Overview

As the sole UX designer on the Skills Network team at IBM, I was tasked with the responsibility of enhancing Skills Network for all stakeholders involved. When I was told that, the first question I remember asking was, "What's the Skills Network?" 

Skills Network is a multi-platform solution that empowers educators to teach cutting edge technologies with online tools on a global scale. Its three platforms are -

1. Author Workbench, for educators to create course content

2. Curator, for managers to create and manage course packages

3. Multiple Portals for both employers (who purchase and deploy learning content) as well as learners (who take courses)

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Design Process

Due to a NDA with IBM, I will not be able to disclose more information regarding my work in a public space.

For more details, please reach out to me at shalettedsouza@gmail.com.

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Deliverables

Impact

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Learnings

   1. There is great value in saying 'no'.

I've always thought that creative ideation is the most important responsibility of a UX designer. However, working with my team taught me that everyone has great ideas - developers came up with the most feasible features and marketers presented the most lucrative considerations to collect user information. In trying to understand my teammates' opinions and user needs, I learned that a major role of a UX designer is to prioritize the user. This means saying 'no' to good suggestions, if they end up becoming obstacles to the user.

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   2. Different viewpoints are essential to ideating creative solutions.

During my time in this role, I worked with developers, data scientists and marketers. Working in a cross-functional team gave me the opportunity to understand the limitations and possibilities of the project, which eventually led me to create working solutions that addressed both user needs and business requirements.

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