A few weeks ago — following four days of training in Washington, DC, on the heels of a fifth in New York the year prior — I completed a set of online tests and received my UX Certification from the Nielsen Norman Group.

I’ve been exploring and learning about the field of User Experience for some time. I find it really fascinating. I think at its core, UX is about empathy — about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes over and over, doing everything you can to understand them and their goals, and thinking through all the reactions they may have to what they see. Then testing, testing, testing.

It’s always remarkable on any user-facing project how so many constituencies are represented up front, except for the end users. Too often they’re a mysterious, silent group from whom we hear little, and about whom we know less (and, upon testing, we are shocked to realize how little we knew, or how wrong we were about what we thought we knew).

Being an advocate for those users in absentia — representing their interests, and trying to encourage a culture where everyone has them in mind — is a role I have come to relish.