Our guest lecturers were Callum Peters and Al Jones from the BBC User Experience and Design (UX&D) team. It is roughly estimated that 330 million people view BBC services weekly, although this number might be higher due to the pandemic. Guest lecturer Al Jones has created work for the BBC Sport website, configured for both desktop and mobile viewing, and television apps. Al has also worked on the children's app 'Own It', a wellness app created to help children stay safe online and recognise when they are being a little mean. Callum Peters worked on the first version of the BBC Bitesize application, redesigned the BBC Newsround website, creating a website which showed kids news based on the serious issues going on in today's world, designing the website with a tone of voice, which would explain complex issues in a clear, precise way so that children can understand.
(Some examples of the User Experience projects which the lecturers' worked on)
User Experience & Design, is under the Design and Engineering sector, with designers working alongside the engineer members consisting of web developers, application developers and product owners. UX&D consists of about 180 members, spread across different locations; London, Salford, Glasgow and Cardiff.
(Some examples of the User Experience projects which the lecturers' worked on)
Callum Peters reflects on the benefits of working in such a big organisation, however one of the main downsides is how all of the people work together effectively to produce successful work, especially to when designing for such a broad audience. One of the biggest solutions for this issue is attending away days, prior to the pandemic, designers and developers would attend meetings with other members of the BBC from other locations, using guest speakers and encouraging more collaboration work to keep the team motivated.
One of the key points highlighted by the guest lecturer was the different career paths which could possibly lead to the same career. The lecturer proceeded to reflect upon both Al Jones' and his own career.
Al Jones' career path began doing odd jobs such as; working in a shop, at an amusement park and even shovelling manure, and working in a call centre. Al eventually decided to attend university and studied computer science at Chester. During the duration of his course he realised he had a passion for design, which was partly due to him meeting his now wife who was studying fine art at Kingsway. When Al graduated from university, he went on to work at the BBC during the time of the 2012 Olympics, held in London, which was an exciting time full of opportunities.
Callum Peters' career path began with him enjoying design throughout school, however he struggled with figuring out how to apply it. Callum's job during his first year of university, was as a maternity cover, creating and art working adverts to be put into the back of magazines for an independent publishing company. During his placement module in his second year of university, Callum completed a placement in London with AKQA Digital Agency, who works with big companies across the country, this is when Callum began to be driven toward digital design as a career goal. He did his placement at the digital agency alongside completing work for his final exhibition for university, and upon completion he was offered a job as a junior designer. Unfortunately, after a few months he was made redundant, due to slow business for the agency, which led Callum to work freelance. When looking around for employment a common issue was that many employers required 3 yers experience, which is still the case today, this is when he looked at the BBC career website and applied for a position as a junior designer and began his journey working for the BBC.
The part of the lecture which struck me the most was the career statistics which Callum presented, that during your career you will go through:
6 Roles
9 Pay Rises
30,000 Cups of Tea
10,000 Hours of Overtime
and 1 Career Change
This definitely shows that you don't always do the career you thought you would straight away.
(Images sourced from the Guest Lecturers' Presentation)
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