So, if you are an
aspiring young designer and you wanna branch into
design, or for that matter, I've been contacted by many older people in their 30s or 40s or even
in one case in their 50s, who want to go into design,
but that's not their history. So, how do they get into
the field of design? There's no single answer for everybody, but here's the most important advice that I know how to give. Have something special about you. Something special that you
can do that is different from the normal designer. So, if you major in
engineering or in literature or in marketing or in whatever
field you wanna major in, what you wanna do is say, this
is what I can bring to you. I'm an expert in knowing how people behave because you wanna know what field understands people the best? It's not psychology, it's
not the social sciences, it's novel writers. A novelist has to really understand people because they have to write
a story about real people in real, well, fake
people, fictitious people, but in real sounding
situations that you think is, oh yeah, that's a real, I
knew a person just like that. Or I know that a fight just like that. They have to be really good
observers of human beings, and that's what you can
bring to the situation. So, if you're an engineer, you can bring your engineering skills to the design profession. If you're a business person,
whatever your background is, you have unique skills. In fact, I kind of count
that part of my success has been because I was trained
as an electrical engineer, got a degree in what was
called mathematical psychology, that was my PhD. Realized that the mathematics
was all very fine. We were using mathematics
to search for a good problem and I decided it was better just to try to solve
the important problems and then figure out
what is the best method. So, I became from a
mathematical psychologist to what I call an information
processing psychology, 'cause I brought my engineering
background into psychology, and that became cognitive psychology. And I thought then
psychology was too narrow, and so I wanted to be able
to bring in neuroscience, and I wanted to bring in
linguistics and philosophy and anthropology and sociology, and of course computer science and the early days of
artificial intelligence. And so, I helped create
the first department of cognitive science. And from cognitive science, I discovered all sorts
of interesting things because I understood
technology and people, and suddenly, oh, that's a
field of design, isn't it? And so, I left the university
and went off to a company learning how to actually make products that people could use and understand. So, I was also an executive, and that's where I discovered
design, the field of design. And I'm now, I call myself a designer. But I'm not really a designer, I'm trying to simply to make
the world a better place. And I think design is one
of the most powerful tools, but it's not the only one. And the way you succeed is
by learning other disciplines and by taking the knowledge
in the other discipline and applying it to the design discipline. And you get a job because you are unique, you have a unique combination. All the others, they all look the same. You will look different. - Thanks for watching. If you want to see more of our UX videos, take a look at these over here and consider subscribing to our channel. On our website and in group.com, you can access our free
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