"Tell me a bit about yourself..."

 

Hi, my name is Benjamin Wong, and I'm a UX designer. Before that, I used to work at a closed captions company and way before that I made logos for two small companies.

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If you're trying to imagine me working as a captioner, what you're probably picturing is is me sitting in a dark room and typing up the words to a bunch of reality TV shows.

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Well, actually the office was quite well lit, so that was nice. Also, I didn’t really have that much to do with typing up captions for TV shows - think more the sneak peeks that happen between episodes of My Kitchen Rules.

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Every working day for 7 and a half hours I’d go from doing quality control checks on subtitle files in one hour to captioning a promo that’s going to air in an hour. Someone from Channel 9 might call asking where a file is. Sometimes I’d get an email from other captioners who are looking for a file. Juggling these tasks while staying focused and prepared is a skill that’s valuable in any industry (Or so I’m told).

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My work meant that I needed to create files for clients in a timely manner, while also ensuring a product was absolutely perfect for the viewing audience. Combine this with how to follow a design brief and incorporate feedback into a final design and you have (what I think) is a great basis for any UX designer's skillset.