This episode’s guest is Julie McConnell, a UX Director at Epic Games working on Fortnite. With almost 15 years of experience, she's a veteran of Riot Games, Google, and Bungie, working on some of the most prestigious franchises in the games industry.
We talk about cursed UX problems in games, mentorship and knowing whether the manager path is for you, and why design orgs in tech tend to be more mature than those in games.
Music by Abstraction.
Topics
How Julie got into the industry
What was the industry like back then? How have you seen it change?
Being self-taught and leveraging mentorship
What’s stuck with you from observing senior UX designers?
What to do when UX research and data contradict each other and dealing with a passionate playerbase
Design maturity differences between tech and games
How has your taste changed over the last decade?
Have you closed the taste gap?
How did you know you wanted to be a manager?
Do you ever miss getting super hands on as a designer?
Dealing with the stress of being a manager
The hardest interview question you’ve ever been asked