Ux Team Quotes

Immature product teams make the same mistake: They want users to understand their products but refuse to understand their users.

Many people make their way to user experience by crossing over from an adjacent field. These crossovers are the people who are carrying UX forward, taking it to new levels and new organizations.

To avoid the too-common trap of building a platform disconnected from the needs of teams, it is essential to ensure that the platform teams have a focus on user experience (UX) and particularly developer experience (DevEx).

It’s often the case that teams working in agile processes do not actually go back to improve the user interface of the software. But, as the saying goes, “it’s not iterative if you only do it once.” Teams need to make a commitment to continuous improvement, and that means not simply refactoring code and addressing technical debt but also reworking and improving user interfaces. Teams must embrace the concept of UX debt and make a commitment to continuous improvement of the user experience.

Lean UX advocates a team-based mentality. Rockstars, gurus, ninjas, and other elite experts of their craft break down team cohesion and eschew collaboration.

Lean UX is a transparent process that not only reveals what designers do but encourages participation from everyone on the team.

Our goal is not to create a deliverable or a feature: it’s to positively affect customer behavior or change in the world — to create an outcome.

Product requirements conversations must then be grounded in business outcomes: what are we trying to achieve by building this product? This rule holds true for design decisions as well. Success criteria must be redefined and roadmaps must be done away with. In their place, teams build backlogs of hypotheses they’d like to test and prioritize them based on risk, feasibility, and potential success.

In June 2011, this message appeared on the Interaction Designers Association (IXDA) discussion list: I am at a point in my life where I know I want to do UX design after doing Web design for so long and then reading about usability testing, etc., 6 years ago. But my issue is I’m tired of working for orgs who say they care about their customer but don’t do testing to even know what their customers want from them... I’m kind of fed up with working for people who don’t get it.

The very best working groups include team members who are familiar with the technical, legal, or financial opportunities and limits, and people who will use the experience.

By finding many possible solutions, the team can choose the best one to move forward with.

Leah Buley The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide William Albert and Thomas Tullis Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics Braden Kowitz, et.al. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days Dana Chisnell and Jeffrey Rubin Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design and Conduct Effective Test

Teams that enjoy working together produce better work.

Designing memorable experiences is easier said than done. Most importantly, you need empathy and understanding for your fellow human. It’s the love for mankind that ultimately makes UX interesting.

To be a user experience designer means to practice a set of methods and techniques for researching what users want and need, and to design products and services for them. Through good UX, you are trying to reduce the friction between the task someone wants to accomplish and the tool that they are using to complete that task.

Rockstars don’t share — neither their ideas nor the spotlight. Team cohesion breaks down when you add individuals with large egos who are determined to stand out and be stars. When collaboration breaks down, you lose the environment you need to create the shared understanding that allows you [to avoid repetition] to move forward effectively.

My team can’t agree on our first design. So, your team is made up of dynamic, creative minds that think differently. Congratulations!

And here’s the bigger truth: Whether you find yourself all alone or in a team of like-minded folks, we are all individuals with a unique voice, opinions, and diverse experiences that define us. We are all a UX Team of One. My challenge to you: Draw upon this diversity—magical things happen at the intersection of seemingly unrelated ideas. Don’t let a job title define you. Do what makes sense, not what process dictates. And most of all, never stop playing and learning. If we can all hang on for the ride, there is no limit to the places we’ll go! —Stephen P. Anderson, author of Seductive Interaction Design

The most important driver of user satisfaction is usefulness, which is largely reflected in the interaction design. The interaction design has to be incorporated at the deepest level of the software architecture and it is often the most expensive to change late in the process.

These capabilities include (but are not restricted to): ​•​Application security ​•​Commercial and operational viability analysis ​•​Design and architecture ​•​Development and coding ​•​Infrastructure and operability ​•​Metrics and monitoring ​•​Product management and ownership ​•​Testing and quality assurance ​•​User experience (UX)

If anyone wants to learn how to become a better UX designer and overall human, they should work in retail or the service industry. Front-of-house and back-of-house translate to front-end and back-end design. Not only do you learn how to manage customer expectations, but you learn how to encourage the team around you for overall, a better customer experience.

And what happens at the end of this process? The designers proudly present — and the business enthusiastically celebrates

And what happens at the end of this process? The designers proudly present

When I started exploring what flag I should plant back in 2009, there was a confluence of events in the works. The business world was increasingly using a methodology called Agile as its preferred product-development process while, at the same time, digital design was becoming increasingly important. Technology was rapidly evolving, and design was becoming a key differentiating factor for success—this was just a couple of years after the introduction of the iPhone. Companies were struggling to figure out how to integrate these two trends successfully, which created an opportunity for me—no one had solved this problem. This is where I decided to plant my flag—because I had the expertise, the opportunity, a real problem to solve that many people were dealing with, and the credibility to speak to it. I decided to work on solving this challenge and to bring everyone willing along with me on my journey. My teams and I started experimenting, trying different ways of working. We often failed, but as we were going through our ups and downs, I was sharing—publicly writing and giving talks about—what we were trying to do. Turned out I wasn’t the only one struggling with this issue. The more I wrote and the more I presented, the more widely I became known out in the world as someone who was not only working to solve this issue, but who was a source of ideas, honesty, and inspiration. So, when I left TheLadders, I had already planted my flag. I had found the thing I wanted to be known for and the work I was passionate about. A quick word of warning… Success on this path is a double-edged sword and you should approach this process with eyes open. The flag you plant today may very well be with you for the rest of your life—especially if you build widespread credibility on the topic. It’s going to follow you wherever you go and define you. No matter what else I do out in the world, I will forever be Jeff Gothelf—the Lean UX guy.

Business outcomes are your definition of done. They are the result your business seeks, and the measuring stick for success. When you manage with outcomes, the question isn’t, “Did you ship

look at the problem you are trying to solve.

see?

excellence one at a time. See them in your mind’s eye: Marketing, Operations, Manufacturing, IT, Engineering, Design, and on and on in a tidy row of crisp, well-run silos.

Early in her career, the ratio of UX and designers to developers was 1:70. These days, great teams doing consumer-oriented products have ratios of 1:6 because it’s that important to create products that people love.