28: User Experience Design with Mark Hoffman

In this episode, I talk to Mark Hoffman about user experience (UX) design, which is closely tied to learning design and why Mark, an instructional designer, has decided to take this career side step.

Mark is an educator and learning development professional who began his career as a high school social studies teacher and happily landed in the career of instructional design. Mark has a passion for leveraging technology to make materials that are respectful of learner's time, and are learner centered. He is currently pursuing a Masters in User Experience Design, and hopes to create thoughtful user-centered products upon completion of his program. Connect with Mark on LinkedIn!

Mark's suggestions for learning more about UX design:

Connect with Heidi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiekirby/ or on my website: www.heidikirby.com

Thanks for listening to the BLOC!

Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiekirby/

Or check out what I'm working on over at https://www.getusefulstuff.com/

Mark Hoffman: 0:00

For me, it's humanizing a lot of website and application interactions and just kind of getting to the meat of what users really want from something.

Heidi Kirby: 0:15

Hello, friends and welcome to the block the building learning an organizational culture podcast. I'm your host Heidi Kirby. On today's episode, I talked to my friend Mark Hoffman about how his career in l&d is about to make a slight sidestep into the world of user experience design, l&d and user experience design or UX design, share a lot of similar elements. And I think you'll find this episode particularly interesting. Hey, Mark, how are you? Good, how

Mark Hoffman: 0:49

you doing it?

Heidi Kirby: 0:50

Good. So let's just jump right in. Why don't you tell me a little bit about you and how you ended up in l&d?

Mark Hoffman: 0:58

Sure. My name is Mark Hoffman. I'm currently an instructional designer with a hospital in Northeast Ohio. I originally had started out as a high school teacher, and spent a year over in Korea came back went back into high school education moved up to the Akron area. And anyone who's a teacher knows that teachers stay there until they retire typically. So there weren't a ton of social studies jobs. And I was just reading a position at this organization. I was like, I think I might be qualified for this maybe got hired, thankfully, and found out I'd like it and pretty okay at it. So my, my journey into instructional design was a complete and total accident. But it's a good one. I'm okay with the way everything ended up. So I found out I really like it. And I've been sort of chugging along for the last three years as a learning development professional.

Heidi Kirby: 2:03

Awesome. That's great. I think for most people, it's an accident, right? Yeah. I always say that, like, you know, of all the things that all the little kindergarteners say that they want to be when they grew up instructional designers never on the list. Oddly, yeah.

Mark Hoffman: 2:18

Yeah. And it's such an ambiguous thing for a lot of people. Like when I told people what I was going to be doing. Duck. So what does that mean? I'm like, yeah, it was kind of my response, like, I I'll let you know.

Heidi Kirby: 2:33

Right? Or you get for people who are like, oh, you should come to my house because I definitely need help with decorating and you're like, No, no, that's not. No, not interior design. Like, Yeah, correct. And then there's my my mom who I love my mom, but like, she like tells people that I was like, creating training manuals for NASA. For NASA. Oh, my man. What is that? Like? What is the training manual? Manual? What do you think this even is?

Mark Hoffman: 3:07

I will have so many people since I'm in the medical field. Be like, but you didn't go to med school? Oh, yeah. That's like yeah, no, I'm not diagnosing I'm literally I'm like a time saving cost saving systems training guru. Like, I'm not.

Heidi Kirby: 3:25

That's a good way to describe it. Very,

Mark Hoffman: 3:27

yeah. It took three years, you know,

Heidi Kirby: 3:30

right. It does. It takes time to like find your way that like the most people understand it, right. A lot of people will do like the, you know, that boring compliance training that you take when you start hit companies. I make that yeah, I try to. I try not to do that. When

Mark Hoffman: 3:48

I when I explain when I have like doctor's appointments. I explain what I do. I definitely see a sort of set happened to the nurses eyes like so you made that thing. I was like, oh, no, I didn't make that one. But probably a different one. You did. Maybe. Sorry.

Heidi Kirby: 4:07

Right? Yeah, yeah, the good one. i Good one, one. I didn't

Mark Hoffman: 4:12

really like trying to do like most that one.

Heidi Kirby: 4:16

That one was mine. Oh, how funny. That was mine. Yeah. No, that's great. But recently, you've decided to take a bit of a sidestep and pursue further education in what I like to call a cousin of instructional design. Tell me a little bit about that.

Mark Hoffman: 4:36

Yeah, um, so for a number of years, I've been interested in it. And my, my dad, my brother, both software developers and I had tried a couple times to get into software development and my brain is just not that in a lot of different ways. It just wasn't fulfilling but then I had a my wife and a couple friends that told me about user experience design, which not only does it have one of the words of my profession, in the title, it is a much more human aspects sort of of IT development. So I was looking at into Kent State's online user experience design program, because it just sort of fits. Because it's just, for me, it's humanizing a lot of website and application interactions and just kind of getting to the meat of what users really want from something and also like, what are their pain points, what they don't like, and actually kind of getting to get down to more of the design elements that are really fun, when you're sort of starting to build out any sort of elearning course, or anything where you're actually getting to talk with people before you're sitting for hours trying to make a single interaction work. It's much more of that work, where you're getting to sort of wireframe, like make prototypes of things, and get to do more of sometimes visual aspects to it. Other times, it could just be researching who you're going to be building something for what they really don't like about the current process, or what they want from a new application. So it just, it sat satisfies a lot of the Creative Problem Solving elements that kind of push into learning development professions.

Heidi Kirby: 6:26

Yeah, for sure. So could you give me an example of just from like your own experience, like a good example of a user experience and a bad example.

Mark Hoffman: 6:38

Um, I think a good example, would probably be something that is, I mean, I don't want to name dropping something. So a good example, would be, if you're going through any sort of application, it could be even like a desktop application, let's say. And it's intuitive. Like when you're going through, they'll have their tutorial, but you're not really having to go back through as far as the pathways to gain something done, are pretty linear. And they're aesthetically pleasing. So like, something I really like is drag and drop features that actually work, where it's things where you're not having to necessarily like right click into something like you see the preview of it, you can pull it over, it works, and he don't have to think about it much more. So the the taking the sort of like common settings that you know, everyone's going to use anyway, and making those that default, and not having too much chaff kind of in the mix. I think a bad design is something that is just busy, I guess, like not minimalistic, like, there's a lot of details around and it can be we've all sort of fallen into it. I think at some point in our journey with design. We're like, oh, well, these are the 14 things they definitely need. We're going to have these definitely available, when in reality, there's probably only about five of those someone might actually use and you can put those in a sub menu somewhere where if they really need to, it's still in there, they can dig. But I think bad design would be just overcomplicating that and making there are a lot of steps to get to a single thing to put in my current role it would be if there's a lot of clicks, that is probably one of the biggest complaints is okay, well, it took me 10 clicks to get here and I work eight hours. And that was a five minute process. So how long is this going to take me then you put in like load times for if you're hiding things in more areas and more things, making everything slower? And of course, just not aesthetically pleasing? Because I mean, busy things are hard to deal with. Like, at least for me personally. I Less is more, right?

Heidi Kirby: 8:59

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure if you've ever read the book by Don Norman Design of Everyday Things. But it's all about like, just bad design and like bad user experience. So you know, like the, the push doors that you can't actually open because they run into something or you know, like just the things that you see in everyday life. One thing that drives me nuts is like you mentioned a desktop application, but like something that isn't friendly, switching back and forth between desktop and mobile. I can't tell you how many big companies where it's like, okay, I usually access this on my desktop, but right now I'm on my mobile and I still want to do the same features and functionality and it's not there, right? Or it's glitchy or it's slow or it's like, why isn't this Why is half of my screen cut off? You know, right. So it's very that's it's always interesting to me how much we Don't consider the user experience and how. So working with software developers and working with them throughout my career, like, they're just so focused on getting something functional, which is great. But like, they do need that other person to come in and be like, okay, yes, this is functional, but it's super inconvenient for the end user.

Mark Hoffman: 10:22

Yeah. And I mean, it's, I feel like it's hard to sort of balance. Well, this is the function we wanted. And then also, I feel like some design elements are less utilitarian. Right? Where as yes, this works. But do we need this here? Because I mean, we're all sort of transient, like in today's society, where we don't necessarily have to be on our computer to do work that requires the same type of quality and sleep. And so it's even like the idea of I think something that will probably be difficult when I get into it, if I'm ever working on mobile applications is okay, what do you sacrifice to make it fit? Are there menus that need to go away other features that need to go away? To make it run correctly? And like make it like, Okay, well, we know, we have this huge menu, but mobile, we can fit five, and it won't be too bad. Like, the five. So thank you so much at this, like idealized because it's just one of those things where like, even an education like going for a major in education, I'm like, This is how I'll do things. I'm sure I'm gonna get like 18 hours into the coursework and just be like, Man, I had a misunderstanding inside.

Heidi Kirby: 11:39

Sure, for sure. It's like the people who like it's their first time with like, one of the elearning authoring tools, and they want to put every layer and use every type of interaction and every button because they're just so excited. And then like, the end product is like, this is unusable. Oh, yeah, there's way too much going on. And like you said, all the clicks, and all the

Mark Hoffman: 12:02

Yeah, trying to make an advanced action. And you're like, you know what, this is gonna be easy. I'm gonna do a bunch of if then statements, and then you're, I'm not speaking from experience or anything. You're You're five days from publishing, and everything breaks, and you're like, maybe, maybe it was too much.

Heidi Kirby: 12:21

Right? Maybe it was too much. Yeah, no, that's totally true. And I think that, you know, the other thing that I've seen now that my current role is more focused on software, I've seen a lot of people train software, who don't have like an l&d background where they just like, go top to bottom left to right, and show you what every little thing on the screen does. And it's like, so intense, and it's way too much. And you're like, Whoa, I can't retain all of this. And so like, one of the things that I read was like, spend your time spend 80% of your training on the 20% of things that they're going to use every day, and then just lightly touch on everything else. And that's how I feel like, that's what I feel like one of the connections is right is like that idea of focus on what's important. And think about your end user, which, for instructional designers, that's our learner, and I feel like our field is becoming a lot more learner centered, which is good.

Mark Hoffman: 13:24

Yeah, it's definitely good. And I've seen the same exact thing with assistance training, as far as it's, it's the I can, but should I, right? Like I could tell you, right, maybe eight different ways to finish a process, or we could for like user experience design, like I could build out eight different pathways to get to the same thing. But so that you can access at any point. But should we write like, is this? Is this too much? Like, are we just like doing it for the sake of that we can type of thing?

Heidi Kirby: 13:56

Yeah, absolutely. So let me ask you, because so as you probably know, there are a lot of teachers who are trying to get into lnd right now. I think the pandemic really kind of was the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people who are kind of like me, I'm not really sure if this is the right career for me. And so typically, what I see happen with the organization that I volunteer with, is that they just like, immediately go to instructional design, because like, that's what all of like the marketing materials or, you know, the academies out there telling them to do, but it's not a good fit for everybody. And I always asking people and meeting with people and saying, like, what aspects of teaching Did you like? And so I'm curious, what aspects of teaching and your background and education really helped you, in the UX world?

Mark Hoffman: 14:49

I think a lot of it is, and it's one of those things that like, you can't necessarily necessarily teach. It's like the things you sort of learn as you're like kind of having to be in the room. Folks, um, one of the big things that I saw that kind of was actually what kind of motivated me to apply is talking about, like how much like empathy and problem solving kind of comes into it. And anyone that's worked in a classroom definitely knows that there's a lot of that that is necessary for anything to be even remotely successful. So I think a lot of the soft skills of just being able to sort of read a room is kind of what I think will be most important, because the one thing that I've seen when I've been trying to teach myself like what actually is this field is they're talking about being like a neutral observer, when you're doing a lot of your questioning and like, not being able to sort of give away what you're thinking, which, with working with high schoolers, especially, I feel like I had to be a neutral observer a lot, because especially like, what the school is, I was working and there's a lot of things going on in my students lives I like I had no personal experience with I'm not even gonna pretend like I have a personal experience with. And so there's no, not that judgment is ever appropriate. But there's not even like an appropriate level of judgment for me, putting a value statement, anything that's going on. So I think that is something that is really invaluable to this career path. And also just the whole mantra for teachers is like beg, steal, borrow, right? Like when you're looking for resources, because the budgets never enough, the time is never enough. If you're lucky, you have enough parent involvement. If you're not then okay, how do you how do you supplement that? I think that will be kind of that sort of scrappiness is kind of something that fits because it's, it's a really big, I don't think people realize it in the moment, that is a huge critical thinking problem solving mindset where you're constantly just like, assuming you don't have, so you're always having to kind of like be a little innovative with what you do have, and use things in ways that they're not necessarily supposed to be used, but are definitely going to help and kind of give you an edge as far as just being agile with solutions.

Heidi Kirby: 17:09

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also to that point, you know, being able to find inspiration from others, you know, like anyone creating lesson plans, and whatever, you know, like, let's be real, probably, a majority of UX designers aren't going to like, come up with the groundbreaking new way to design a web page or something, you know, you're going off of best practices that you see that you use in your everyday life. That's another similarity that you have between instructional design that I'm always trying to push on people. It's like, how do your learners learn when they're not at work? Right? And like, replicate that, because that's the way people like to consume their information. It's the same with UX design. It's like, what apps what games? What, how are people interacting with media and technology outside of work? Okay, now replicate that for the best experience, because they're already going to know how to use those things. It's going to be more intuitive. Yeah. And it's like the ego

Mark Hoffman: 18:13

crush of knowing that you're not going to create the groundbreaking thing, like, you're not gonna do that, then people are like, I've never seen this before. Because like, we gravitate towards things that we always like, you don't like, the type of video games I play our, I don't think there's any surprises. Like if you look at the however many years I've been playing, it's like that makes sense. Those are things that you like, like, there's very rarely like, I'm not gonna go to play like, I don't know, like, a card playing game that is digital, because that's something I've never gotten into. So if someone's like, Hey, you liked this franchise? What if we did this? I'm gonna say thanks, I hate it. And I think there's a lot of that with instructional design, which I know I made that mistake early on, where I'm like, I'm gonna reinvent this one. It's like, you don't necessarily have to just be more approachable, then A, B, and C, which involves thinking that your ideas aren't necessarily going to be like top tier like, this is where you need to be. And I think with some probably more ambitious folks, in designing like, web design and everything, I'm sure they've experienced the same thing they're like, but what if it did this? It's like, but what if it didn't, though? We did something else that we know works.

Heidi Kirby: 19:36

Yeah, of course. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with like the tried and true methods. Right? It absolutely. Sometimes Sometimes people think that the methods are tried and true, and they're not necessarily and that's when it becomes the issue. Yeah, so tell me about I'm sure you've identified a few as you kind of get ready to start your program but tell me about some have like the skill gaps that you're anticipating that you're going to need to close in order to switch from il maybe from both teaching and instructional design to UX?

Mark Hoffman: 20:12

Yeah, I think I was just talking with my wife about this yesterday. I think definitely just like the tech side of development, and everything of kind of like, understanding more of that world, like I have a very, like, I sit around and my brother, my dad talked about it understanding of a lot of software development, where I'm aware of a lot of it, I know it exists. But as far as like, working within some of the frameworks of what that means as far as the development cycle and everything. I have all of like the soft and squishy character traits, but a lot of the tech stuff like, I'm a little more literate than a lot of people, but I know I'm a lot less literate than, than a lot. As far as like, data analytics concerning why you do something in an application. Like I know it from like, being able to assess as a teacher and an l&d professional, like, I know how to assess a learning program. And like, was this successful? Was this not I know those metrics? I have no idea the type of metrics that they're going to require me to learn it also just there's a lot of UX fundamentals, like when I'm looking through the coursework, there's a lot of like fundamentals of user experiences. I'm just started, like, I know the fundamentals of teaching, like all of like Pavlov's hierarchies of needs, and everything is Bloom's Taxonomy. Like those things share, like, I get those. But as far as like, what is like the the normal things that we can't function without X, Y, and Z type of stuff. So I think a lot a lot of it's just it's sort of like, it's the imposter syndrome. Anyone has an a new career, right? Where you're looking, of course, yeah, and especially when you're writing things like goal statements and everything, and you're trying to come up with, okay, what are what are the skills that I have that make this a good switch? And then you're staring at the screen, you're like, nothing? Absolutely nothing. So I think that's how I feel when it comes to tech stuff where it's like, I'm good at it. But like, I know that there's a lot to learn.

Heidi Kirby: 22:20

Sure, sure. And I think that that's important. I like what you said about like, kind of like the foundational knowledge, right? Because I feel like, I feel like sometimes people who are trying to move from teaching to l&d get really stuck and skip that part. They get like, they get distracted by like, learning all the sexy tools that you have to learn to design instruction. And, you know, it'd be like a UX person being like, oh, my gosh, figma, you know, and then like, ignoring all of the things that like, lead up to that. So I think that's important to recognize and realize is that like, just like you had to learn all of these, like theories and ways people learn to get into teaching. There's also those in other fields that you have to kind of become familiar with, if you want to make a career change. Yeah. Because I think there's

Mark Hoffman: 23:11

a protective element to it to where you, you want your previous career to feel really validated as you're going through it. And so it's like, it's almost like a protective thing, where it's like, well, I was good enough for teaching. So I'm good enough for this. Friday, so I'm good enough for this one. It's like, there's a yes. And element to it. Like, yeah, you are. And you do need to put in the work again, because this is a new pathway for you like, yeah, you're great with adolescents. Are you great with adults?

Heidi Kirby: 23:41

Right? knows, right? And I've even compared it to like going from an individual contributor and ID to going to a management position. Like, there were things there are books, I had to read, like the the, you know, quintessential Leadership Theory books and the leadership theory that you have to learn and like how to deal with people how to have difficult conversations. Yeah, those are all pieces. And that's not even necessarily like, it's not a career change in the sense that we typically think of like moving to a different field. But yeah, we're still things I had to kind of learn and expand on.

Mark Hoffman: 24:19

I'm sure there's aspects you have to let go of. And then there's also aspects that you have to like, own more heavily, like, I think especially for like, creative, like design professionals. I imagine it's so hard to be like, Okay, I'm not the one building this, but I have that's it, but also I have to be respectful that people who are building it, because it's they're creating it. I imagine that's like really kind of hard.

Heidi Kirby: 24:46

Yeah. Yeah, Kara north and I were actually talking about that because she recently has become a manager in the last couple of years too. And she said that one of the hardest things to let go was like you up, okay, here you go do the design work now. And she was like, but I want to do it. I'm like, Yes, I know me too, like, and it's, it's not even so much that like, because part of the reason I wanted to be a manager in the first place is because I didn't want to do the design work all day every day. But like, there's still part of that where it's like, well, I could just do it. And I'd get it done faster. And I know what I have in my head. And it's like, you have to step aside and be like, yes, but this person that I've hired is equally as capable as I am. Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: 25:34

And that's so the design element, sort of what's pushing me towards UX too, because like, the field I currently work in, there's a lot of opportunities to be creative and like, do things. But it's like, since it's systems training, realistically, it is as efficient as possible, which is absolutely what it should be like, I have no qualms about that. But I like the idea of getting in on the ground floor. And like, even if it's not like necessarily a graphic design type of thing, just kind of getting back to we have a problem. How do we solve it? Not necessarily, like we know how to solve it, we need you to just make the thing that solves it. And we want to XYZ which I'm sure there's still that with UFC where they're like, hey, oh, sure. We want this to do this. And you're like, I will organize it that's like, yeah, yeah, it's but it's also like the design work gets fatigue into and like different elements, which I think is another, like different design work for me. Like I thought about doing management. One point, I'm like, at this stage, I'm like, I don't I don't know if I want to do that. At this point right now. Good for you, man. That's awesome.

Heidi Kirby: 26:49

I I've just always been really bossy, and so I figured it was time to start leveraging it.

Mark Hoffman: 26:54

Yeah. I'm like, for anyone that does like Enneagram stuff like, I'm Enneagram nine squishy just like, it's okay, man do do your thing. Like, that's cool.

Heidi Kirby: 27:06

You could lead like the team building events.

Mark Hoffman: 27:10

I'll make everyone feel safe and valued in that event. But they'll be like, Hey, we really need you to talk to this person about that. I'll be like, you don't though. It's I'm sure I'm sure they'll figure it out. I'm sure they got this eventually.

Heidi Kirby: 27:24

Yeah, we would not go to mark for performance conversations.

Mark Hoffman: 27:28

Yeah, I could do it in a way where I make them feel great. And I'm sure I could do. I could do a couple things, here and there. But like, I'm sure it would be like a week of me sitting there being like, this is gonna be awful.

Heidi Kirby: 27:42

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is definitely one of the hard parts about it. Yeah.

Mark Hoffman: 27:46

I like God bless all of you. All, you folks have to evaluate people constantly. Because that's, that's a lot.

Heidi Kirby: 27:54

Yeah. Well, I just have one last question for you. Yeah, that is, if any of our listeners want to find out more about UX, if they're intrigued by what you said, what one source or website or video anything? Would you recommend for somebody to kind of just learn more about the fields in general?

Mark Hoffman: 28:17

Yeah. Um, so if you just do a handy Google search on what is USD. So career foundry actually has really good resources as far as it goes through, all the way back to the PCs, which I think is always interesting when we try and put modern values to stuff people were doing when it was like, Hey, I'm a subsistence farmer. But um, but career Foundry has a really good sort of overall timeline of what is UX UI? How did it develop? What are the different fields, because within UX UI is sort of like saying you're an l&d, there are a bunch of different pathways to what you can do. And then also it kind of exposes, so what I got worried about was, I didn't want to do a ton of coding, like if I have to code fine. But then it was like, oh, no, that's user interface design. So if you want to do that, go here. And I was like, Oh, cool. I'll keep scrolling. But that's good to know. Because that's like, yeah, outside of UX is those of the people that are doing a lot of like the interface coding and stuff like that. So I think that's a really good research. As far as the very good service level, there's like a few video clips and like, yeah, there's an infographic like pretty much every other scroll that's really valuable. And also, if you have access LinkedIn learning, there's a lot of good courses out there that go through the fundamentals, and also the different paths, like pretty intensely, as far as like, what is there's a whole course called like, what is user experience design? And it that's a pretty good one. It's not as approachable as this because you can scroll through and pick and choose. But I mean, it's, it's pretty valuable as well.

Heidi Kirby: 29:57

Yeah, and fun fact about LinkedIn learning, I think If you do a 30 day free trial of like the LinkedIn premium, I don't I don't know if that's exactly what it's called. But you can get access to LinkedIn learning courses, but you may have access through your local library. Yeah. Yeah. It might be called lynda.com. Still, if they're still still going with the old nomenclature, l y n, dA. But yeah, I always encourage people to check with their local library if they have access to LinkedIn learning instead of paying for it. So yeah, for sure. Well, thank you for joining me Mark and talking to us about instructional designs cousin.

Mark Hoffman: 30:38

Thanks for having me it.

Heidi Kirby: 30:40

Thanks again for joining me on the blog. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and review us on your favorite podcast platform. I hope you'll tune in again soon.

BLOC Podcast

28: User Experience Design with Mark Hoffman

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