your own terms, and from there I really kind of got started figuring out about user experience and what it was and all that stuff. And what was great about that is it really allowed me to combine two things that I was really interested in, I'm a very creative person but then I'm also, of course, like, I became a data snob when I went through my marine biology degree because it's a scientific research. Measuring and measuring and constantly measuring and questioning everything and re-measuring, and you know I like to think that, at first I thought that coming into UX for my marine biology background was a hindrance, but then I've realized the longer I'm in this field.
I believe that it's a tremendous asset. I think the reason for that is, I mean this is just my personal, like what I've viewed of people in this industry, but it seems like a lot of them, you know, they'll come from a design background or something and there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, nothing wrong with that but I tend to see a lot of people were not like data first and data-centered and I think what UX is it's really just building off our understanding of the user, and we have to research the user we look at them we have to, you know like, examine their behaviors and their patterns and everything so I think that it's actually the kind of unconventional background that I've come from has actually really helped me quite a bit. Yeah, no, that's fantastic and I never really thought about it that way. Imagine, you know, people coming from the sciences are very adept at the whole scientific method which is basically what your research is based around, and come up with a hypothesis and then prove it wrong.
An observation and all that's probably a perfect field to come from. I will say there's, there's another thing that I found very helpful from the field that came from and that's, you know, if you're whenever you're writing a scientific paper you're reading scientific papers, like they really, they take a lot of time of really breaking down like the introduction of the problem like how it was studied, but then I think the big gold nugget that I think a lot of UX projects miss is the being like, acknowledging the sampling bias and they usually do that at the end they say well you know we sampled 500 participants but in reality, this is where that could have been wrong and there's always sampling bias, regardless of, you know you could be doing research for Google, and there's still going to be some kind of miscalculation in there.
And then they also at the, at the very end of those papers they always say, this is the further research that needs to be done, it's never just saying like, Oh, I did. I just interviewed five people because, You know, Nielsen Norman Group said so, and we're gonna call it good. It's like no, this, your, your US project is never fully done. And I think acknowledging where it needs to be built off from here is one of those big things that we as UX designers need to do.
THOMAS MORRELL 6:10 Yeah, absolutely no and so I mentor students at Springboard COMM And one of the things I've noticed is the students once they get to the analytics kind of chapter of the course for lack of a better word, is they get very nervous and they're totally not into it because a lot of them come from a design background. They take a look at Google Analytics. So like, I don't want anything to do with that.
SAMUEL HARPERSo, I mean I feel like I mean comes down to that. There's really nothing there isn't, I don't think there's really much to be afraid of in terms of numbers, I think it's just, it's just that you know people are and they can be unfamiliar with it. Um, but I mean honestly, I'm not the best with numbers either I got like, the first time I took pre Calc I got a D in it, so I'm not, I'm not a genius or prodigy in numbers, but I can still respect and understand why you know like, the significance that they can tell, and I think what's Especially important is when I like to do. I know I'm going on a big tangent here but now you want to do quantitative research I always like to combine the qualitative research when where I'm interviewing someone so you know Thomas I'm interviewing, or you're interviewing me but like we're talking, I get to, you know, I get to figure out what your hobbies are, how you're using this, this site, or this piece of software.
You know what you normally tend to look for. That gives me a lot of personal data as far as firsthand what you're doing, but then I can't measure, I can't interview 1000 Thomas's I can enter five of them at a time, realistically, and then I can have the other 1000 Just go through, you know, we just measure you through Google Analytics or some, something that allows you to track it, but much bigger sample size. So I think in that regard, it can, it can be very helpful I think, you know if you have a basic understanding of statistics it can go a long way to get to understand where you know where thing where actions are insignificant and where they're statistically significant.
THOMAS MORRELL 8:34 No, that's perfect and always the way I explain it to the students when it comes down to that is, you're the data is going to tell you what's happening, but then you'll have to go out and talk to people to find out why it's happening. Yeah, exactly. That's a really interesting perspective. Yeah, I remember my Marine Biology course, cuz I was really interested in it as well. And once I saw all the science and math involved I was like, No, I'm going to art.
That's what that's the track I took anyway, what is the kind of the biggest mind shift you think you had to make, going from, you know, working in Alaska to now working on UX projects.
SAMUEL HARPER 9:11 Um, that's a really good question. Um, I you know I would say that you know when you are a researcher, you know, really what you're trying to do is you're trying to look for.
You're trying to kind of like understand is this incredibly insurmountably complex thing that we call nature, or, you know you're trying to understand like why this animal interacts with this plant species or you're trying to understand why.
You know when you combine these two chemicals, why did they react in this certain way and what can you harness with that.
But, you know really what it comes down to it, it's basically, it's glorified UX and vice versa. You're really just asking, you know you're asking questions because there is some, something that's not understood, and, you know, if you don't have a product already, then you're understanding the problem and how that translates into a business case, if you do have a product you're trying to understand how your customers are interacting with it, and how, you know how things are not working so, like we're all kind of scientists in that way.
I think, you know, probably, at least from my perspective I think the first thing is to, to really understand that yes we are scientists, I think even just knowing this, understanding the scientific method that you're setting a hypothesis you're collecting data, you're, you're doing your study where you've got to control and you've got several, several variables you're observing that you're trying to understand, you know, where maybe the study was not as accurate and you're retesting until you can get accurate results, and then build on that, um, you know, again, that's just what me, that's, I feel like what has really shaped me in UX, I, I wouldn't say I'm like, I wouldn't call myself a visual designer, I would say like I like to think about the problem first.
I like to say that I, you know you could dress, If, if we don't understand the problem like you can dress up a turd with UI, all you want with old design but it doesn't make it any less of a turd.
THOMAS MORRELL 11:53 Absolutely, I like that analogy.
That's good and I was just speaking to a guest, whose show actually it hasn't come out yet, but he built a number of different products and his advices you know, don't just jump into solutioning right away, like, really deeply understand the problem space first. So, I guess, you're also doing some work with a company called Conscious career shift,
SAMUEL HARPERis that right yeah so that's just that's a side gig essentially coaching business that I am, it's basically my own, my own personal coaching that I do, but you know it's it's been fun. I would say I'm still building it out it's not like perfect or, you know entirely ready by any means but it's, It's been a slow work in progress. No, that's fantastic, though I think it's a great space it's a, there's a lot of room for opportunity for people to move into this career field. So, and I think that's why I started mentoring students. I've seen a lot of people, you know have the interest, but then get a little bit intimidated by, you know, the really super expensive bootcamp courses, and also going back to university. So I think that's a great idea, and I didn't realize that was your thing. That's awesome. Yeah, I think, I guess, you know what I drew this is a little bit of a tangent but related to diversity saying this because you know when I was first getting into UX one of the first things I thought was I need a master's degree in UX, and I quickly learned you don't need a master's degree in this field at all.
And, I mean if anything I think that you're probably at an advantage, starting out, not doing that just getting into the field.
And you know I wrote an article about that and everything but, yeah, just if you're getting into the field, there's, there's definitely faster and simpler and easier ways to do it.
THOMAS MORRELL 13:47 Right on. I agree with that wholeheartedly, I don't have a degree in it, and I wouldn't recommend it unless somebody hasn't gone to school yet, then maybe it's a good idea
SAMUEL HARPERthat or if you want to be a UX researcher, it can help, but I think, again, build, if you, if you decide you get into UX and then you do it for a few years and then decide later that it makes sense in your career to do it, then go for it but I say, you know, don't put the cart before the horse. Yeah. So, as you mentioned you have been writing blog posts, you're doing the LinkedIn live stream. What prompted you to kind of start all these different side projects and this goes back to Jan right around January of 2019. At the time I was, I was working at an agency over in eastern Tennessee. It was my first UX job, And I really just wanted to, I just wanted to like write about my experiences in UX. I wanted to talk about, you know the perspective of somebody who had been in year in the field for a year. What I have learned along the way and just kind of like, share it with people, always see myself as a mentor in that regard. And I didn't expect too many people were going to read it, I just thought I was just writing it for myself and published on medium, and the exact opposite of what I expected happened, it blew up and went completely like I was, it was getting shared on sites that I had never even heard of.
Yeah, it's fantastic, it's being shared on Facebook and Reddit and, like, everywhere, and, and then I had a bunch. What I also, I had done in just, just from like understanding copy copywriting and marketing and stuff I actually put a link at the end of my article actually before I published it, for people to connect with me I thought maybe you know a couple people would connect but after it went viral, like I had honestly probably about five people every single day reaching out and be like hey I read your article on that, what specifically the article was about. It was called your UX Boot Camp will not get you a job unless you do these critically important steps, and so it's pretty much just talking about how yes a boot camp can help, but it's really not everything, and I think that, for the people who do enroll in a boot camp. They kind of set this expectation of like I'm going to put all my weight on this program, and expect that it's going to get me a job and that's not really how it works, and so that's basically what the article was about, and after that I realized that, you know, even for someone who had only been in this field. At the time for a year, I had something valuable to share with people that a lot of people actually taught me so readily.
So I thought okay, I can start writing other articles and so I did and of course some didn't do as well as others. But then I wrote another article and again the same thing and when I wasn't expecting it to go gangbusters viral was and that was my 10 sobering realities every brand new UX designer needs to accept. So, funny enough, It seemed like it was basically like a big like a slap in the face clarification because like, you know you'll people will go to these boot camps and say oh it's gonna be like going to Disneyland I'm gonna make six figures as soon as they get hired and Google's gonna pick me up, I was like no, no, no, no, no, no, apparently people like, yeah. But anyway, just just like from writing articles and just building up this audience over time that I almost feel like I accidentally built up. I realized that I had something valuable to share with newer Junior UX designers, so that's where I eventually started getting into the live streaming and I've just basically built an audience from there.
THOMAS MORRELL 17:53 That's fantastic. I love that.
That's perfect that I've enjoyed the live streams, the stuff on you do what. What made you do live so I think I've shied away from doing live just because it's live.
SAMUEL HARPER 18:29 Yeah, so it's kind of this comes down to this personal development thing that I, I've been practicing which is to do things that you're uncomfortable with, and I would say that I, I've been uncomfortable on camera, you know, obviously not now is like I can, I can show up live and not have anything planned and just kind of like just winging it.
But it really, it was like, you know, a few years ago, the idea of going live. And just going live on the internet and talking scares the crap out of me even if I had a script.
So, I said you know what, I'm going to kick this, I'm gonna just like I'm going to turn you know I started with like these little exercises where I would, I would turn on my key I would pull up my phone I would record myself talking for three minutes and then I'd share it in this like private Facebook group, and then I keep doing that and then kind of got a little bit better, a little bit better and a little bit better and I was like okay guys I'm going to do my first live stream, And I did and it was absolutely terrible I kind of learned that I bit my tongue and all that stuff but I got a little bit better. And you know what I will say is, I think that normally people will look at the look at like a public speaker or oval, you know, I've heard people have contacted me and said, Sam, I have no idea how you do these live streams, I would never have the guts to do is like, actually I know what that feels like. But it's, you know, nobody's born a public speaker, nobody's born a live streamer, I think, Honestly, we're all awkward, human beings, but it's like you know when you're willing to kind of step out of your comfort zone and try these things that you're normally not comfortable with your, it's going to gradually, what was uncomfortable is going to get a little bit more and more comfortable, now it's like I can go on a live stream have nothing planned talk for an hour, and I know I'm gonna be fine. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. And you had some great guests on as well. Yeah, I had Jonah toyana As one of my latest episode that was so humbling to talk to him.
THOMAS MORRELLYeah, it's fun when you get people who are just super smart, and super kind of, I would say, almost like lightyears ahead of you. Right, talking to them like you're almost. It almost feels good when you're a little bit nervous to talk to the person that you're talking to because it makes you to try that extra bit. And that's exactly why I'm doing this because I want to become better at public speaking, and doing those things, I felt like it was a.
SAMUEL HARPERYou're doing a great job so far.
THOMAS MORRELLThanks, thanks, it can be nerve-wracking but it's it's fun so far it's also, you get to connect with really cool people so since the pandemic started, You know there is no networking. So doing this kind of thing is a perfect way to meet the people that you see and kind of appreciate and, you know, kind of form that relationship, so.
Yeah.
What do you feel is kind of been the hardest aspect of working in this field.
SAMUEL HARPER 21:18 So okay, so this is something that I've noticed at every so I've had three UX jobs so far I'm still relatively new in my career and I've been doing it for or ish years.
But what I've noticed that every single job is that
defining your, you know, when I say defining your role as a UX designer. What I mean is, everybody in their mother thinks they're a designer. If you're talking to the dev team, they're gonna try and give you design suggestions if you're talking to business analysts, they're going to try and give you design suggestions the, you know, the QA people are going to try and give you suggestions the janitor is going to try and give us. And I will say, you know, at my first job. Unfortunately, I didn't really I didn't have the mentorship that I really needed. And so I kind of turned into this like this weird like yes man where people would be like, oh I think I have a suggestion for this and this and this and I just said yes to everybody. And it didn't do the product any favors. And then it would, you know, and then like I would get to the point where I thought I had something ready, and then I would show it to people and be like hey what do you think of this and then they'd be like, Oh, why don't you do this with us and it's just like it was just this never ending cycle where, you know, it wasn't getting done, and I'm just kind of sitting here like what do I do. And I think one of the absolutely most critical skills for a UX designer to do, and I know this isn't uncomfortable but to put your foot down to say none. I mean, saying no, and not just No, I'm not going to do that but, so like, you know, one example, I've encountered in my career is that I was, I was working in this, you know, I'm leaving it big on purpose but there was just one product I was working on, and the dev team showed me in like a mock up that they made, that it was like it was, it was like totally out of proportion. It was not what I wanted. And, you know, of course they're thinking in their deaf mind so they thinking very like in the box rationally, it was like, Oh, what do you, but it works.
And I just couldn't, you know, and I was like, Guys, this isn't gonna work this modal is not set up the way we need it to be set up and we I think what I would like to do is I would like to redesign it to show you guys how I think it should, how it should be laid out. And so, as I'm going back and forth with them. One of the Deaf people says, Well, I think it's, I'm okay with whatever you do, as long as you don't have to scroll to get to the bottom, you know, it's like we were, it was like a two column and I was like, we need to put it into a one column, and that I realized that was one of those situations where, you know, earn very early US Sam would have been like oh okay, you know I wouldn't really ask why we're now. The, the way I approach that situation as I said, and realizing that I'm talking to a developer, my way of saying no was, is there any kind of specific developer reason like a technical reason as to why it needs to be two columns instead of one.
And that's just my way of kind of suddenly saying like hey I'm the UX designer, I'm the designer here. You're the developer, you do your job, I won't tell you how to do your dev work dev team, you know your desktop, but don't tell me how to do my UX job. And so I kind of put it back in his core is like, is there any reason from your end as to why we shouldn't design it this way and he was like, Oh no, it's just personal preference, and I was like great, I'm just gonna do it my way that love that. Yep, it's good to be collaborative, but you have to, you know, make final decisions. Yeah, absolutely and I mean I think that's that's honestly one of the biggest bits of advice that I would give to any Junior is learn how to professionally say no, and not just say no, just to be a jerk, but, you know, say no for the right reasons, because otherwise, everybody's going to try and tell you how to be a designer and you're just going to get like caught in this like this tug of war contest between 30 different people, and it's going to go nowhere. Yeah, I think that's one of the hardest things for people to get used to is you really need to grow some pretty thick skin because what we do is visual, even if you're not working on the final visual design, you're putting up wireframes you're putting up prototypes those things everybody can see it so everybody's gonna comment on it, and having the wherewithal to, you know, take those arrows and still stick to your guns is tough as to the skill that people have to build up.
THOMAS MORRELL 26:20 You did, you wrote another really great article that I had read where it sounds like you went through a pretty rough time. Think, loss of job, and then you put out an amazing article, and about the process you took to kind of go about finding a new job, building up the different skill sets. Could you just quickly maybe explain the steps you took to go through that and then, now, how you got to the point where you're now mentoring people, like I just think it's a great story.
SAMUEL HARPERCan you tell me what the title of that article is because I yeah I'm not quite sure.
THOMAS MORRELLI will tell you did reference a book that I love, which was, what color is your parachute.
SAMUEL HARPEROh yeah. Yeah, well I guess I'm kind of starting that direction so yes I mean, I think one of one of the things that I've noticed personally is I feel like cover letters are an absolute waste of time. In my opinion, I think they're an old relic of the 60s and the accountant world.
Not to say it can't be held, or but the way I see it because we are designers, you know we can visually, we don't have to describe that we're good like some fields you know like a, a, like an accountant might have to describe like oh well I worked on, you know, $100 million counts.
Whereas for us it's like we have to show that we're good.
So I see and, you know, in that sense that if you can have work that's live that people can actually see and interact with, you've got, you know, you've got your LinkedIn page you've got all these other platforms basically your goal is to kind of be the worst kept secret out there. So, a tagline I heard from a marketer that I really liked so I had a good one, I'd like to run with it. And I think that, you know, in my experience of like and this is even going back to my, my biology career but every time it seems like I've spent so much time like writing cover letters and then you know with my resume and sending it off and then they just gets auto rejected anyway. And I'm just like well screw that I'm gonna, I'm gonna prioritize it a little bit differently, you know, you kind of say like yes, you've got your resume, but it's the, it's, It's kind of like just a summary of what people are gonna find on Google anyway. And then the second and then after that, they're gonna see things like, you know, they're gonna see your portfolio, they're gonna see, you're gonna see your LinkedIn content they're gonna see podcasts, you're putting out in articles you're writing and all this stuff. And I feel like that's, you know, that in itself is a really big story to tell for who you are, necessarily.
And I you know I would say, Okay, so I am I am starting to remember what I believe what article you're talking about. So, when I so I actually, I was working at an agency here in Salt Lake. And I around July of 2020. I got a surprise, you know, surprise meeting put on my, my calendar that had at my boss's boss and me, and I was like okay, this doesn't look great but I showed up and then the HR person jumps on and they're like, Hey, we're cutting costs, and your job, no longer exists. And it just felt like I got punched in the gut right there, and you know I even asked them hey why did my job get cut like what was the reason behind this and then there it was just like, kind of got this vague non answer that was just like, Oh, it's just people have ever shifting things around so here's your severance pay good luck. Yeah. At that time, like shit I've got, I've got to figure this out, in, you know, whenever you're pushing put under pressure, you tend to get really creative.
So what I decided to do is I was the first some of these jobs that I was applying to. I, and I was also reading, reading the jobs to be done book, which if you haven't read it really recommended it's a fantastic book.
But I was applying that to my job search. And ultimately what you know what, I, the I, I got approached by a couple of jobs. One of them is the entrada that company I'm at right now. And I didn't just apply you know what I did is I really from an outsider's perspective I really looked at what you know looked at their business model, as much as you know as much as I was able to gauge.
And I, you know, I looked at like, who are the customers are serving. How are they normally serving these, these customers what potential pitfalls are they running into. And I kind of created almost like a case study around this, where I, I was talking about the the problems that were specific to Entrata.
And I was you know you put in talking about the jobs to be done method and like my thought process for how I would work essentially like talking kind of giving them as a snippet of what I would be like as an employee, and specifically as an intro to the employee.
And I even when they asked, you know, most companies, I'll just say like hey can you walk us through your, your portfolio, and I said, and I've got a PDF portfolio so I said sure I've got, I'll show you an example of one of the other projects I've worked on, but then on the second half, I was like hey guys, just so you know I created this other thing. Do you want to see it, they were like oh sure, you know they weren't expecting it at all, this was not something I was asked to do, I did this on my own. And I just completely went into like, This is how I would go about solving and trotters problems as an employee, I was already thinking like thinking about the end result before I even gotten the job. And by that, and I did this with this other software consulting agency and by that time like these both, both these companies like they were ready to get into a tug of war contest to try and bring me on and try to ultimately one so, I think, that is, that's an approach I usually like to take for job hunting and I think that it's, it served me incredibly well. Because you're not just saying like, this is, this is a project I'm working on, you're thinking more specifically, this is how I would go about solving your business problems and I've taken time to really try and understand your business problems as much as possible. I can't guarantee it would work for everybody but it's gonna be a lot more, I think it's gonna be a lot more effective than just, you know generally showing a portfolio project. Yeah, and way more effective than a cover letter, so. Right, absolutely, like that. That's great. I love that. I haven't seen many people do that, so that's going way above and beyond, but in a very good way, like okay that's gonna just totally put you right at the forefront and that interview process that love it.
THOMAS MORRELL 33:57 So what would you say to somebody, you know, somebody young 20 year old, possibly, you know, marine biology student starting to think you know maybe this isn't for me. And they're really interested in UX design thinking about making the career switch. What would be your advice to them.
SAMUEL HARPEROh man, that's awfully specific so you're asking, what I would say to a general person in my position or to me.
THOMAS MORRELL 34:23 A general person.
SAMUEL HARPER 34:26 Really, what I mean I guess what I would say from a very general perspective is, you can't know what you want to do entirely by just figuring it out in your head that's impossible. You really just have to, it's like, you know life is really just a big trial and error of trying things and seeing if you like them.
So I would say just like, you know, hold on to the, what you liked from your previous, you know what you've discovered you like even going back to like your first, you know, my first job was, I was bagging groceries at a Safeway at 16 years old. Okay, even like in that first job like what did you like about that, um, you know, and then like in my next job I was working in a Wendy's like what did you like about that and kind of looking at, what have you built up over the years that you've realized interest you, and like appeals to you in the jobs that you've had, and then just kind of, I think you'll get a much better picture. If you're able to look at, you know look retrospectively at that but then also say, Oh, I'm interested in, you know, for when I was trying to figure things out, like I was even looking at like occupational therapies and some of these other things so I went to, like, I was in Colorado and Colorado State has a program so I went to one of their, like, occupational therapy, seminars, realized it wasn't me, that's fine, but I put myself, You know I said I'm interested in learning more about the ash and let me go sample it for a little bit and see if I like it. I love the, the, I don't even know what an occupational therapist does but they, they help people who are injured to basically recover. Oh, okay. so it's like that like you've got the physical therapist who helps them like regain control of their body and then the occupational therapist helps them like, get back to the normal functioning life.
THOMAS MORRELL 36:28 Gotcha, gotcha. That would be pretty rewarding job as well but I understand if that's not your thing that's not your thing.
SAMUEL HARPER 36:39 Well, It was my thing but UX is way more my thing.
THOMAS MORRELLGood, good. And so where should people go to connect with you.
SAMUEL HARPERI would say just, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn, I'm, I'm on LinkedIn pretty frequently. I've taken a kind of a hiatus from posting on LinkedIn for a little while and that's just because I've been busy with the moving into my new place, but I do plan on producing a lot more content very soon so yeah just connect with me on LinkedIn, and follow my content and just say hi.
THOMAS MORRELLFantastic. I can't thank you enough for coming on. I really appreciate it and it's nice to finally talk to you in person after you know watching a lot of your videos and stuff online. So, really appreciate it.
SAMUEL HARPERNice to meet you. It's good talking to you too, Thomas, take care.
THOMAS MORRELL 37:24 And that's the show, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in today, if you haven't already please subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. I'll be releasing a show about every other week or so, if you'd like to be a friend of the show, leaving a review and a comment on Apple would be very much appreciated, share a link to this show with your friends and anyone else who's interested in UX design, feel free to recommend topics you'd like to hear discussed here. And if you have any questions about design, design careers, or anything else for that matter, you can DM me on my Instagram @userflows.live
Now let's go create.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai