Let's wander around the lake and chat about tech &amp; life! Come rain or shine, and we'll be walking at 7pm! Bring a dog, your significant others, kids, a friend and your face! Join our friendly group for some healthy activities! Our current walk is Whitlingham Lake, a 2.5-mile walk at an all-inclusive pace!

Norfolk Developers - nor(DEV):

nor(DEV): Wander

Whitlingham Country Park

Let's wander around the lake and chat tech &amp; life! Bring a dog, your significant others, kids, a friend and your face!


Having got into coding recently there have certainly been some surprises for me. 

Some of it had stemmed from how the code works Vs how I expected it to work. Some things seem counterintuitive until I dive and delve further into the why as well as the what and then it makes sense. 

One of the surprises was the community and how friendly, helpful and supportive they are. I have always heard great things about coding communities but to see it and be on the receiving end has been different. I really see now how much of this is people's passion and it's so refreshing to see how excited people are to see others moving into their industry. 

My biggest surprise though was how much I want to code! 

Now I want to code for a living, I never saw it as a hobby or general past time. It for me was a way to make a living doing something I enjoyed. I always saw people who lived, breathed and slept code. The kind who do it for work, have personal projects on the go, spend time helping others and contribute to open source works too. I always admired those people but I always thought "these are people that live to work" and I am someone who "works to live". 

How wrong I was!

The more I code, the more I want to code. I find myself becoming more and more passionate about it the more I learn and the more I write. 

Just this week I almost cancelled two sets of plans because I just wanted to code or I was in the zone and didn't want to stop. Thankfully the voice in my head reminded me about balance in life so I closed the laptop and socialised like a good boy. 

What I'm getting at is;

- I have discovered that you really can make a living out of something you love.
- I now know how wonderful it is to be part of a community.
- It's a great to have something to feel so passionate about.

I just can't wait to get myself up to speed and contribute to some projects myself.


My personal surprises when learning to code. 


Below are my current thoughts and feelings regarding development as a career.
I wanted to share them publicly because I feel like it is important to show that 
even though I have been a developer for a few years now, it is entirely normal
to feel a little deflated or burnt out.

Anyway, this is a kind of thoughts out loud post, but I feel like it would be 
good to hear other peoples feelings and thoughts as I think only good can come 
from showing some vulnerability from time to time and learning how to deal with
those feelings and thoughts.

I am, at this moment in time, the most successful I have ever been. Not just in
this career but any career I have ever had. But at the same time I have
never felt so lost in where to go or what to do next.

I know that I love being a developer, the people I have met and the growth that I
have experienced would not have been possible if I were not in this industry.

My trouble is, I get bored very easily, and I am always trying to better myself. 
I am competitive with myself, and I find it hard to stand still and appreciate 
the moment. Being content is not something I do very well and most recently I 
have found myself infuriated by the most little of things at work 
(not a good sign I don't think), and I think it partly comes down to always 
expecting more or better for myself.

My motivation at the moment seems to come and go in waves, one minute 
I am super into learning or doing something and the next I have no interest 
in doing it in the slightest. This could be burnout and or depression but in 
general, I don't feel depressed as everything else seems to be going really well.

A part of my issue is that I don't really want to work in web development forever, 
or work on products that I don't really care about or believe in. I would 
ultimately like to become an iOS engineer as I am an Apple fanboy deep down 
(haters gonna hate), but I feel so stuck in the sense that changing from web
developer to an iOS developer seems impossible, or at least it does for me at 
the moment.

Is it just me? Or does anyone else feel lost?

Feeling lost is not only for beginners


Ahead of her conference speech, [Katie Fisher](https://twitter.com/pandatwinkles), senior experience strategist at Norwich based, [The User Story](https://www.theuserstory.com/), talked to us about the importance of UX.

## Evidence and psychology

UX is psychology driven. Katie clarifies how user experience or rather, user experience research, is about using human behaviour and attitudes to inform design and the building of products.

> There is a reason behind anything that we design because we understand that there is a motivation behind what people want to achieve by using this website etc.

By speaking to users, Katie and her team try to understand the reasons behind why and how the public use websites. UX designers are approached by businesses that want to understand how people use their products. Without the data, the interviews and the science, it’s impossible to answer these pertinent questions.

## What the user wants

Starting from scratch Katie explained that she wants to comprehend people's problems when landing on a specific website. ”You’re not going to get very far if you’re always asking people something new” is just one of her discoveries.

Technology doesn’t always have to be new as far as the end user is concerned. It just has to work. “People thrive on familiarity, they have mental models for this, the design heuristic is recognition over recall.” You should always recognise something rather than remember. Our memory works like this. If consumers have to work too hard on your website - they’ll leave.

For example, “there are only five icons that are universally recognised by the user.” Introduce a new aspect and the public is puzzled. People don’t always recognise novelty and they’ll have to re-learn things and use a greater cognitive load. The user will have to use more thought to figure something out - they’ll leave the platform.

> To understand if people will understand something, use it and complete a task on the website, we’re looking at behaviour compared to the interview based analysis.

## Developers and UX

Katie feels that there is some misunderstanding about what people who work in UX are trying to do.

> The way that the User Story works is that whatever we’re designing from a really early stage we want to speak to the developers, who are going to have to build it, at this time.

This is the time for compromises. Discussions of time & cost are held during this period. ”This is the time to bring developers on board so they understand ‘we’re not throwing things over a fence at them.’”
“We always want to work with developers, even when they’re constructing the website, as we know that things will come up in the actual build ,that may be either design or the data driven that doesn’t quite work.” Traditionally, this type of collaboration hasn’t always been the focus of either dev’s or UX designer’s minds. Times have changed and all of The User Story projects are collaborative.

“Though some developers aren’t used to having to collaborate, front end developers are better at this way of working than some back end engineers.” Explanations from UX designers can clarify the process. Sharing snippets and video clips is an important step in the collaborative procedure.

## Learn more about UX

If you want to discover more about UX, users and the importance of understanding how and why websites work - catch up with Katie’s session at [nor(DEV):con on 17 June at 13.30 - Your users don’t care.](https://nor.dev/con).


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My personal surprises when learning to code.

Feeling lost is not only for beginners

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