Behind The Skis: When I became an adaptive ski instructor during the 2019-20 season, I made it a goal to document every lesson that I taught—the triumphs, tears and tribulations. Each detail and failure was a piece to my daily report puzzle. When the season came to an abrupt end in March, I had a collection of 61+ lessons to reflect upon. Curiously enough, they all relate to UX design. Here are 2 examples:
Ski-Instructing: My student's motivations are more important than any pre-planned ski progressions.
UX: Is this what I want or what my users want? Adapt the solution to meet my user's motivations and goals.
Ski-Instructing: Silence is good. Giving my student time to process and interact in their own way is key.
UX: In interviews, silence gives users time to think. Followup questions are good, and listening is even better.
Below is ski instructing as a user flow. Explore more parallels between UX and ski instructing in my blog post.
[Image description: Illustrated user flow map of an average ski lesson. Step 1, enter lift line. Ask, do you have your poles? Answer 1: Nope. Answer 2: One of them! Next is operation find my kid's poles. Success? Wahoo! Ride chair. Step 2, Arrive at top. Ask, ready to ski? Answer 1: Yes! Let's go ski! Answer 2: No, I'm cold. Ask, do you want to go inside for 5 minutes? Answer 1: Yes. Answer 2: No, for 30 minutes. Step 3, Chill inside. Ask, do you want hot cocoa? Answer 1: Yes. Answer 2: I want 2 cups. Step 4, Finish break. Step 5, go skiing. Tell student, let's practice right turns! Action 1: student goes left. Action 2: student goes straight. Tell student to slow down! Phew, that was a close one. Ask, are you having fun? Answer: Yes! Let's go ski!]