673: How to Break Into UX and UI Design With Justin Dauer, bswift [Espresso Shots]

Justin Dauer is the vice president of human-centered design and development at bswift, a software as a service company in the healthcare industry. After years of being unhappy in his work, Justin quit his job and searched for a company with truly good workplace culture. Eventually he found a job working for a Swedish company where they embraced the idea of human centered design. That’s a type of design thinking in which workers are viewed as more than just resources, but rather as human beings worthy of respect and decency. Justin’s most recent book, Creative Culture: Human-Centered Interaction, Design and Inspiration was released in June 2020. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received a B.F.A in visual communications. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: What the terms UX and UI Design mean (3:55) Why Justin most values empathy and humility in the people that he hires (6:02) How your portfolio can outweigh a graduate degree if you want to work in this field (10:14) Why having the ability to work and connect with people is crucial (11:42) Why Justin took a group of co-workers with all different roles to Moab, Utah (13:11) How Justin has learned to embrace the advice of staying humble (18:42) How the website UX Collective is a good depiction of Justin’s job (21:21) What Justin means when he says that ‘the first thing we do is not design’ (22:21) If you want to learn more about what Justin does in his current job and how he built his career check out his main T4C episode #481