In the beginning, I was a technical writer. There were many things I liked about technical writing, and I look back fondly on those days. But I also remember very clearly the moment I decided to become a designer, and the reason why.

It was the clearest “AHA!” of my life.

I had always been interested in usability testing, and documentation lends itself very well to being tested in this manner. Not only do you find out if the steps are correct, but also if the verbiage makes sense, the layout, and the overall presentation.

Usability testing documentation is also a good way to find problems in the UI.

While working for Lightbridge, I convinced my manager to let me go to a customer site to test a documentation set. In addition to the documentation, I had an ulterior motive. There was, I suspected, an issue with the user experience that I wanted to highlight. My suspicion was a result of the fact that I had to write a 20 step procedure, that spanned two pages in the manual, explaining how to use this feature. So, I didn’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes.

Anyway, I ran the test with a participant at the customer site. I watched her complete steps 1 through 10, then turn the page, skip step 11 at the top of the page, and try to complete the remaining steps. Of course, she was unsuccessful.

I asked her to try again.

Again, she performed steps 1 through 10, flipped the page, skipped step 11, performed steps 12 through 20, and, of course, was unsuccessful.

After a third repetition of the exact same issue, I had my AHA!

Obviously, there was an issue in the UI. But, far more importantly, I realized that as a technical writer there was nothing more I could do. I had written the procedure correctly. When each step was followed, the user was successful. But the real solution was to make sure that a 20 step UI was never created in the first place.

I had to get on the other side of the problem. I had to become a designer.

The rest, as they say, is history.

When I returned from that trip, I talked to my manager about my desire. Lightbirdge, being a fantastic company, sent me back to school at night to get my Masters in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley University. From there, I became the companies one man UX department and my design career was launched.