{"id":32,"date":"2022-01-20T15:46:14","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T15:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/?p=32"},"modified":"2022-03-18T10:24:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T10:24:30","slug":"brave-new-world-my-first-month-in-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/digital-content-and-development\/2022\/01\/20\/brave-new-world-my-first-month-in-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Brave New World \u2013 My first month in Digital"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last few weeks have felt like something of a blur to say the least. Since joining the Digital Development team at the start of the month I\u2019ve found myself in a very different working culture than the one I was used to, and I\u2019ve been welcomed by a thoroughly lovely bunch of people. I also feel like I\u2019ve absorbed more information than I know what to do with and I feel I need to wring out the sponge. So with that in mind, now feels like as good a time as any to write about my first month in Digital.<\/p>\n

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An impostor Among Us<\/h2>\n

I joined the team as a user experience designer, something I have a few years\u2019 experience of in my previous job, so the core of my new role is definitely in my wheelhouse. However, I come from a product design and engineering background and, like a lot of things at my previous job, UX was something I picked up along the way as the need arose.<\/p>\n

As such, it always felt like something I was \u2018getting away with\u2019 and that no one else would possibly hire me for!? And, like the infamous impostors, inside I had this irrational fear that everyone would think I was pretty sus. (This reference already feels hopelessly dated\u2026)<\/p>\n

\"GIF<\/p>\n

Impostor syndrome is something that people increasingly seem to suffer from, and is surely familiar to anyone who has changed career and moved into a field that they didn\u2019t formally train in. To compound this feeling, a content publishing-focused site has very different priorities from that of small bespoke apps made by an engineering company. Things like accessibility, something that I freely admit is outside of my comfort zone (for now).<\/p>\n

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A warm welcome<\/h2>\n

Thankfully, most of my anxieties were quickly swept away thanks to an incredibly welcoming and understanding team. Sure, there have been a lot of things to learn in a relatively short space of time. Things like learning new tools and getting more familiar with code, to bigger things like working environment.<\/p>\n

But the team have done a great job of bringing me in, making me feel valued and appreciated without overwhelming me with stuff I can\u2019t cope with. I think they\u2019ve done this using a three-pronged approach (intentional or otherwise):
\nFirstly, they\u2019re not afraid to be open and show you who they are - the office is full of stickers with hand-drawn illustrated in-jokes! - which goes a long way to making you feel at ease. Secondly, they got me doing work straight away. Just small things like giving advice on a new feature that one of the front-end developers is working on, and researching ways in which we might improve our design system documentation. This really helped to settle me in as I immediately felt useful without being over-faced.<\/p>\n

Last but by no means least, this team excels at documentation. Basically, any part of their normal workflow is documented, so if there was anything I wasn\u2019t sure about, usually all I had to do was search the wiki.<\/p>\n

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Things I\u2019ve Done<\/h2>\n

Or perhaps that should be \u2018tasks completed\u2019 to keep up the Among Us references. In any case, I\u2019ve already managed to get a fair few things done in my first few weeks in Digital. Here are just some of them:<\/p>\n