Changing the UX mindset

CHANGING THE UX

MINDSET Gaining influence through collaboration

UX India | October 2014

Sarah Bloomer

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014 1

@boolie

@boolie

You are here


Culture Collaboration Capability Maturity

@boolie

Acceptance of UX involves change


Skepticism

Curiosity

Acceptance

Partnership

Stop battling for acceptance

and get strategic

Ehrlich & Rohn, 1994

www.useit.com/alertbox/process_maturity.html

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What we are told:


“You need an

Executive Sponsor” “Invite everyone to

observe usability testing”

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We tend to get busy with UX

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014 5 @boolie

…when you need to look beyond


Working with colleagues

Negotiate the UX role

Build awareness

Be strategic

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Techniques

Design process

Design principles

Tools

Development process

Coding constraints

UX is part of the whole

Soft Skills

Communication

Promoting UX

Domain expertise

Marketing

Finance

eComm

etc

Essential

Leadership

Management

Other skills

Writing

Facilitation

Divergent thinking

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What do UX practitioners need to

succeed?


The Hardest Soft Skills Mia Northrop @mnorthrop

Creative thinking

Communication

Problem solving

Analytical thinking

Active listening

Collaboration

Interviewing and observation

Persuasion and influence

Planning and organization

Teamwork

Soft skills UXers

Senior managers

Product managers

Facilitation

Critiquing

Consensus building

Building trust

Client management

Negotiation

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CULTURE


Organization types


Software

Enterprise

Creative Agency

The software is the business

Software to support the business

Website or web apps to deliver services

Work with software companies and

enterprises to help them design user

experiences

@boolie

Each situation is unique

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014

Business goals / drivers

Product(s)

& Team

Process

What How

Who When

and

and

Constraints

Company culture

The sum of the parts will give you

help determine the best approach

11 @boolie

Start with your culture

• Culture drives the values and norms that drive actions

• Cultures that deliver great experiences are:

• Adaptive

• Accepting of (reasonable) risk

• Accepting of (reasonable) failure

• Committed to quality

• Willing to prioritize

• Other-focused


K. Goodwin: Leading UX

UX London, April 2011

@boolie

Cultural values and myths


Actual company values are the behaviors, attitudes and skills that are

valued in fellow employees.

Myths are beliefs that reveal those values

Users don’t know what they want, we can design for ourselves

Companies create corporate values

that they aspire to

1. Deliver WOW Through Service

2. Embrace and Drive Change

3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness

4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded

5. Pursue Growth and Learning

6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication

7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit

8. Do More With Less

9. Be Passionate and Determined

10.Be Humble

Zappos.com

@boolie

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014

Another angle on culture

Design centric

Engineering centric

Paul Sherman. Changing Processes and Cultures. Nov ‘07

Creative approach to design

Tend to design for designers—visually oriented

Technology driven

Have always owned the user interface

Believe they know their customers

Features over usability or user experience

Sales &

Marketing centric

Find ways to collaborate that match

the values of the culture

14 @boolie

Apply your design research skills


Get to know your co-workers

Field studies

To understand your co-workers and their

context of work

Personas

To enable you to design an effective process

Rich picture

To identify attitudes and behavior

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Field studies


• Interview and observe the people you work with:

product managers, analysts, quality engineers, scrum

team colleagues.

• Interview stakeholders to understand their goals

and beliefs.

• Be a product owner.

Storytelling:

How do they feel? What do they say? What do they complain

about? What do they boast about? What are they proud of?

Who do they admire in the company?

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Create personas of colleagues


Jen Fabrizi, 2013

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Rich picture


Competitors

Product

Owner

Business Analyst

Testers

Architect /

Tech Designer

Developers

UX Architect

Enterprise

Architect Business

Analyst Senior

Leadership

Teams

Customers

Which

company

do I trust?

What are people

like me doing and

saying?

What do

customer

s want?

What are our

competitors

doing?

Will it be on

time and on

$$?? Gotta block

for my

team!!

Do they get

what I want?

What do I

want?

They want

what, when? Scrum Master

External

Pressures

In-Group

Pressures

Internal

Pressures

Scrum

Team

The

Enterprise

PO Cabinet

LE

GE

ND

Mental

Models

Ideas

Let’s visualize it

together!

Use rich pictures to

“reason about work”;

(Monk & Howard,

1998)

J. Fabrizi, 2013

@boolie


operational model

capability

model

user research

interaction design

information architecture

usability engineering

visual design

content writing

front-end development

process

model

UX meta model

user-centered

taxonomies / ontology

knowledge in-flows & out-flows

capability interaction touch points

attitude & behavior model

waterfall

agile

leadership

logistics

staffing

sponsorship

funding

personas

scenarios

rich pictures

storyboards

Fabrizi, 2013

Modeling the user experience practice: a unified story

@boolie

FINAL TIPS


Be a leader to drive change

• Communicate all the time

• Keep a learner’s mind

• Build trust in all directions

• Give credit where it’s due

• Stay out of the weeds

• Value your team

• Make time to mentor and coach

• Shut up and listen


Collaborate in all directions


Adjacent teams

Colleagues

Allied teams

Beneficiaries

Upper management

Stakeholders

Your UX team

Other beneficiaries

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Build communities of practice


Build relationships within your organization through Communities of

Practice. Promote cross-functional collaboration. Cross-functional teams

drive ongoing research, design and evaluation.

Customer research

Customer facing experience

Product Strategy

Branding

Marketing

UX Team

Product Strategy

Personas

Field studies

Analytics

Sales

Stores

Customer service

Tech support

Training

Personas

Stories

Customer feedback

Voice of the Customer

Sales

Marketing

UX Team

Tech Support

Product Development

Usability test results

Tech support issues

Release plans

@boolie

Tips to move up the maturity model


Learn about your

culture:

Build trust: within your team, with your peers and

your stakeholders

Show you value co-workers: support them, help

them succeed, give them the information they need

Get to know your co-workers: Spend time with

product managers, scrum team colleagues, senior

management.

Share: UX is most effective when it is influencing and

enabling other groups.

Find allies: Learn how other groups are measured.

Identify myths & values: Find what’s preventing you

from moving forward. Also barriers & opportunities.

Communicate in all directions: Within your team,

next to your team, above your team.

Be a leader:

Design your team: Be tactical: Choose activities that will be accepted

within your culture. Align your UX goals to bigger goals.

@boolie

It won’t happen over night


http://johnnyholland.org/2010/04/planning-your-ux-strategy/

@boolie








You’ll get there


Culture Collaboration Capability Maturity

@boolie

Leadership & Management

Changing the UX mindset