The story of a UI trainer

The story

of A UI

trainer

Summary of personal experience and learning as a UI trainer…

Who am I?

UI developer, trainer & writer

Who am I?

UI developer, trainer & writer

Who am I?

What do I teach?

UI developer, trainer & writer

Who am I?Mostly UI

technologies like HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript,

jQuery & other JS frameworks

What do I teach?

How it

all

started?

One fine day, I get request from

training team to check if can take

up an HTML5 training scheduled five days ahead…

One fine day, I get request from

training team to check if can take

up an HTML5 training scheduled five days ahead…

Since, it is something new & challenging, I am immediately ready for it.

But then,

But then,

Problems…

1. Only five days time frame

2. Presentation or material required

for training not ready

3. Current project commitments

4. Training would be in city where I

had never gone before

1Managed project deliverables & waiting for flight, night

before the training.

2 8:30 PM flight four hours late and I reach my hotel at 3:00 AM morning.

1Managed project deliverables & waiting for flight, night

before the training.

2 8:30 PM flight four hours late and I reach my hotel at 3:00 AM morning.

I can either take notes or little 4 hour rest. Whole idea of making few notes totally washed away.

1Managed project deliverables & waiting for flight, night

before the training.

3

4Next day at new office. Training starts with 22

attendees & me without any training material and sleep.

5Within an hour or two I realize that I must cover prerequisites needed for HTML5 not

intended to be part of training.

4Next day at new office. Training starts with 22

attendees & me without any training material and sleep.

5Within an hour or two I realize that I must cover prerequisites needed for HTML5 not

intended to be part of training.

4Next day at new office. Training starts with 22

attendees & me without any training material and sleep.

I spend whole day. Now I must cover complete training in remaining 3 days.6

7Back to hotel, in the evening, I decide to

create few presentations.

8I cannot; standing up all day & running to everyone’s machine for queries take its toll on me. I feel back pain.

7Back to hotel, in the evening, I decide to

create few presentations.

8I cannot; standing up all day & running to everyone’s machine for queries take its toll on me. I feel back pain.

7Back to hotel, in the evening, I decide to

create few presentations.

9Again no material, notes or presentation. I just relax and

read little for next day.

On 2nd day, I try to accelerate to make up for yesterday’s time.

10

At the end of the day, I get feedback that I am moving too fast. I should slow down a bit.

On 2nd day, I try to accelerate to make up for yesterday’s time.

11

10

At the end of the day, I get feedback that I am moving too fast. I should slow down a bit.

On 2nd day, I try to accelerate to make up for yesterday’s time.

This evening, I deliberately skipped the presentation idea.

11

10

12

Similarly, 3rd and 4th

days are over with new problems & challenges.

13

Network infrastructure issues; while other times, me stumbling

upon some concept & much more…

Similarly, 3rd and 4th

days are over with new problems & challenges.

14

13

Network infrastructure issues; while other times, me stumbling

upon some concept & much more…

Similarly, 3rd and 4th

days are over with new problems & challenges.

But at the end, I receive very positive feedback.

14

13

15

From then on, I never looked back

From then on, I never looked back

Regular trainings both in company & outside

H O W E V E R ,

H O W E V E R ,

I t i s n ot m y day to

day e x p e r i e n c e b u t

w h at I l e a r n e d i s

a l l t h at m at t e r s

1 A l w ays H av e so m e

b u f f e r t i m e .

Anything can happen; delayed flight, network & infra

issues, not enough time for creating notes and materials,

etc. Always keep some buffer time especially when

training schedule is more than a day.

Don’t let this happen

2D o n ot t i e

t h e goat

ar o u nd th e

p r es e ntat i o n .

Perhaps, my prejudice from college days where lecture cannot by delivered without

presentation or OHP. Trainer and his interaction skill keep audience glued.

Nothing is more boring than some bullet-point slides.

Don’t let this happen

Use presentations as supplementary for

storytelling, illustrations, graphs, diagrams, etc.

Use it for this

3D o n ot t ry

to t i m e t h e

tr a i n i n g .

You can never complete each and everything. People

ask questions that are related but outside of

scope. Try to be realistic and honor the time. Finish as much as you can and

not as much as you want.

Don’t try to finish everything. It does not bring good to anyone.

4 W h e n i t co m es

to p eo p l e ,

n oth i n g i s

o bv i o u s . H av e

n o e x p ectat i o n .

Assume means “ass-u-me”. When you assume, you

generalize. When you generalize, you cannot pay

attentional to individuals unique needs. Attendees

vary by their skill, background, experience.

Anyone can ask anything.

Assumptions is very dangerous thing.

5 P r act i c e ,

p r act i c e a n d

p r act i c e .

Knowing a concept and understanding a concept

are two different things. You cannot teach

something unless you thoroughly understand it. I have found myself in this situations in early training

days. The only escape from this is ever on-going

practice.

To be expert like him, practice is the only way.

6K n o w yo u r

au d i e n c e .

Teaching a novice

want to get things done.

Cook food for 5 minutes.

They want result oriented instructions. They need how.

They focus on results.

Teaching a novice

want to get things done.

Cook food for 5 minutes.

They want result oriented instructions. They need how.

They focus on results.

Teaching an experienced

want to know why to do things certain way.

Why cook food for 5 minutes only?

They already know how. They want to understand the reasoning behind. They focus on optimizing things.

vs.

Teaching a designer

Very little or no programming background

Generally prefer small and discrete example for each

concept during training. Often interested in knowing technical

possibilities & limitations.

Teaching a designer

Very little or no programming background

Generally prefer small and discrete example for each

concept during training. Often interested in knowing technical

possibilities & limitations.

Teaching a developer

Very good with logic and programming.

Generally prefer one concrete example that help them build system step by step & correlate all concepts together.

vs.

An interesting class of 10 developers and 7 designers.

An interesting class of 10 developers and 7 designers.

A designer asks me “what is server?”

An interesting class of 10 developers and 7 designers.

A designer asks me “what is server?”

An obvious thing for developer, how do I make sure that I explain it to designer while

keeping developers interested?

An interesting class of 10 developers and 7 designers.

A designer asks me “what is server?”

An obvious thing for developer, how do I make sure that I explain it to designer while

keeping developers interested?

Well, I try to make it more interactive. Let other developers answer it instead of me.

7E m b r ac e

s i m p l i c i t y

There is always an urge to try and showcase some crazy idea. Never do it.

Always remember that, the training is for its

attendees, it is not your playground. Use very

simple, clear and constructive illustrations.

Present for your audience & not yourself.

8U I t r a i n e r i s

n ot j u st a

U I t r a i n e r

As I dig deeper and interact more with

attendees, I come to realize that,

People don’t attend UI training to learn some JavaScript library API.

they can simply Google it & learn anywhere freely

on net.

They are there for something more…

They wish to understand the technical implications of

choosing a certain JS library.

They wish to understand the technical implications of

choosing a certain JS library.

They wish to understand the architectural guidelines for UI development

They wish to understand the technical implications of

choosing a certain JS library.

They wish to understand the architectural guidelines for UI development

They attend training to share & find solutions to their real

world problems.

They wish to understand the technical implications of

choosing a certain JS library.

They wish to understand the architectural guidelines for UI development

They attend training to share & find solutions to their real

world problems.They want ideas to organize their messed up CSS.

They want to know why the performance of their

application is significantly low

They want to know why the performance of their

application is significantly low

There are developers who want to learn web design so that they can work without a dedicated designers

They want to know why the performance of their

application is significantly low

There are developers who want to learn web design so that they can work without a dedicated designers

They just don’t want to develop. They want to engineer

true products and solutions.

They want to know why the performance of their

application is significantly low

There are developers who want to learn web design so that they can work without a dedicated designers

They just don’t want to develop. They want to engineer

true products and solutions.

And the list goes on…

And honestly, UI trainer is not just UI trainer,

because at one point in time I was asked questions

like…

1. What is the effect of having high replication to client heavy

application? (I still fail to understand this question)

2. Why twitter moved from client side rendering to server side

rendering? And why did they switch to Scala from Ruby?

3. How does Google track my data across different applications?

4. How does Python compares with Ruby?

5. How many programming language should I learn? (Fresher’s favorite)

6. Does cloud computing has any future?

7. What is the difference between SAAS, PAAS & IAAS?

Finally, today I find myself teaching things I possibly

never imagined:

- Product design & thinking

- Web design for developers

- Designing for usability

- Typography principles

- Art of writing content

- Definitive presentations

But in the

end the

experience is

amazing

Harshal Patil

@softHarsh

http://definitelysimple.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hapatil

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