Ian Swinson

Over the past 20+ years Ian Swinson has balanced his time between agencies, startups and enterprise software companies. As the first designer at Salesforce.com he was instrumental in growing the UX team to over 100. Initially focused on design excellence Ian’s transition to a full-time management position allowed him to turn the UX process on itself with the goal of designing better teams and processes.

He is active in the design community speaking at numerous events about pattern libraries, design in an agile world, and his foundational work in establishing a common framework for UX careers with the goal of supporting individual contributors and managers alike in helping everyone design their dream job.

As a Canadian and a graduate of McGill University’s Film & Communications you are more than welcome to count the number of times he says “sorry” and ask about his favorite SCTV sketch.

For more, keep up with Ian at ianswinson.com or on Twitter as @iswinson.

Presentations

Leadership By Design 2016: Prototypes, Process & Play

Careers by Design

We spend a great deal of time talking about design language, design tools, and technological developments and trends, but relatively little on planning and nurturing our careers. Maybe this gap is because there is not a good “language” to help us talk about career planning and aid in managing these discussions.

Ian has been working on a framework to help employees define, design, monitor, and grow their careers. The primary goal of the framework is to establish a broad set of guidelines to assist managers as they support employees. It is useful for people who want to focus on one core skill, as well as those interested in more multi-disciplinary roles or (eventually) management.