Jobs: Mikhail Frolov, guru UX and Project Manager in the "Classmates"

What do you do in your work?

The last seven years of doing UX-design, pre-analytics and conduct usability testing. Recently added to this set of managerial responsibilities.

When began his career in IT, has just released the first iPhone, the smartphone has a good part to Windows Mobile and equipped with a stylus. Then I came to the position of test engineer Yota (former Scartel). But the test was nothing special. After initially all this magic-4G internet to be used as transport: deliver "happiness" in the user gadgets quickly and make a truly mobile Web services.

I came at the beginning of the design of such services, to work closely on YotaContacts (still one of my favorite projects). We did a "finger-interface." My duties included schematic sketch ideas, and after drawing design to describe the system behavior. So I met with usability and UX. I began to develop in this area - went to work in Usabilitylab.

Under the guidance of Olga Pavlova and Tania Tabakova mastered designing for the web, different methods of data collection and reporting. We had to design a serious banking interfaces (the BSS), mobile operators websites ( "MTS"), mobile applications for finding tickets (Aviasales) and mountains online stores. Do you know what is the most painful issue, the buyer overalls for the dog the size of a cat? The choice of size! How to measure the body is not broken leg.

Trained on cats, well, more precisely, on dogs, I went to the team "Fotostrany". This large project needed UX-professionals. There I also designed the interfaces to communicate with users, inviting them once a week for tests, trying to short to influence managers and developers.

The thing is, frankly, a thankless task. Imagine: you, the manager, came up with a cool thing, an idea taken up by programmers and already started with burning eyes to code, but then comes into play UX-specialist and says that it is not so, the button you want to rename, move it, and all of the flowers refuse.

About jobs in the "Classmates" learned from director of the project "OK" Vladimir Kochetkov. He invited me to try himself as a "player-coach", and now I have two important projects.

• Contact Us - signals that users receive on a portal as a result of their activity. Those same classes, comments, ratings. Once a person has received them, we should quickly convey to him the information. This is a very important part in the ecosystem of the social network: if a person does not understand that there is life, that his actions someone notices that he loses interest. Here I am a manager with the function of UX-specialist, the logic on me and interface solutions, which we have discussed and adopted together with the team.
• Live stickers in our messenger. This mixture gifok and still images that allow people a little brighter to express their emotions. We have already gained a huge catalog, each day adding new, closely following what is popular, experimenting with the filing.

What is your occupation?

Radio engineer. In 1999 he graduated from the Physics and Mathematics high school number 30. I had not yet had the exam, but in this school have had serious exams. With their successful completion without taking admission in many universities of St. Petersburg, including St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI". I chose it.

Not to say that the education received was useful to me in full, but the learning process - it is an invaluable experience. In the words of one of our teacher, do not cram anything, it is important to remember formulas and understand where to look for them if needed.

Higher education allows you to confidently navigate in space, to understand at a basic level, and as arranged, but if you want and need - to go deeper and explore. The blessing is now way to do this is more than enough: paid, free, full-time, online - whatever you like. Itself recently listened to the course "Theory of Games" to "open education" - a convenient format and funky teacher (Savvateev Alexey, recommend it to YouTube-project "100 lessons in mathematics»).

Also it gives students an excellent opportunity to work in various fields. I managed to stay as a security guard, a freight forwarder, sales representative, paperboy, even typed catalog of the books of some libraries. Rewarding experience was only a trade. Allow to overcome the fear of communicating with strangers and learn not to be upset if you were together with your proposal to send, do not mince words.

Ability to communicate with all people who are not betraying their emotions - one of the main qualities of the UX-specialist.

Well, plus all these student partying in a hostel! No start-ups in coworking with this match. :)

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

I equally and help prevent:

• punctuality;
• a responsibility;
• sense of humor.

For example, I just physically suffer if late somewhere. I arrived at the station an hour before the train departure. So-so time management.

With responsibility, everything is simple. If you promise to do something, I make every effort to do was good. But the sense of personal responsibility bother you when you need to delegate the task: there is no certainty that all will be accomplished as would have done.

Humor helps smooth out different situations, but sometimes I joke evil and not always to the point, unfortunately.

How does your workplace?

In the workplace, nothing more.

Try even paper-drafts are regularly disposed of. Previously, somehow unnoticed overgrown different kantselyarkoy, souvenirs from his colleagues, returned from vacation, and other good. A sort of "comfortable home" in the workplace. Then I realized that it looks like a cab driver, truck driver, who at the perimeter of the windshield under the gum natolkal coins and hung a fringe, and how to cut. Slippers in the office do not carry around for the same reason.

My workplace - a MacBook Air, a keyboard, a mouse, an additional monitor, the cord for the phone and headset.

Headphones - Sony MDR-7506. I can not hear colleagues around, they do not interfere with my music, and ears do not hurt. Only because of the thick twisted cord them inconvenient to carry around, but for the workplace and long-distance travel - perfect.

Phone - Nexus 5. He is all I am satisfied and comfortable in the hand, and I was important tactile sensations. iPhone has been - stolen. And I was uncomfortable with it.

BY

On the laptop all boring. Almost everything is now in the browser: the post office, and editors, and file storage.

I use and "Yandex. Disk ", and« Google. Drive "and" Cloud Mail.ru ». The first is used as a personal vault (any fotochki, documents, presentations and project files), I replaced the second set of office products, and in the third store working files.

Browser - Chrome with a couple of add-ons such as openers for RuTracker. I was already used to Amediateka strimingovym and similar services, but now in the evening when the baby sleeps, baby monitors work, which cleaned scored Wi-Fi channel. Unreal watching something online, we have the old-fashioned swing in advance. Rutracker, by the way, after the "closure" was a lot more fun. No longer cover the distribution at the request of holders, because this should not be done in a private resource. :)

On your phone has multiple browsers:

• "SitiGID" - used to travel around the city, where it builds the normal routes, taking into account traffic jams;
• "Yandex. Map "- rescued outside the Leningrad region;
• «Google. Card "- for foreign travel.

The kit includes social applications Facebook, "VKontakte", "Classmates" and Instagram. Facebook and Instagram check several times a day, "Classmates" are always open to work. I listen to music everywhere a little, recently so decided to try Apple Music - normally it is gone. Despite the incredible complexity of the interface. You know the joke that Apple did not lay off employees, but simply do send iTunes? Interface Apple Music, apparently, did these guys.

Messengers - "OK Posts», Telegram, WhatsApp, Skype. Each has its own audience, its chatik. Skype - a forced necessity to work. The messenger "OK" takes about half of the working of correspondence, some friends there too pulled, well, there is my beloved stickers.

Banking applications - "Alfa-Mobile" and the R-Connect from "Raiffeisenbank". Previously I used CoinKeeper for accounting finance. In principle, convenient, but now so does the R-Connect application.

More of useful applications - "Purse». Statement issued there virtual card, threw the money and pay off by applying to the terminals of the phone, rather than a card. The same thing in the subway: you put the phone to the turnstile and tested. To me, a man who had managed to leave the nickels coins in the turnstile, it's like the future revived. Also there you can register discount cards.

Is there a place in your paper work?

Often something to write. It can be notes in a meeting, outline any logical transition of service, to-do lists.

A couple of times to buy myself fashionable notebooks. It turned out that in the Moleskine record inconvenient because of the solid spine to bend the pages, and a special notebook for designers is no better than a notebook in the box. Actually, now I use a notebook or A4 paper, or a notebook on a spring.

What is in your bag?

Two bags. One for going light in her laptop and wearing a standard set Petersburger: umbrella, handkerchiefs Lankan ointment from anything else, spare socks and mints.

Pens, chargers, earphones may be or may not be. This bag is also easy to fit a couple of T-shirts - you can take with you on a business trip for a day or two.

The second bag contains in itself all the same, plus shape.

How do you organize your time?

There are things that I do on a daily basis. For example, in the morning watch schedules for services, and in the evening unloads new stickers. But even these daily tasks are not tied to a specific time.

I have an understanding and a sample list of what to do next, but most of the items in it are not binding at the time. A task that requires attention, may occur suddenly, and start the feature, something went wrong - half a day reading treatment in a support, discuss everything with the boys and so on.

If it seems to me that the tasks for the day more than hold my head, and I can forget something, I write them on a piece of paper, then expunged.

What's your daily routine?

I woke up the baby - all woke up. :)

This usually occurs from seven to eight in the morning. If I do not go to the gym, take away his daughter with him to the kitchen, I cook the porridge, eat and have fun while Mom fills up.

At work, usually appears in the area of ​​10-11 hours. Not to say that the time of day affects my productivity. If I'm rushing, I was productive in the morning, afternoon and evening. If you get bored (admit it, there are boring tasks), the productivity falls, even though you are at noon beris, even at midnight.

Evening - a game with her daughter, serialchik, sometimes some things around the house and sleep. Up to 12 nights almost always fit. Sometimes, at night climb to the head "brilliant ideas" on the right jumps and even recorded. But, as experience has shown, this is just off the brain, in the morning, these ideas are fierce delirium.

How to pass the time in traffic jams?

Now I go to work on foot, listening to music, gaze at the sad faces of people in a traffic jam, I am glad boat racing along the Neva River.

During long walks with your child listen to audiobooks, lectures on history by Radzinsky. As a child laughed at his tone, but now his manner of speech seems to be best suited to the stories about the vicissitudes of the royal family. Generally, the perception of the reader greatly depends product. For example, I am listening to "Life of Pi" by Vyacheslav Gerasimov - loved it, but the film is not mastered, fell asleep in the middle.

The long trips Read more labor literature. To this end, I have presented my wife PocketBook 650.

What's your hobby?

I like to speak at conferences, festivals and other events where you can have fun and provocatively to present their work, successes and failures, some tricks and techniques that can facilitate a life.

I try to make my speech in the first place were interesting. Boring lectures on any subject - a complete online. I see no reason to make the reports of the form "I've read the book now recount" or "I discovered a method of people, and it does not work." Always tell the only real history of the practice, what worked and what did not, how to search for a way out of any given situation.

By the way, my way of speaking like it is not all, there are disgruntled by the fact that they came to the lecture, and got on the story, but still abounding jargon. :)

I like to go to the bathhouse, relax with friends. Madly in love to eat!

What place sport occupies in your life?

Three years ago, started with the coach, has mastered the technique of basic exercises, received a lot of useful tips about nutrition and the processes in the body, has lost 10 kilograms. In this case, there was no debilitating diets, no paleo, yoga and posts to Facebook.

Now I go to the gym two or three times a week for the sole purpose is not to become a zhirobasa.

I can afford, and the sweet, and an impressive steak with a glass of wine before going to bed. But excesses must be compensated.

At the same time I do not feel pleasure, lifting or twisting the bar. Just I know what you need. People who say they are going after a hard day in the room, and there is relaxed, a mystery to me.

Layfhakerstvo by Mikhail Frolov

books

• «Recluse and Six-fingered», «yellow arrow"Victor Pelevin;
• «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"Mark Twain;
• «The Design of Everyday Things"Donald Norman;
• «Art to talk about books you have not read"Pierre Bayar.

Movies

• «Fall in love with me, if you dare»;
• «The Lives of others»;
• «Flashbacks of a Fool»;
• «The game"And all the other films Fincher;
• Soviet "Love Formula"And"dog's heart».

TV series

• «Bridge"(Danish series);
• «This detective».

Both in the first place because of the game of actors and stunning dialogues.

video lectures

The site "Postnauka" many lectures on any topic in a convenient format for 7-10 minutes. I recommend to all lectures Mary Falikman.

sites

Love Arzamas, guys regularly surprised by something interesting. Everything else is only a recommendation from someone within Facebook.

What is your life motto?

Not to be asshole.

In the family, for friends, for colleagues. It's not as simple as we would like. Small inner asshole ever tries to climb out in difficult situations, I try to restrain him.