The UX Book 2 — Preface

My Self-Study Project

I recently had the chance to interview a UX designer I admire that I found through LinkedIn. He works for a large consulting firm and leads his team through product design, taking what I would consider a strict adherence to UX best practices.

After our conversation, which included running through a mock UX project and discussing the many steps he would take to tackle such a project, I felt a little out-of-sorts. While in my current position I lead our team in all manners pertaining to UX, having such an in-depth conversation with a true subject matter expert with decades of experience left me feeling humbled and overwhelmed at the same time.

Enter The UX Book 2 — Agile UX design for a quality user experience. The book is co-authored by Rex Hartson, a UX expert hailing from my alma mater, Virginia Tech. I remember learning from the first edition of this book during my internship, and much of my foundational skills and knowledge came from Hartson’s research. But it’s been years since that first UX internship, and in my working life, much of which has been spent as a “lone wolf” UX designer on a team comprised of programmers and project managers, it’s been easy for some foundational UX principles to slip through the cracks.