Week 9: Communities of Practice

(Jopwell 2019)

Reflections

This week we explored the realms of community and how it can benefit both our personal and professional development. It’s become ever more clear that UX designers are continually learning from each other even when they don’t work in the same city, business or industry. Online communities aim to bring practitioners together, creating a space where people can build connections, start discussions and share their thoughts and ideas. Communities tend to be hosted on various social media and blogging platforms where people can generally join for free or upon paying a small fee.

I initially felt anxious and like an intruder when researching the various UX-related communities. In looking through the posts and discussions, I slowly saw the depth and breadth of articles and discussions and felt out of my depth. With that said, I was quickly drawn to topics that aligned with my interests which reminded me that there are many different pathways, even within UX Design. One evening, while browsing Instagram, I found the page of a UX designer who was part of the UX Collective community and publication. I first noticed the easy-to-read layout and simplistic design, which caught my attention and led me to explore the site. Furthermore, new posts were being added every day, with the community members interacting by way of likes and comments. Although a paid-for community, the fee is minimal, and I frequently get hooked on reading new and existing articles about issues in the UX and creative industries. A major attraction to this community was its focus on accessibility, as well as the accessibility of the website itself. The site (hosted by medium.com) works perfectly with my screen reader, meaning I can easily listen to articles without the mental strain of reading to absorb the content.

Further reading highlighted the use of open-source software and the collective nature by which it is continually developed. Although I’d heard of open-source software before, I’d never considered the community aspect, let alone the fact that anyone with an interest can join said communities and start making contributions right away (Muffatto 2006). I think it’s fantastic that there’s no obligation to contribute to open-source projects. One could simply engage with discussions or offer suggestions if, for example, they lacked coding knowledge.

Going forward, I plan to keep up-to-date with the UX Collective community by reviewing the weekly newsletter and browsing the feed in my spare time. I particularly enjoy reading the comments left by other users and aim to contribute throughout my studies. It’s clear to see how users can build a following in the community, and I intend to start interacting with like-minded users and building a network of my own. I look forward to drawing inspiration from my peers and am hopeful that I will have some meaningful content to contribute in the coming months.

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Challenge Activity

Task: Create an ethnography report that is based on participation observation. This should include a review of: the tone and language used by members of the community; activities and behaviours such as social gatherings and events; the types and modes of interaction, patterns and rules of the community.

I came across a UX community by chance while browsing Instagram. Through exploring the profile of an Irish UX designer, his bio had a link to UX Collective, a “blog built to help designers think more critically about their work” (UX Collective 2022). Anyone can join the community, read others’ articles, contribute their own material, and create a followable profile for networking purposes.

By selecting articles with multiple interactions through likes and comments, I used a tagging system to interpret the general tone and language used in the community. The articles themself tended to convey a serious yet optimistic tone while proving persuasive in some aspects. Opinion pieces were plentiful, too, with authors using motivational language to grasp readers’ attention. Depending on the subject being discussed, there was a mixture of formal and informal styles of writing, although I noticed a degree of sincerity throughout the various facts and ideas being put across.

A key feature of each article was the comments section, allowing members to voice their opinions and offer suggestions on what they’d read. I found optimism to be a key theme throughout, with members often expressing joy and humour among other more serious feedback. I generally detected an informal tone and noticed a tendency for self-promotion either at the end of a comment or solely in response to the article. This tended to include links to the user’s social media pages, their website or a sign-up link to individuals’ mailing lists, for example.

The community’s blogs and information pages show no mention of online or in-person events run specifically by UX Collective. However, there was a page dedicated to conferences, events and meetups that the editors had either been to or wanted to attend in future. In total, there were 37 suggested events taking place across the globe that mainly concerned UX as well as those about creativity and technology. UX Collective is primarily hosted by medium.com, “an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic” (Medium 2021). However, UX Collective operates on other social media sites, too, the most active of which being Twitter and LinkedIn, where articles from the Medium feed are re-posted. Additionally, members can sign up to receive a weekly newsletter to stay updated with the latest topics and trends.

There are many ways that community members (or users) can interact with each other after reading an article or while generally browsing the various content feeds. Users can create a profile against which they can show their name, a picture and any links they wish to share with others. Other users can then follow these profiles, meaning like-minded people can demonstrate their enthusiasm and offer contributions towards a shared goal (Schindler and Schindler 2014). Articles themselves include a variety of media, including pictures and videos and links to external sites. In particular, videos allow authors to communicate both audible and visual information differently from reading, therefore offering an accessible option for some users to absorb the article’s content. Finally, the comments section at the end of each piece provides a space for users to voice their opinions and start discussions about the subject matter. Similarly, users can utilise the comments space by promoting their work, ideas and social media accounts.

As previously mentioned, the UX Collective is primarily hosted on medium.com, meaning there are various rules and regulations outlined in Medium’s Terms of Service documentation. In the context of creating a community of UX practitioners, the most notable of these are that users must be at least 13 years old, and others’ content should not be copied, downloaded or shared unless you have the right to do so (Medium 2020).

With regard to the UX Collective’s own literature on what they expect from users, it’s more specific to their goals and vision for the community and publication. They ask that content be well-researched and referenced and for the work of experienced authors to be respected and credited to strengthen arguments. Content should aim to provoke change and, once reviewed and published by the community editors, is expected to remain on the site for at least one year. Items that should not be submitted to the community include portfolio pieces (although these can inform other accepted content) or posts trying to sell something.

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References

JOPWELL. 2019. Woman Wearing Teal Dress Sitting on Chair Talking to Man. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-teal-dress-sitting-on-chair-talking-to-man-2422280/ [accessed 8 Jan 2022].

MEDIUM. 2020. ‘Medium Terms of Service’. Medium Policy [online]. Available at: https://policy.medium.com/medium-terms-of-service-9db0094a1e0f [accessed 6 Jan 2022].

MEDIUM. 2021. ‘Medium’. Medium [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/ [accessed 3 Jan 2022].

MUFFATTO, Moreno. 2006. Open Source: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Singapore, SINGAPORE: World Scientific Publishing Company. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/falmouth-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1679623.

SCHINDLER, James and James SCHINDLER. 2014. Followership : What It Takes to Lead. New York, UNITED STATES: Business Expert Press. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/falmouth-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1865052.

UX COLLECTIVE. 2022. ‘About UX Collective’. UX Collective [online]. Available at: https://uxdesign.cc/about [accessed 3 Jan 2022].