Michael Johansen's Portfolio Project

During the CareerFoundry Voice User Interface Specialization, you’ll create an awesome portfolio project to demonstrate your new skills.

Hi Michael! What inspired you to make a career change into UX design and Voice UI design?

Throughout my career in the non-profit world, budget constraints provided numerous opportunities for me to exercise my creative muscles. Design was always something that I had a side-interest in, and after a few years, I started taking on freelance clients here and there. I was actually working on my MA in Social Work when a family emergency caused me to have to quit my job, drop out of school, and move. As crazy as it sounds, I’m thankful for that dramatic transition because it created space for me to reevaluate my career. I had recently learned about UX, and after a few months of exploration, I knew this was my thing. I rescinded my MSW transfer application and enrolled in the UX Immersion Course!

What did you enjoy most about the VUI course?

The thing that I loved the most—and the thing that I always talk about when people ask me about CareerFoundry—was the quality of the support I got from my tutors and mentors. They were all such brilliant and caring people, and it really made all the difference in the world.

With regards to your new career, what are your hopes for the future?

I’m currently the only designer on my team. As it happens, I’m also their first designer, so our design culture/process is definitely still in its early stages. That being said, I really look forward to growing our team and maturing our process. I also can’t wait until my local UX meetup can gather again in person!

Tell us about this portfolio project.

My VUI experience was awesome (shout out to my mentor, Ilana!) VUI/Conversational design really makes you focus on user-testing because, unlike screen design, you can’t just look at your design and go, “yeah, that makes sense.” When writing your script and flow, you’re basically already at the high-fidelity stage (expect for your voice sounding a little less robot-y) so you can get great results from testing right away.