S2 Episode 5 - Shannon Kelly - Embracing the Unicorn Style for Better Product Designs   Introduction Shannon Kelly is a famous UX Designer known to marry business needs, marketing targets, and user-focused goals together. Drawing inspiration from a number of data-driven approaches like analytics and conversion rate optimization, she has helped brands like Fathom, New way and UMC see new horizons of success. A committed volunteer for UXPA Cleveland Board and a consultant for Usborne Books and More, Shannon Kelly is the UX Digital Strategist at Overdrive.   Discussion Points How is the journey that you've been on as a professional web designer to being a digital strategist? 01:07 What is your experience like engaging with the conference from the inside? 03:48 How has that inspired your work? Or change your career as a UX professional, while knowing that there is a lot of suffering in the world? 08:38 Rapid Fire. 13:04 You have won quite a few awards in your lifetime, how much inspiration that you get out of these recognitions? 32:02 What advice would you give to somebody just starting out in the journey of UX, and what should they do to stand out from the crowd and be hired? 34:43 Show Notes Hey, do you want to learn about conversion rate optimization? And I was like, sure, like, what's this? And they're like, oh, yeah, you can use data to justify your design decisions, and also, how you learn to make recommendations and stuff like that.  02:18 The one thing that kind of helped me as a catalyst, from a designer to a UX professional is that gap where I  learn how to use this data to not only help my clients but also make better recommendations for their users. 03:15 People say you shouldn't be a unicorn, but I'm a fan of being a unicorn because you get to know how things work throughout the whole process. 21:38 If we're at the table in the forefront, if we're planning, strategizing, and organizing things, we can make the process easier for everybody in the company. 24:07 It could be a really great thing if more companies had better, more mature UX practices in their companies. 23:47 The most important skill that you can have, as a UX person, in this industry is critical thinking. Don't take anything at face value, really think things through and be methodical, and always ask why why why why, whether it's why is this project coming to us? 35:23 Being a great team player on a good UX team, means you recognize how other people work and their styles and how they take feedback and how they receive feedback, and how they're giving it to you. 38:02 You just need to have patience and resilience. I think that's the hardest thing. I think a lot of people quit because they just can't handle the fact that people still don't get what UX is. 38:51 Contact LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonmkelly Company website: https://shannonkellyux.com/ Portfolio/ website: https://shannonkellyux.com/about/ Email: [email protected]   #designjob #datadrivendesign #designmentor #uxworkflow  #userexperience #uxdesign #uxresearch #webdesignonline #userexperiencejourney