3. Acceptance of UX involves change
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Skepticism
Curiosity
Acceptance
Partnership
Stop battling for acceptance
and get strategic
Ehrlich & Rohn, 1994
www.useit.com/alertbox/process_maturity.html
4. What we are told:
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“You need an
Executive Sponsor”
“Invite everyone to
observe usability testing”
5. We tend to get busy with UX
SarahBloomer & Co | UXSG June 2013 5
6. …when you need to look beyond
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Working with colleagues
Negotiate the UX role
Build awareness
Be strategic
7. SarahBloomer & Co | UXSG June 2013 7
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
8. What do UX practitioners need to
succeed?
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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
10. Each situation is unique
SarahBloomer | UIE June 2009
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. SarahBloomer & Co | UXSG June 2013 11
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
12. Organization types
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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
13. 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
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K. Goodwin: Leading UX
UX London, April 2011
14. Cultural values and myths
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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
Excellence: We are committed to winning with integrity. We know
leadership is hard won and should never be taken for granted…
Teamwork: We treat one another with respect and communicate
openly. We foster collaboration while maintaining individual
accountability…
Innovation: We thrive on creativity and ingenuity. We seek the
innovations and ideas that can change the world…
15. SarahBloomer & Co | UXSG June 2013
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
16. Apply your design research skills
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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
17. Field studies
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• 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?
18. Create personas of colleagues
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Jen Fabrizi, 2013
19. Rich picture
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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
LEGEND
Mental
Models
Ideas
Let’s visualize it
together!
Use rich pictures to
“reason about work”;
(Monk & Howard,
1998)
J. Fabrizi, 2013
21. 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
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22. Collaborate in all directions
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Adjacent teams
Colleagues
Allied teams
Beneficiaries
Upper management
Stakeholders
Your UX team
Other beneficiaries
23. Build communities of practice
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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
24. Tips to move up the maturity model
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Learn a few things:
Be a leader: 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.
Learn corporate myths & values: know what makes
the culture tick.
Share: UX is most effective when it is influencing and
enabling other groups.
Find allies: Learn how other groups are measured.
Identify barriers & opportunities: Find what’s
stopping you and what can move you forward.
Communicate in all directions: Within your team,
next to your team, above your team.
25. It won’t happen over night
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http://johnnyholland.org/2010/04/planning-your-ux-strategy/
