So I stopped practicing UX at Kobo. Haven’t touched the stuff in over 9-months. I don’t even have Omnigraffle or any Adobe products installed. I don’t even know if I could graffle my way out of a wireframe.

A bit of background

Back around February, Kobo made some changes in the Product and Design were managed. It effectively eliminated my position, at the time “Director of User of Experience”.

I would say that I hired myself out of a job, as the core team of architects that I hired all became leads to their respective platforms.

I was offered either to head up user research (boring) or take over the product management role for our mobile apps.

For a long time I felt uneasy about it; I had spent over 10 years building this identity based on user experience, it was very hard to separate from it. There were days where I realized after talking to Tony or Iain (or anyone from the UX team) was the high-point my day.

Everything changed–my relationships with the teams change, how management saw me changed. It was an identity crisis; a struggle.

Nine months later, I’m promoted to Senior Director of Product Management for Kobo and all other product managers report to me.

ASIDE: It’s funny, I often vacillate on how to interpret it, but over time, I realize that while it was great for them, it was even better for me.

However, like an unwanted break up, time heals all wounds.

That said I shouldn’t be complaining. Things have worked out pretty well for me.