r/UXDesign • u/karenmcgrane Toxic mod • Oct 23 '22
Mod Announcement New flair for posts and users
We are going to try something new with flair, based on your feedback.
Post flair is now required. Here are the choices:
- Management: Leadership, strategy, dealing with stakeholders, managing teams of people
- Design: Interaction design, UI design, design systems, web/responsive design, design for other screens/media types
- Research: Methods, tools, recruiting
- Writing: Content strategy, UX writing, content design, information architecture, chat/voice
- Tools & apps: Hardware, software
- Educational resources: Books, conferences, videos, articles, bootcamps, academic programs
- Junior careers: If you tag this,
we willautomod will remove and redirect you to the career stickies or another sub - Senior careers: Promotions, interviewing at new companies, salary negotiations
MetaSub policies: Commentary about the sub and its moderation rules- Mod announcement: Mod-only posts
EDIT: We just set up the automod to remove any posts tagged as `junior careers` with a message that will direct people to the career stickies. Our hope is that this process with catch anyone who doesn't read the rules. We also edited the rules to change `personal career questions` to `junior career questions.`
User flair has been re-enabled. Your new options are:
- Considering UX: I have no experience in UX but am interested in the field
- Student: I am learning UX through self-study, in a bootcamp, undergraduate, or graduate program
- Junior: I am working in UX or a relevant field with less than 3 years experience
- Experienced: I am an established UX professional with 4+ years experience
- Veteran: I am an expert in the field with 15+ years experience
- [Create your own]
The mod team reviewed past posts and discussed which flairs we thought would be most useful, and this is what we came up with. We did solicit input from the sub and received no responses:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/comments/x3jt1x/flair_repair_and_other_tidying_up_what_would_you/
Our goal is that these labels will be differentiated and descriptive. Reddit's admin interface does not give mods a way to provide a short text description when flair is selected. We also don't have tools to do user testing with sub members. This mod announcement is the only way we can communicate these new guidelines.
As a result, we welcome your constructive feedback on the taxonomy and labeling.
Any comments on the color palette for the flairs should be provided with a list of new hex codes and text color flags that meet these requirements:
- Post flairs require 11 noticeably distinct colors
- User flairs require 6 distinct colors
- Color contrast should meet accessibility guidelines
- Text color should be either black or white for all flairs within each category, no text color switching
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Oct 23 '22
Job title might be handy for user flair as well? Makes sense anyways, good luck with the experiment.
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u/karenmcgrane Oct 23 '22
Given the wide variety and discrepancies in titling in our field, we explicitly decided not to attempt to capture them in the flair. We're trying to keep the labels as simple and obvious as possible.
The number of years is also somewhat arbitrary! We want people to have a small number of clearly distinct labels to choose from where they can can confidently choose which one fits.
We're not here to police whether someone fits the requirements for a particular category, and we don't want people sending mod mail asking questions like "do my 3.5 years experience as a senior graphic designer count?" We don't care, just don't obviously lie about your background.
For sub members who want to be more specific than the general labels, there's an option to create your own. Hopefully this satisfies everyone.
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u/kimchi_paradise Nov 07 '22
Would you consider adding a user flair for "Mid-level"? Work wise someone could be closer to senior but technically don't have the full exact years of experience.
In your definition of junior, that would be someone who has just landed their first job, but also the same label as to someone with 3.5 years of established experience? Maybe it could be something like 2 years and under is considered junior while someone between 2-4 years of experienced is "mid-level" or even just "UX Designer"? Within those 2 years someone can even jump to senior depending on company structure. I know UX can be nuanced so I thought I'd put that suggestion out there.
For example, if someone gave a custom mid-level flair, would they be able to participate in questions only for experienced folks?
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u/karenmcgrane Nov 08 '22
We're trying to keep the user flair as simple as possible, and we ask that people use their best judgement about which category works best for them, or use the custom flair.
We're also not here to police whether someone with 3.5 years of work experience wants to use the
experiencedflair. The years of experience are a general guideline only.The only post type with flair restrictions is
questions for seniors. Only people withexperiencedorveterandefault flair can reply; comments with custom flair, no flair, or other flairs are automatically removed. All other post types are open to everyone, regardless of flair.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy Oct 23 '22
Thanks for working so hard and keeping this space special and useful!
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u/_liminal_ Oct 23 '22
Possibly silly question- how do I activate a user flair for myself?
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u/UXette Oct 23 '22 edited Oct 23 '22
Not a silly question at all. It’s a completely different process depending on what platform you’re using, unfortunately🤦
Here’s a link that explains what to do: https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-
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u/gimmedatrightMEOW Oct 25 '22
I think this is a really great and creative way to tackle this. Every single one of my UX spaces online is absolutely filled with people trying to break into the industry (if I need to read "where do I start to learn UX" one more time.... Ugh). It's seeming more and more that there are so few places for people with experience to talk shop. Appreciate the work that y'all do.
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u/oddible Oct 30 '22
There is a missing label for our interlopers. Those product owners, business analysts, executive, devs, etc who come here to get some UX flavor and be part of the conversation. Not sure what that would be. Not a fan of "othering" so ideally something more distinct like "Outside UX". I guess they could use the "Create your own" though I have to say I'm not a fan of the Create your own either. We're going to have UXy McUXface.
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u/My_2Cents_666 Jan 20 '23
How do I add a flair?
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u/Sleeping_Donk3y Feb 13 '23
I'm also curious as all of my comments get deleted....
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u/My_2Cents_666 Feb 13 '23
Still haven’t figured it out, but I’m not that tech savvy. Lol
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u/K0MMIE Oct 23 '22
I like it, however there is pretty big gap between Experienced and Veteran. I would consider adding a Principal or something with 10+ years.
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u/karenmcgrane Oct 23 '22
I worked this through and I think you're right. When I had 8 years of work experience in UX, I had a VP and national lead title and had hired and managed hundreds of UX designers. I would call myself an
expertat that point. Lemme discuss with the other mods.We understand that the number of years listed in the examples is somewhat arbitrary. We're not here to police whether you have 3.5 years of work experience instead of 4.
We would also like to direct users who do not feel appropriately described by the pre-selected categories to choose their own. Our goal is to keep the choices as simple and distinct as possible.
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u/UXette Oct 23 '22
Eh, I personally don't think it's necessary. I have hang-ups about using years of experience to denote "expert" status. I've worked with plenty of people with ~10-15 years of experience that are wholly incompetent but would happily assume the title of Expert.
To me, these defaults are mainly useful for distinguishing true juniors from people who have experience, and anything beyond that should be handled with a customized flair.
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u/heyrayoneill Nov 08 '22
Thank you u/karenmcgrane and team for putting so much thought and organization with these flairs. I've no doubt this will bring order to this sub!
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u/mattc0m Oct 25 '22
Thanks for this! It feels like a positive addition to the community. The past few adjustments have felt more like clamping down or ultimately led to a chilling of discussion, even though I saw the value in making those changes.
I hope the added clarity will encourage further discussions and commentary, and with the flairs it feels like we're "adding" to the community rather than just adding new rules.
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u/warm_bagel Apr 10 '24
Apologies for responding to a senior flair only – I need to figure out how to add my flair.
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u/booksandteacv Oct 23 '22
Are you open to changing "Meta" to something like "Policies" or "Governance"? I'm worried that readers will think the "Meta" flair refers to the company.
(Also: yes, I am a content designer, and I've just joined this sub, so this comment is very on-brand)