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Getting There from Here
Carving Your Career Path in Healthcare UX
One of the consequences of writing and publishing a shit-ton of content around healthcare design (and design in general) is I am frequently asked how I got to where I am. People will come across an article I authored or some mention in a tweet or comment and reach out to me. Generally, their questions are central to healthcare design and what path they need to follow to get their foot in the door. I was even asked this question in a recent podcast with Jane Portman of UI Breakfast.
The question comes across my desk so often, I thought I would just sit down and write out my thoughts on the matter. A little context is in order. The questions usually come from someone who currently works in healthcare in some capacity — a nurse, for example. Sometimes it comes from someone who has hit a wall in their current career and discovered there is absolutely no meaning in what they do. Regardless, the gist is the same. How do I get from where I am now to where you are now? How do I get from here to there?
I always try to be as generous as my time will allow in answering this question. I have even met with young designers to have coffee and discuss career options (despite having very little qualifications in this regard). But I give them all the bad news first. There is no singular path or formula a person can follow to duplicate success in this respect. There are simply too many variables to account for.
We all seek the magic bullets in life — a pill to help us lose weight, the seminar that will take our career to the next level or the self-help book that will solve all of our problems. We often read memoirs of the rich and famous hoping to somehow tap into what they have. If we just follow their formula, we believe we can mimic their success.
This brings us to my first tidbit of wisdom: Your path to success will not mirror mine. We are different people operating at different points in time against a different set of variables.
When it comes to careers, there is no way to factor in all of the variables between your life and someone else’s. Consider my career. I started before the “UX Boom” of the aughts. It wasn’t even really referred to as UX when I started. Information Architecture was a more…
