WEBVTT

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Hi, my name is Rodrigo.

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I'm 30 years old
and I'm originally from Guatemala City.

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I'm a little bit of a design
nerd and I also enjoy coding.

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I have over ten years of experience
working in tech.

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I specialize as a UX designer
and developer.

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Also known as UX developer.

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My journey into UX

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felt a little bit backwards
in a way, or as I like to say,

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as if I was “reverse engineering it”

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I began building websites
about ten years ago

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by simply editing text, colors, and images

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out of pre-made templates.

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Shortly after that, a mentor of mine
told me I wasn't a programmer.

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That really motivated me
to prove otherwise.

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So I began studying a

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Ruby on Rails
full stack course, learned to code,

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and found myself replicating templates
and calling myself a web developer.

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Later on, I

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began learning design tools
such as Figma, Adobe XD,

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and Sketch,
as well as visual design principles

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and the foundations of building
Design Systems.

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I also got pulled in by react once
Facebook popularized it

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and began designing
and developing my own original projects.

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However, I was still mostly relying
in my own assumptions

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and the occasional feedback
from colleagues and friends.

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About five years ago,

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I truly discovered
what UX was all about,

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citing Google's motto.

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Put the user first
and the rest will follow.

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I fell in love with UX
when I began studying

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for the Google UX Design
Professional Certificate.

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It felt like all the pieces finally fell

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into place.

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My journey to UX felt like learning

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how to build a house
before knowing how to design one.

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However,
after I realized that it was just a matter

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of rotating the frame
and utilizing my skills

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to design and develop experiences
that will make people's lives better.