A Journey Into the Emotions of Software Developers
10 Observations from 10+ years in the Corporate UX Trenches
1. 10 Observations from
10+ years in the
Corporate UX Trenches
@ario
#InfoCampSeattle
Oct 9 2011
2. Hi, I’m Ario... I’ve done UX-y things at these places since
2001.
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4. The
Conformist
Test
“Do you have any opinions that you would be
reluctant to express in front of a group of your
peers?” -P. Graham
What are those things in your organization?
1
5. An example of something you might see in an internal
document...
“The manager in charge of each engagement
shall prepare at its conclusion a brief report.”
-- Some Mind Numbing IBM Employee Manual
1
6. Every organization has some version of this, what Freed
& Broadhead coined as...
“Sacred Texts”
• Sets organizational
norms
• Protects in legal
situations
• Confines discourse
(i.e. a spec template you might find in a big company)
1
7. What can’t you say & why?
• Look to your company’s sacred texts &
cultural norms.
Risks of pointing out taboo topics...
• Bruised egos
• May entail scrapping a lot of hard work
• May piss off someone higher up
• Fear of a “bad review”
1
8. • How are the important things that aren’t getting
talked about in your org impacting morale &
effectiveness?
• Is that silence helping or hurting?
• Think about how you can raise sensitive issues in a
smart way
1
10. Why work at a
big company?
• Scale - reach millions
• Learn - tons of smart people / projects
• Visibility - see how a huge undertaking
gets off the ground
• Stability - assurance your job will be there
2
11. And why go to
a small one?
• Nimble - run as fast as you can
• Agile - little penalty for changing course
• Variability - wear many hats vs deep
specialization for eternity
2
12. Big company
outcomes
• Dominate forever - CocaCola
• Slow painful/fade out - Yahoo
• Maintain & play it safe - Microsoft?
• Go under/become subsumed - Friendster/
MySpace
• Google / Apple / Amazon /Facebook? - TBD
2
13. Small company
outcomes
1. IPO - LinkedIn
2. Acquisition - Skype
3. Lifestyle business - Instapaper
4. Call it quits - 99% of everyone who tries
2
14. Determining what’s right for you comes down to...
What do you want,
RIGHT NOW?
• Consider where you’ll thrive and learn the
most
• Find something that aligns with both your
personal and professional goals
• If you’re considering to pursue a new gig,
don’t be afraid of burning bridges (as long
as you leave in the right way)
2
16. Steve Jobs has always been lauded for his design vision...
3
17. But it’s not his ability to imagine the iPad that made him
great. Here’s Kubrick & Clarke’s vision of the same
device from 1969 in the film, “2001”
3
18. Steve’s genius was the ability to motivate and align a
large team under a cohesive vision.
3
20. Competitor tablets, phones, & mp3 players don’t have
the entire ecosystem that Apple has created and it’s that
ecosystem that leads to great user experiences.
Examples of their ecosystem...
• iTunes
• App Store
• Sync across devices
• Mobile / Desktop / TV all
accounted for
3
21. Is your organization thinking...
• about the ecosystem? If not, someone’s
going to squeeze through the gaps and
bite you!
• long-term? Are you slaves to quarterly
earnings? Big things take time!
• If not, work hard at painting a convincing
picture for the vision you have in mind.
UX work is sales work!
3
23. It’s important
to understand
what kind of
hierarchical
structure exists
in your
organization.
Knowing who
the real
decision
makers are is
key.
4
24. Most big companies utilize some form of...
Command & Control
“The exercise of authority & direction by a
properly designated commander over assigned
& attached forces in the accomplishment of the
mission...
4
25. ... Functions are performed through an
arrangement of personnel, equipment,
communications, facilities, and procedures
employed by a commander in planning,
directing, coordinating, and controlling forces
and operations in the accomplishment of the
mission.”
4
26. Who’s commanding &
controlling your organization?
• Identify ALL stakeholders, no, seriously, all of
them.
• Figure out who’s going to care about what.
Tailor your communication/deliverables to
them.
• Make sure they’re looped in at the right time
4
27. If you rarely see or interact with the exec(s) responsible
for your project, that’s no good. Find out what it will take
to get them more directly involved with your team.
Your exec’s
face here
4
28. 5. It’s not the tech that’s
hard, it’s the
communication dummy!
5
29. Team problem solving exercises like Synergy’s
“PowerBall” will give your team the visceral
feeling of the importance of communication.
5
30. What activities like these
will prove to you
• Communication is everything when tackling a
tightly constrained problem
• Being physically proximate to your team helps
tremendously
• Have mid-mortems not postmortems...
5
31. Mid-mortems
• Postmortems happen too late
• Mainly involve finger pointing
• Mid-mortems should happen
when there’s still a big chunk of
time left to make changes
• Don’t have scary people there.
People should feel comfortable
speaking up
• Bring in a neutral moderator
5
33. It takes several
different roles to
get a large
software project
off the ground,
but there are 3
roles in particular
that must be in
place if the
project is to move
forward in a
positive direction...
6
34. Big projects should have...
• A strong designer
• A strong technical lead
• A strong project manager
• Don’t have these or try to combine roles...
proceed at your own risk! (and try to
escalate the problem to someone who can
help)
6
35. 7. The most innovative
teams are diverse teams
Not what I mean exactly...
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36. Why is diversity good?
• Different skill sets =
different viewpoints = new
approaches
• Someone who’s an outsider
may revisit good ideas that
were previously discarded
• Companies should hire a
mix of seasoned vets &
newbs (both serve
important roles)
7
38. Applying colors
• Everyone has a primary and a
secondary color
• Aim to have everyone’s tasks match
what they’re good at
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39. Sidenote on a paradox of
design work...
• Every team will have opinionated people who
don’t have “designer” anywhere in their job title.
• All of them can and will chime in on the UX
• While engineers can give their opinions on UX,
rarely can non-engineers chime in on their code
• Accept this imbalance and embrace it (or start
beefing up on your codin’ skills!)
7
41. What do these experiences
have in common?
• Marathons
• Advanced degrees
• Yard of the Month awards
• Publishing your first novel
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42. They’re satisfying because
hard work went into them
• But not everything that
requires hard work feels
satisfying
• Find experiences where
there’s a mismatch and there’s
an area ripe for innovation
8
43. • DMV
• Voting
• Taxes
• Banking
• Home buying
• Dating
• Bulk photo editing
• The list is long!
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45. Is secrecy in your organization
leading to better products /
services?
• Internal secrecy around new projects seems to be
on the rise within big companies (perhaps trying
to follow Apple’s lead)
• Also due to increased fear of leaks which ties into
competitive advantage
• It’s harder for companies to keep secrets as they
get bigger and bigger
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46. Consequences of secrecy
• Employee morale on teams can be negatively
effected if details of important projects are kept
hidden from them (especially if they find out the
details anyway through the grapevine)
• Feedback is harder to come by and getting
feedback early and often (especially on something
unproven) is key
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47. Is it worth it?
• Pros/cons around secrecy decisions should be
weighed very carefully
• Cultures where teams are discouraged from
interacting/collaborating with other teams create
toxic working environments
• What are some examples of projects that were
great successes in the market because they were
kept secret for long periods of time?
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49. Universally loathed by all
• Takes an inordinate amount of time/energy away
from employees
• Causes tons of unnecessary stress
• Happen far too infrequently
• Evaluations usually done against outdated goals
• Take very little consideration of how brains work...
10
50. Must-watch: David Rock
• Managers should be hyper-aware of how their
feedback can effect their direct reports
• Pain caused by criticism can be alleviated with
Aspirin! (same pain receptors at work in the
brain)
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51. A better way?
• Make sure feedback comes not only from
managers, but from peers as well
• Perhaps a system of averaged micro-reviews that
happen bi-weekly / monthly could replace the
gargantuan annual review
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